EV One Year On - Would I still buy one?

One year ago I bought my Kia EV6 primarily to tow my caravan. One year on after much joy and a LOT of stress, would I still buy one?

00:00 - Introduction
00:45 - Battery Provenance - the shameful truth behind EV Batteries
02:09 - The carbon footprint of an EV
02:52 - Air Pollution - The No.1 risk to health in the world
04:14 - Powering EVs - are we just moving the carbon out of our cities?
04:39 - The Grim Reality of Charging an EV at a Public Charger in the Winter
06:14 - Disadvantages vs Advantages of an EV
07:58 - Would I have bought an EV knowing what I know now?
09:18 - Further details, conclusion
10:26 - Outro

The range of my EV while towing has been the least of my worries, and if you want more details about the range of the EV while towing then please check out my tours from last year:

If you'd like more details about towing with an EV and to find out if an EV is right for YOU, please check out my video 'Towing with an EV':

In this video I address the question 'Would I have bought an EV a year ago knowing what I know now?'

There are lots of advantages of towing a caravan with an EV, but there are some huge disadvantages as well.

There were two things that I was not aware of when I bought my EV, and that is the Cobalt Mining that is necessary for the production of EV batteries, and also the fact that the rate of charge slows right down when the temperature is below zero, making Ultra-Rapid Chargers practically redundant. Then there is the huge stress of queueing at public chargers.

One thing I discovered in my research is how Air Pollution is largest environmental threat to public health in the UK, and I believe around the world. To find out more, please check out the UK Government Document at:

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[nicolamartin]

My diesel does 70mpg, I will stick with it for a few more years. I would not be able to tolerate the waiting to charge. It takes less than 10 minutes to fill my tank.

[andrewjditton]

Question: What do driving an EV, eating a plant based diet, and being trans/non-binary have in common? Answer: They have nothing to do with anyone else, yet some people chose to get their knickers in a twist about them. One can only assume that those people have issues themselves...? And by the way, I'm only two out of the three; both my trans friends are meat-eating petrol heads... ;@)

[watcher]

Key point about cobalt, EV battery manufacturers are researching ways to remove the need for cobalt and many have already achieved this. Oil companies also use cobalt to remove sulphur from diesel, they don't care where it comes from and have no plans to stop using it.

[Bunce]

Interesting video and I respect your views Andrew, however from my point of view as a Caravanning Pensioner I could never afford the price being asked for a new EV capable of pulling a reasonable sized caravan, so I would be looking at the second hand market. The problem is all batteries will degrade over a period of time, so by the time I could afford, say a three year old EV, how do I know what amount of charge that battery will regularly hold compared with when it was new? With a similar petrol or diesel car, I would have a fair idea of its fuel consumption, and I doubt that would alter too much over the lifetime of the car, however batteries are an unknown quantity. The manufacturers will perhaps offer you a 100, 000 mile or 8 year warranty on the battery, but what exactly does that mean? Does that mean against total failure? What if the battery only gives me 50% of the range it did when it was new? Can I claim for a new one, I doubt it! I was recently looking at 3 year old Volvo XC60's as a possible replacement towcar. For around £30, 000 I could get a nice low mileage example of either a petrol or diesel car. Suprisingly a plug in hybrid version of the same car is a similar price, so I investigated. As far as I can make out, if I had to pay to have the battery replaced we are talking of around £15, 000 to £20, 000. If the electric motor assembly fails its around £15, 000. I thought this must be a joke? Could I afford to take that gamble with a three year old car out of warranty, not on your nelly! I've been reading that many car dealers don't want traded in electric cars for the same reason. They have to give their customers a warrany on their purchase, and their profit would be wiped out if the customer came back complaining about the battery. So sadly, although I see all the perceived benefits of an electric car, I'll be sticking with a petrol or diesel towcar. I can tow a long distance without refueling, and when I do its a quick pull in to the petrol station, 5 minutes at the pump and I'm off again. My current diesel car which I've owned for many years has been 100% reliable, reasonably economical for an automatic 4 x4 has 7 seats and tows my van easily. Perhaps you could do a video on what the future holds for Motorhome owners? Surely fitting a stonking great battery in a Motorhome will take the weight well over 3, 500Kg so what happens with driving licences then, not to mention the massive increase in vehicle cost and charging issues with such a large vehicle. Sorry for the long reply, but I thought all my points much be in the thoughts of other people as well? Electric vehicles have opened up a very big can of worms!

