Electric cars risk becoming uninsurable

[fourbanks]

Electric cars risk becoming uninsurable (msn.com)

well, it was fun while it lasted, but the reason I opted out was because of the much higher insurance and that and other concerns like the massive loss in trading in after 3 years of 50% didn't really justify me purchasing it, so on that basis it's not for me and i'm out 

Some customers are now being quoted over £100 a week to insure their electric vehicles, with others reporting premiums doubling or tripling compared to a year before.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Moved to General Discussions.

[Stevie J]

I think a lot of it is down to the cost of parts to replace when they have accidents, as they are very expensive if Battery is involved due to the high cost and also the lack of availability of parts to fix BEVs. 

There has been a spate of incidents of BEVs catching fire on people's drives while charging, and they seem a higher fire risk than conventional ICE cars. It's not just the complete write off the cars become if they catch fire, but also the damage to people's houses if they fire spreads.

As demand from Joe Public falls for BEVs I can see the second hand values of ICE cars going higher and higher as they are getting in shorter and shorter supply due to many manufacturers no longer producing them. Could we see the UK becoming like Cuba, with motorists keeping old ICE cars on the road much older and it becoming the norm for cars to be more ancient as time goes on, due to people shunning BEVs for reasons of high cost, becoming obsolete after 8 or so years old due to Battery failure, being uninsurable or whatever reason?

I'll be sticking to my petrol, manual transmission 9 year old Yaris, and would simply never entertain an electric car. Insurance for my Yaris was £430 fully comp last renewal in July, and I could never entertain paying astronomical premiums for insurance for any car, let alone an electric car.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Stevie J said:

As demand from Joe Public falls for BEVs I can see the second hand values of ICE cars going higher and higher as they are getting in shorter and shorter supply due to many manufacturers no longer producing them. Could we see the UK becoming like Cuba, with motorists keeping old ICE cars on the road much older and it becoming the norm for cars to be more ancient as time goes on, due to people shunning BEVs for reasons of high cost, becoming obsolete after 8 or so years old due to battery failure, being uninsurable or whatever reason?

We’re lucky. First of all, it was just re set back to 2035!  Second, I rate it at ~6 years before the batteries end up being like ‘old laptops that have to be plugged in to work’.  
 

the next 12 years is plenty of time for the average, non rich buyer, to have fallen for this, ending up with shiny lawn ornaments and never going back to BEV again.  That happening to enough people, even 1 in 100 is enough for the government to be forced against its extremism policy to force EVs on to us. 
 

it’s not going to happen. Only lasting effect will be on the poor EU based manufacturers who due to abandoning ICE development and production altogether will be behind the rest of the world who wasn’t forced to move its strategy to EV only. Like Toyota who actually listen to buyer demands / preferences 

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi.

If anyone ever need any help with insurance then please feel free to drop me a line.

Regards,

Dan.

[flash22]

Some posh bloke on the radio has a £73K tesla, this year's insurance was being quoted at £9000, due to the fact there are only 200 repair centres, insurance companies are writing off cars as they can't get parts and are basically leasing cars for customers rather than hire them

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-12604851/The-bill-insuring-electric-car-rocket-9-000.html

Here is another example

Quote

David Pilsworth, 29, was shocked when the price to insure his Peugeot e-2008 shot up from around £62 a month to £445.50 a month when his AA policy came up for renewal in July. The huge rise meant he faced paying £5,346 a year to drive his car, even before factoring in other costs.

 

[AJones]

1 hour ago, Stevie J said:

I'll be sticking to my petrol, manual transmission 9 year old Yaris, and would simply never entertain an electric car. 

I'd always driven regular cars with manual transmissions but half an hour driving around in a PHEV and I'd never go back, so smooth, so quiet in EV mode, completely silent when waiting in traffic, no faffing about with gears and relaxing to driving. One of them things when once you try it, you kick yourself for not getting rid of the old car sooner.

33 minutes ago, SB1500 said:

Second, I rate it at ~6 years before the batteries end up being like ‘old laptops that have to be plugged in to work’.  

The difference between an EV, PHEV or hybrid Battery and something like a laptop or phone Battery which wears out after a few years is the Battery management. The car manufacturers put a lot more measures in place to manage and protect the batteries, cooling and heating systems to manage the temperature, tight limits on charging and discharging so the batteries operate within a more limited charge range to maximise their life, preventing full discharge or full charging which reduces their life. 

It's why many of the manufacturers can provide long guarantees on the batteries, Toyota guarantee their batteries for 10 years, even on their EVs, they wouldn't be doing that if they were wearing out and failing before then.

