1 minute ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Drive a truck - dude, who in their right mind will buy a truck for private or leisurely use? 🙂 

Doesn't matter why you drive it. What matters is that it causes more wear on the road. The principle is that the user pays. He then has the right to pass on his costs... as he does 🙂

I will say one thing though: This very likely means that truck owners contribute disproportionately to the road accident fund. As I said, I have some issues with how the levy is structured, but not with a levy in principle.

1 minute ago, PeterP said:

If you include upfront costs then EV's in South Africa lose on TCO calcs  - 100% agreed.....but if we start looking at including external costs as well, then the playing field may be a bit more level......

I actually agree, and I humbly admit my opinion is based on my own circumstances. There are people in this country who aren't as crazy as I am (I buy a good second hand car every ten years), who regularly replace both vehicles and always have two fairly new vehicles in the garage. In other words, they already carry the TCO of an expensive second low-distance runner and have acclimatized to it. For these people, an EV is absolutely an option.

Also,  I am a little bitter that I can't justify an EV. I really want one! So now I'm going to rant and rail against it... 😛

 

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

Well, that's perhaps a bit too simplistic. A Tesla fast-charger peaks at 150kW. You're going to need a dedicated feeder for the charging station, especially if you have more than a single charging bay.

OK, maybe someone must invent a sneaky induction charger where you can park under the power lines and charge your car that way!

Edited July 10, 20196 yr by DeepBass9

46 minutes ago, plonkster said:

What matters is that it causes more wear on the road.

Yes, I agree, but that wear is part of doing business, without it there is no economy, and trucks are the cause of some of the road problems - overloading - and then there is bad road construction, bribes and all that comes to mind.

On top of that, each generation must pay for their own infrastructure ... as told by a civil engineer ... as the infrastructure lasts X years, with or without trucks. 🙂 

I have a problem with passing on all costs just because you can, or must, in this case. 

46 minutes ago, plonkster said:

... , who regularly replace both vehicles and always have two fairly new vehicles in the garage.

And how does that make EV vehicles Environmentally friendly in the long run?
As a matter of fact, the more cars that come out incl their maintenance plans, the bigger the shock is when they come out of that plan and have to be repaired out of pocket. A market is coming with "unaffordable to repair" cars I think.

Few of our friends replace their cars religiously every 2-5 years ... they worry about reliability, don't want to pay the services (but they already did) and all that.
Then I come along with a 21 year old car that is as reliable as their cars are and it costs me just diesel and maintenance (if I have to) as their is no warranty T&C to consider. 

When I can make my diesel guzzler into a diesel electric i.e. EV short distance and diesel electric long distance, now THAT would be just awesome!

The longer a vehicle lasts, the better it is for the environment, same goes for fridges, computers same goes for just about everything we own.

Because by replacing so willy nillyingly, we have waste problems all over the world, and not enough is recyclable as we are led to believe. 

Keep on buying 2nd hand cars, sell them on for as long as possible until one day they simply just have to be recycled ... fully.

So EV and Environmental friendly in the same sentence ... I am struggling with that concept.

26 minutes ago, DeepBass9 said:

OK, maybe someone must invent a sneaky induction charger where you can park under the power lines and charge your car that way!

Conversion kits for existing cars ... same licencing fees, less fuel, increase the fuel levy to recoup the costs, and see where that leads us.

Edited July 10, 20196 yr by Guest

I think my main point is that the current funding system for many different types of infrastructure is about to be turned on its head, and I don't think our dear government has thought about that at all, and are soon to be out of pocket.

2 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Few of our friends replace their cars religiously every 2-5 years ... they worry about reliability, don't want to pay the services (but they already did) and all that.
Then I come along with a 21 year old car that is as reliable as their cars are and it costs me just diesel and maintenance (if I have to) as their is no warranty T&C to consider.  

An old employer of mine said that in the end, you decide what you want to pay for transport. If you are comfortable with a 10k/month downpayment, then you will generally upgrade that 3-series every 3 years and always drive something new, never thinking about it. It fits within your current budget. Conversely, if you want to stick to sub-3k downpayments, then you can't borrow more than about 100k at a time, which forever relegates you to sub-200k cars and means you will always drive something old. Now even though my argument is in terms of down-payments, I think it applies for cash buyers too. You have opportunity cost instead of interest. Sure, interest on lending is generally higher than lost on investment (so buying cash is cheaper), but by single-digits only.