[neilgater]

as Evs become more and more popular i think the charging issues will get a lot worse before they get better. I can see road rage going to a whole new level

[rogerstarkey]

Sorry Andrew, but just over a minute in I must correct a few points.
Lithium ion cells.
All EVs use them.
Two basic categories.
"LiFePo4" (AKA "LFP")
Lithium Iron Phosphate.
Use zero Cobalt, zero Nickel.
They are the favourite cell chemistry for many Chinese manufacturers, since China had until recently held patents related to their production.
.
Nikel based chemistries DO use Cobalt (although not as much as many would have you believe)
They have greater energy density and as such obviously require less material than the Iron based options.
They are of course lighter as a result and therefore provide better efficiency.
.
Side note.
There's some confusion in certain circles between "Lithium IRON" and "Lithium ION"
(They're the same thing, "Iron is a constituent, "Lithium" brings "Ions" to the table.)
.
Mining.
First, we should note that in all but two countries (Australia and Morocco) Cobalt is largely a byproduct of other mining.
.
The "inconvenient truth" forgotten by many it the use of Cobalt in the desulphurisation of fossil fuels since the 1960's.
You will be told "a tiny amount per gallon (latterly litre)" but, many billions (trillions) of gallons over that period.
.
I'd make a large bet that little concern was given to sources or conditions until it became politically advantageous to deflect attention towards the new technologies?
.
Nickel mining
Russia was third on the list before "recent events". They were way behind Indonesia and the Philippines who when combined produced 4.5 times the volume of Russia.
There's plenty of Nickel available, with countries such as Australia emerging as a reliable source.
.
Well done for pointing out the use of Lithium ion cells in "other devices" (incidentally with *much* greater percentages of Cobalt in those cells)
The irony is that the fast emerging industry concerned with recycling Lithium Cells from the EV industry will not only collect *ALL* vehicle cells (among the most valuable components of a scrapped vehicle) but they will also now provide a resource to collect and recycle those "other device" cells which can literally be "thrown in" with the vehicle cells.
Recent reports from an industry leader, Redwood materials indicate they have already achieved better that 90% recycling the battery constituents, providing better quality material than the original stock.
Their aim is to reach 95% or more. Which will result in material at only 17% the cost of that original stock, with (obviously) comparable reductions in both energy use and pollution reduced when mining.
This leads nicely to the reminder these materials are mined *one time* then remain in the system, with potentially unlimited recycling.
Unlike previous "mine once, burn once/ repeat" alternatives.
.
Back to the video!!!!
😁

[Setinmywaysalways]

You live in the Islands where the impact of combustion engines is nil, and the Calmac Ferry is not even on the Scale. Good luck running one of those Ferries on Battery. The Four-hour charge would have taken you nearly halfway to your journey, please go into your nearest garage for a quote for your car.

[suethorogood]

Love this, however when I can drive to Cornwall in one go in an EV and charge it in the same time it takes to fill my current car then I will be interested .
Can you imagine trying to charge up with a family on a long trip it’s just not practical .

[colinbennett]

Hi Andrew, I appreciate that an EV works for you and your lifestyle. You are a single man transporting you and your dogs, working independently and flexibly towing a very small caravan. However many people have families and need significantly larger vans. They have fixed places of work and can not work independently using the internet, and finally they may have limited fixed holidays or kids in school. So their holidays have to be squeezed into a small period of time and if distant they do not have the time to wait for their car to be recharged whilst travelling to their destination.

I want a clean environment for myself and my family, but the current available EVs are too limited in their ability to deliver the flexibility of use to sensibly allow me to tow my van. I am really pleased that your lifestyle allows you to use one but I feel that for many of us that is still some way in the future. This aspect of using EV's for towing was absent from your report. I applaud you on battery provenance as many evangelical EV supporters miss this criminal use of forced child labour. I had not appreciated my own hypocrisy regarding cobalt in my mobile phone yet was aware of it in EVs. But like EV drivers I will have to ignore it as there is little alternative currently.

A really good report which in my opinion would be better balanced had you mentioned that they can not yet support a large number of people's lifestyles. I enjoy your reports always even if I don't always 100% agree with your observations, Keep up the good work.

Thanks Colin

[paulb]

You didn't mention the up-front cost of buying an EV against a petrol/diesel vehicle. You can buy a decent towing vehicle second hand for a fraction of the price of an EV. If you cannot charge at home (as I cannot) then you have to use the public system and, as you discovered, the network is a bad joke. I live a short walk from my local petrol station (which does not have EV charging points) and I needed to fill the car before a long journey. My petrol range showed 30 miles when I left my house and 450 miles after I returned from filling up. The whole procedure, from leaving home to returning took 8 minutes. When I can find an EV that can re-charge that quickly and cost the same as my petrol driven car, I may think about getting one. At the moment I would not entertain one.

[paulsm]

Imagine a journey like you had to Dover with a young family. That terrible trip with young kids would be totally unviable.