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, AJones said:

I'd always driven regular cars with manual transmissions but half an hour driving around in a PHEV and I'd never go back, so smooth, so quiet in EV mode, completely silent when waiting in traffic, no faffing about with gears and relaxing to driving. One of them things when once you try it, you kick yourself for not getting rid of the old car sooner.

The difference between an EV, PHEV or hybrid battery and something like a laptop or phone battery which wears out after a few years is the battery management. The car manufacturers put a lot more measures in place to manage and protect the batteries, cooling and heating systems to manage the temperature, tight limits on charging and discharging so the batteries operate within a more limited charge range to maximise their life, preventing full discharge or full charging which reduces their life. 

It's why many of the manufacturers can provide long guarantees on the batteries, Toyota guarantee their batteries for 10 years, even on their EVs, they wouldn't be doing that if they were wearing out and failing before then.

Every measure you mentioned is already done by phone manufacturers. It still doesn’t extend the life to anything spectacular. And whilst the size is amplified, and the measures taken to counteract it are also amplified, you cannot underestimate the amplification of the intensity of the heat, cold, continuous exposure to those changing day-in, day-out and the extreme demands placed on moving something as a car.. in real world start stop situations… and to do so safely as well in the car industry versus consumer electronics. 
 

I don’t know man.. Technology doesn’t move that fast in under a decade and even when it does move fast, rarely do we need the likes of government intervention for the average person to want to freely adopt it, even with high costs… 

 

I’m open to being wrong, but only when we’re 6+ years from now and we see it for ourselves in reality, and without a doubt, we look back and laugh at viewpoints like mine today.  But as it stands… I’m glad I’m not sinking my limited resources into one. 
 

I hear they’re fun to drive and all that though 

[Haliotis]

Has it been established that EVs are more prone to catching fire than ICE cars, and what is specifically the reason for this higher risk?

Does this EV fire risk also apply to hybrid vehicles?  I moved to my first hybrid vehicle earlier this year (2021 Toyota CH-R), and I must say that I like the car and also the economical performance.  But I would be adversely influenced if hybrid cars carried a high fire risk.

It would be in the interests of the EV vehicle manufacturers to be honest with the motoring public, and clearly state the risks, what is being done to remove the risks, and how successful or not their developments have been to date.  They need to remember that such car fires are a real threat to the lives of the occupants.

[Roy124]

1 hour ago, Haliotis said:

Has it been established that EVs are more prone to catching fire than ICE cars, and what is specifically the reason for this higher risk?

Definitely.

Well if you read the media it would seem so.  They ensure that every car fire that can be attributed to EV is faithfully reported with ICE cars getting barely a mention.

The Luton airport fire had then media circling like sharks at a shipwreck until, shock- horror, it turned out to be a diesel.

"Driverless car hits pedestrian" major news item.  "Jay walker hit by car (driverless)" not newsworthy.

[Yugguy1970]

The only car I've had that set fire was caused by a fuel pipe popping off.

Not going to happen with an EV.

I think EV has it's issues, I think it's a mistake to force it to be the only solution, but I don't hate them for what they are.

There is a huge amount of disinformation out there about EVs. 

There's a huge dishonesty from people who self-righteously spout about child labour while changing their phone every 6 months, like somehow their lives have no footprint whatsoever.

 

[Cyker]

EVs have the potential to be better - I've always liked electric motors for propulsion better than engines - You can't beat that smooth power delivery or the 0rpm torque.

The problem is current EVs are bigger and more expensive but have less utility than existing vehicles - Most people don't want to pay more for something that's objectively worse.

IMHO we're about 10 years too early for mass adoption - The infrastructure isn't there, and current batteries suck and don't look to be improving significantly any time soon.

Right now, they are better than ICE cars if you can charge at home and/or work and you don't need to travel more than half its range on a regular basis, but for every other case ICE is better.

The batteries we can't do much about - That's up to R&D in the industry to figure out (C'moooon Toyota solid state!), but what we need to sort out is the infrastructure; Current chargers are just a disgrace - There aren't enough, they're not maintained and are unreliable, and they're stupidly expensive - It costs more to rapid charge most EVs to 80% than it does to fully fuel my Yaris, and my Yaris can do over 2-3x the range for that cost!

EV Battery fires should become less common as most manufacturers seem to be switching to the lower capacity but less flamey Lithium Iron Phosphate cells, and when solid state cells become a thing they should be even less fiery, but this is waaay in the future. The problem in the mean time will be all the ageing cobolt-based cells in older vehicles which are the ones most likely to enter the used market and get bought by non-EVangelists who won't know or care how to look after them...

