Uni Survey for car drivers.

I am currently completing an MSc at University of Lincoln part-time and have an assignment due in a couple of weeks for my module Strategy Making. I have chosen to analyse Shell Plc as there is so much to go at and have compiled a very short survey that will take 2 minutes to complete on consumer likelihood to own/drive an EV as their main vehicle within the next 10 years.

Thanks in advance!

https://forms.office.com/e/1UgJTz83PD

Done.

I'm old school and still love the sound of petrol engines, can't see me buying an EV any time soon.

Cost too much, battery life is a concern and so is range and charging points, not for me.

Happy with my MX-5 NC although I do get hammered on the road tax for it being a 2 litre normally aspirated engine, no turbo, a dying breed of engine.

Thinking of going down to BBR in Brackley and getting a Super 200 upgrade fitted.

Quoted from promotion plaice

Done.

I'm old school and still love the sound of petrol engines, can't see me buying an EV any time soon.

Cost too much, battery life is a concern and so is range and charging points, not for me.

Happy with my MX-5 NC although I do get hammered on the road tax for it being a 2 litre normally aspirated engine, no turbo, a dying breed of engine.

Thinking of going down to BBR in Brackley and getting a Super 200 upgrade fitted.

Thanks for completing this, I totally understand your points too. I live in a terraced house like much of Grimsby with no off-road parking so how I charge one without risking someone tripping up and suing me is a concern. I'm currently looking at future trends to plot how Shell might adapt, Toyota have developed the Mirai, a hydrogen powered car which costs £70 to fill up with 5.6kg of hydrogen which returns 400 miles. The only problem is that not many places sell it!

I have thought for a while that batteries should be standardised to 2 or 3 models which are leased from companies such as BP and Shell who swap it over for a small fee to get people on the way and prevent people queuing for a charge.

I've filled it out, I guess my main concerns aside from the practicality issues above are that the carbon footprint of EV's isn't correctly reported - the mining, refining and worldwide shipping of the materials for the batteries is generally forgotten about.  Currently you need to do 200,000 miles in an EV to offset the real carbon vs a normal road car, and none of them can reach that on the market today, plus when enough people are using EV the price of electric will go up and they'll need a way to replace road tax because the government wants our pennies.  I'll admit I'm a sceptic and these are just my opinions and everyone has a right to disagree with me, but it comes from personal experience in the motor trade.

I see the benefit for Shell etc in moving to electric over fuel, they don't have the expense of getting fuel out the ground, refining it, transporting it, storing it etc they get to use a national grid to transport the 'fuel' instead and can bin off loads of expensive staff and infrastructure like tanker drivers and refineries.  My hopes would be all the former fuel companies compete with the established energy companies and it drives down prices......but I can only see a de facto energy cartel where they all work to keep prices high between them being the reality- this already happens where british gas' bill themselves for transporting their own energy so they can claim the costs have gone up with a straight face.

Done.. sorry mine was quite boring. Mainly due to costs.

Quoted from OddShapedBalls

I've filled it out, I guess my main concerns aside from the practicality issues above are that the carbon footprint of EV's isn't correctly reported - the mining, refining and worldwide shipping of the materials for the batteries is generally forgotten about.  Currently you need to do 200,000 miles in an EV to offset the real carbon vs a normal road car, and none of them can reach that on the market today, plus when enough people are using EV the price of electric will go up and they'll need a way to replace road tax because the government wants our pennies.  I'll admit I'm a sceptic and these are just my opinions and everyone has a right to disagree with me, but it comes from personal experience in the motor trade.

I see the benefit for Shell etc in moving to electric over fuel, they don't have the expense of getting fuel out the ground, refining it, transporting it, storing it etc they get to use a national grid to transport the 'fuel' instead and can bin off loads of expensive staff and infrastructure like tanker drivers and refineries.  My hopes would be all the former fuel companies compete with the established energy companies and it drives down prices......but I can only see a de facto energy cartel where they all work to keep prices high between them being the reality- this already happens where british gas' bill themselves for transporting their own energy so they can claim the costs have gone up with a straight face.