[Easty]

Another brilliant, informative and beautifully filmed video Andrew. Thank you for making this content.

[Richard-qghh]

Sorry Andrew but an average of 50kw demand distributed through a grid running at 2.5Kv further down the line with move Ev's., it won't work. This struggles with kettle demand at 2kw during peak times and renewables plus the existing makeweights will simply not produce the juice for the demand under those circumstances. Bio fuels are the way forward with hybrids until 80 years when fusion, storage or superconductors may be workable. I actually live in a van full time so I'm relient on renewables so I'm not anti. Ev's are the new Betamax. your pickup was the way to go in my opinion but respect your views and enjoy your channel

[G-jz]

Sorry Andrew but you can't compare your Pickup to an EV, My MPV can and has done 64mpg and is one step up from a hybrid being a Euro 6, I fill it up once and drive to Scotland and half way back and only have to stop Once, I am all for green energy but they don't have the fuel range and standing around for 4 to 8 hours on a one way trip in winter is not an option, Plus that adds another day to your journey, And when Towing the fuel range of an EV is cut in half again, It works for you because you run to your own schedule but in every day life Fuel Range is every thing, If I could buy an EV with a Gauranteed 500/600 mile fuel range then I would buy one in a heartbeat But all EV makers Lie about the range of their Vehicles and if they say it will do 300 miles you can bet the real figures are closer to 200 to 230 miles, Add on a Caravan and that will drop down around 120, But my MPV/Van will do 850+ miles on a single tank of fuel and it only has a smallish tank, and with the cost of fuels and/or recharging nower days EV's are far from being practicle because all of the above. Sorry you can pretty it up and use Death figures all you like, But they don't change a thing, And the Government are pushing this EV crusade but then they add an extra runway at Heathrow where One Jet taking off Every 90 seconds puts out enough pollution to equal 6000 HGV's on the Road for a whole Day, But the Government promote that and passes the Buck on to the Mortorist saying they are to Blaim, we don't need 5 runways and if we went back to 3 runways we had we could reach Net Zero withIn the Next 5 days at the most, , But the Government say it will bring new business to the UK so they admit it is all about Money and Not the Heath of dying Children, EV's are not the Answer and these Green Zones are a Joke because Heathrow and Gatwick and London Airports all Happen to be right in the middle of the ULEZ Green Zones, You want to see more Children Live then Shut down the Extra Runways, I have changed my Vehicles 3 times now because of the Governments new Hair Brained Scheems and I have lost a lot of Money thanks to them, You have Honourable intentions but as good as it is it is wasted because Money and Shareholders are the UK Governments Priority and until that stops Children will keep dying. Great Video as always Major Thumbs Up.

[peteringram]

Great insight into owning an electrical car but I'm not convinced at the moment due to the life time use of the battery ie 5 years, making the vehicle useless .
At the moment I'm just stuck on the fence, I can't face getting rid of my 2008 t5 diesel van which I can rip apart with a 100 quids worth of spanners and fix it time and time again for one of these soulless vehicles that you can't possibly fix without going to some massively extortionate garage and then hearing that the car is no good as the battery is kaput, just buy another one right.
I'm hopeing for efuels and I'd rather pay for a conversion so I can run on green fuel or run it on chip fat

[gerardkassingkassing]

The health in UK is more important than in countries with kobalt industry, sad you say that.

[YllaStar]

It's not just the appalling processes it takes to create an EV, but at the end of its useful life, its safe disposal too.
I would imagine most are bought on the premise of paying the depreciation over three years, and then handing it back, to only repeat the cycle once more, all the while overlooking the vehicles true legacy.

[fatfreddyscat]

Pleased to see that you kept your nerve Andrew! I have an Ioniq5 and have just done the first tow of my Eriba Triton 420. I managed 2.4 miles/kWh on a 90 mile each way proving run. I remember you mentioning that you would like to see how an Eriba performs and would be happy to share my experience.

[avidviewer]

Very interesting episode, Andrew. Hits the nail on the EV head so many times. Rapid charging problems are certainly a huge issue, and I wonder how you'd manage if, like me, you couldn't charge at home (I live in a city and it's an absolute nightmare). Thanks so much!

[NitroNoriFan]

When driving 350 miles South to Cornwall (or any long distance destination) in the summer with our caravan we often have to carry on through services as there is nowhere to park because while like minded travellers take a break. How clogged up are motorway services going to be when everyone has to unhitch their caravan to go and join a queue for charging? Drivers low on charge unable to travel to the next stop and lorry drivers low on hours are going to be queuing back down the slip roads. Dangerous!!! And how many charge stops on that single trip?The government really need to think this through and look at the bigger picture.
I’ll stick with my diesel for now and continue to make that journey comfortably in less than a third of a day