I personally don't like 5-digit car costs. My car must cost less than 100k a year in TCO, preferably less than 50k. That constrains what I can buy and how long I need to keep it. But it is my personal choice. At the moment this rules out EV ownership. I'd rather spend money on paying off debt and on the family.

Regarding the vehicle I sold: You and I had a chat about it the other day and I intended to keep it another two years. Then my father advised me to sell it on while it still has some value for the next guy, a really nice way of saying "sell it while you can still get something for it!". My main worry on that vehicle was that I could never get the (worsening, as it seemed to me) cold-starting problem to go away. I got it significantly better by replacing the SCV, but I finally had to choose between spending more money on it, or moving the replacement up by two years (I already had it almost a decade). I chose the latter... 🙂

 

Edited July 10, 20196 yr by plonkster

2 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

The longer a vehicle lasts, the better it is for the environment, same goes for fridges, computers same goes for just about everything we own. 

Indeed. There are two ways to help the environment. Use stuff that recycle easily, or use it for longer. People tend to underrate the latter.

5 hours ago, plonkster said:

Also,  I am a little bitter that I can't justify an EV. I really want one! So now I'm going to rant and rail against it... 😛

 

LOL. Does an EV even have any horsepower, or just kW?

Edited July 10, 20196 yr by DeepBass9

2 minutes ago, DeepBass9 said:

LOL. Does an EV have any horsepower, or just kW?

I assume that's a joke (and I tend to be terrible at getting those), but yes... 🙂

Yes, terrible!

7 hours ago, DeepBass9 said:

I think my main point is that the current funding system for many different types of infrastructure is about to be turned on its head, and I don't think our dear government has thought about that at all, and are soon to be out of pocket.

Ditto, each generation pays for their own ... and that has not been kept up to date for various and whatever reasons, therefor the infrastructures are nearing EOL not only in SA, but also the USA etc. There just is no money to re-build bridges, re-tar all the roads ... 

5 hours ago, plonkster said:

Use stuff that recycle easily, or use it for longer. People tend to underrate the latter.

YES!!! I prefer that both to be the min requirement.

 

Arnie and EV's:

 

On 2019/07/02 at 8:58 AM, Fuenkli said:

they are 🤣

http://www.eskom.co.za/news/Pages/2019Apr8.aspx

They went on a tender for charging stations in February that they cancelled (for change in priority) the morning of briefing.

On 2019/07/10 at 9:26 AM, DeepBass9 said:

The infrastructure for charging stations is already there, its called petrol stations. They all have an Eskom connection, you just need to plonk down the charging station, plug it in, hook up the credit card payments and away you go. If Eskom doesn't do that, they someone else will soon enough.

Maybe start with the large stations on the toll roads. They are about every 100-200km.

Fast chargers are what is required at petrol station. The cost of a fast charger varies between R 300,000 to R 500,000 and more. There are about 1100 EV cars. The petrol station owners still don't see a business case for them now.

9 hours ago, denzuzkyh said:

The petrol station owners still don't see a business case for them now.

I think the real money is going to be in selling the added services. While your i3 is there taking its 45 minutes to get to 80% SOC, you need to keep yourself busy, and you will usually do that by having a bite to eat, looking at some old stuff in a small little makeshift museum, buying some local wine, cheese, preserves, etc etc (I'm using a little stop-over between Worcestor and De Doorns as a template for this answer 🙂). The money is in the total package (charge the car while doing these other things).

45 minutes in itself is a very good charge time, and when I'm on a long trip, I stop at least an hour at a time, so this is not really a problem. There is enough time to charge a car when you do a family-sized stop.

There will be some caveats of course. While a single pump can fill 10 vehicles in that same time, you'd have a single charge station tied up for the full 45 minutes. So the scale of this combined endeavour will probably be on the larger side...

In the cities, I suspect larger office buildings will install chargers in the car park (with solar generation) to sell on as a value add to the tenants who rent the office space.