Exactly how I see!
We are all being conned into electric, have you seen the costs of these vehicles? Once again it’s the less well off that will suffer. You never know one day we might get the EV files.

I filled in your form, but I don't see EV's as being good overhaul unless the price of the vehicles drops dramatically.

I drive about 5/6,000 per year and use about 100 gallons. An EV would cost me over £20K after trade in and that is an awful lot of petrol which I would never use in my lifetime, given I'm over 70.

The concept is good but the practicalities are very poor for charging up, varies costs of the charge and as someone above pointed out the carbon footprint does not include everything.

At least there's no chance of my steering wheel falling off my car unlike a Tesla.

I’d happily have an EV. I’ve had several Hyrbid cars, all been super reliable. I also know several people who have EVs who would never go back to ordinary fuel.

I know it’s cool to bash Tesla and people have these horror stories but they’re actually few and far between. I had a BMW that’s engine essentially blew up, BMW were disgraceful in their response, but that wouldn’t make a story, but a ropey wing mirror on a Tesla does. I know several Tesla drivers who’ve had zero issues.

My worry so far is that this country is dogshit, we’re dreadful are improving infrastructure so therefore, the EV market is always gonna be hit, and I don’t think it’s anything to do with cost of vehicle at all. I’d say a hell of a lot of money in fuel over the year, even offset against the slightly higher cost of the car but the charging infrastructure isn’t quite there yet and I need that reliability and that ease of access. All that said, if there is significant investment, I’d definitely begin to look at an EV and Tesla would be too or my list, then possibly Polestar…

I've had an EV for the last two-and-a-half years and they're great.

I've never particularly felt a like or dislike for driving but driving an EV is actually fun.  

But the benefit is in the cost saving, if you get the right deal.  Outright the costs are outrageous, thankfully I was able to benefit through work and it was a no brainer.  The biggest issues are the range of the vehicles and then charging.

The range on them generally is increasing all the time, just with petrol cars though the advertised range is never quite what it is in the real world.  As long as you've got a home charger, you're ok 999 times out of a 1000 if you're a regular user.  By that I mean someone who doesn't commute more than an hour each way a day and those longer trips are infrequent the slight inconvenience (more on that in a bit) is well worth the compromise.  

Home charging is pretty slow but you're not exactly going anywhere overnight so just plug it in like you would your phone and unplug when you next go out.  That's just a mindset change really.    Cost wise, of course electric is going to go up as it becomes used more for cars.  At the minute and by admission on a favourable tarriff from a few years back, it costs me about £7 to fill up my battery.  For comparison, it would cost about £40-45 in petrol for the same level of range.

Long journey is the only time you're ever going to think 'it would be easier with a petrol car'.  You're reliant on service station chargers, unless you're prepared to go a little bit off track (which often is the better option).  They're expensive to the point it can push it near the levels of petrol and there's so few of them.  Very, very slowly the numbers are increasing but it's no way near enough to match the increased number of electric cars on the roads.  You definitely have to think about your journey a bit more and factor in charging before it becomes essential, otherwise you might be waiting at a service station for one to be come available with a few miles of range.

Generally though, it doesn't bother me in terms of having to stop off for a quick charge.  2-3 hours driving is more than enough for me before I want to stretch my legs, visit the loo and have a cuppa.  Again if you're smart and time that in with having your lunch etc. that fills up the time that it takes to give your car enough of a boost.  Again, just a mindset change.

Tesla - meh.  I test drove one and I thought it was ok, looks nice and flash inside but if anything it felt a bit too slick.  Drives very nice but all EV's do, that's the thing with them. They're just so smooth.  I think there's a lot of undue hype around them to be honest.  They do have good range on the higher spec models but the German manufacturers are definitely pushing them on that.  You pay more for the bigger range, the question I'd be asking myself is how much range do you need for the majority of the time.