 

[Mojo1010]

Used EVs are tanking in price https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/electriccars/article-12482397/Electric-cars-values-plunged-most.html

[Mojo1010]

Someone I know gets free electric charger point as part of the building service charge they paid for their flat. They got a new Tesla Y, partly due to tesla lowering their price recently and having a baby on the way. 

If I was in that situation with free charger, would get a used kona 64Kwh. The free fuel would easily offset the price of insurance over the ice.  

[Haliotis]

Mojo,  does having a free electric charger point really mean that the electricity taken from it is free?  Unless the use of that electricity is amortised into the service charge, the owner of the flats could be in for a significant loss.

[yossarian247]

21 hours ago, Roy124 said:

Definitely.

Well if you read the media it would seem so.  They ensure that every car fire that can be attributed to EV is faithfully reported with ICE cars getting barely a mention.

The Luton airport fire had then media circling like sharks at a shipwreck until, shock- horror, it turned out to be a diesel.

"Driverless car hits pedestrian" major news item.  "Jay walker hit by car (driverless)" not newsworthy.

I'm still seeing dozens of people on social media claiming that the Range Rover involved in the Luton airport fire must have actually been a hybrid and that the government and the fire service are just covering it up by saying it was a conventional diesel!

Although LR did produce a mild hybrid/diesel version of the Range Rover Sport I searched online and found a diagram of the Battery and wiring. The traction Battery on those is at the rear of the vehicle, towards the driver's side. According to the car park pictures the fire started in the passenger side towards the front, so even if  the Range Rover involved was actually a hybrid then the fire appears to be nothing whatsoever to do with the hybrid Battery. It started either due to poor maintenance or just good old crappy Land Rover engineering. That won't stop the conspiracy theorists though..

[Mojo1010]

1 hour ago, Haliotis said:

Mojo,  does having a free electric charger point really mean that the electricity taken from it is free?  Unless the use of that electricity is amortised into the service charge, the owner of the flats could be in for a significant loss.

Don't know the whole story, they basically said no extra payment on top of service charge. It doesn't get charge on their individual meter. They are 2 charge points in the car park, that's all I know. 

[Yugguy1970]

That's the problem with social media and the modern hard of thinking.

Noone applies Occam's razor.  Either it was one of the many thousands of diesel LRs, or it was one of a handful of hybrids.

Either a cabal of satanic paedos is rulling the world, or Trump IS a crook.

Either hundreds of thousands of people and their families have successfully kept a massive secret for decades, or we really did land on the Moon.

Etc.

[yossarian247]

13 minutes ago, Yugguy1970 said:

That's the problem with social media and the modern hard of thinking.

Noone applies Occam's razor.  Either it was one of the many thousands of diesel LRs, or it was one of a handful of hybrids.

Either a cabal of satanic paedos is rulling the world, or Trump IS a crook.

Either hundreds of thousands of people and their families have successfully kept a massive secret for decades, or we really did land on the Moon.

Etc.

So many people just seem to believe what they want to believe. The classic WTC 'jet fuel won't melt steel beams' for example. Fire is a known problem with weakening steel framed buildings and has been so for decades. I once saw a steel framed factory in Doncaster totally collapse after a fire. But who knows, maybe that was all an inside job by Doncaster council to give them an excuse to invade Rotherham....

[Parts-King]

My mate hates anything to do with BEV, EV etc, he constantly sends me stuff about them going on fire. He sends me videos and without fail, every single video he has sent has been a diesel 😂😂 mainly Vauxhall and Merc vans it seems 🤷‍♂️

[Rhymes with Paris]

Years ago when I was on the sites, it was common practice to set a fire in the barrel of a concrete mixer , wrongly called a cement mixer,in order to expand the metal and crack off hardened mortar not cleaned out properly when washing out.

These fires were created by pouring diesel into the barrel, and then torn up cement bags, and lighting a dry corner of the paper.

Now anyone who has actually done this will realise just how difficult it is to set fire to diesel fuel when it is not vaporised and heated by compression in a diesel engine.

So my opinion is that diesel does not spontaneously combust, it needs a lot of heat from another source, such as a sustained electrical fault or short circuit.

The only car fire I have experienced was with a MK4 Granada petrol, terrifying and caused by an electrical fault from a radio swap carried out by chimp who thought he was an auto electrician.

 

[yossarian247]

Diesel is strange stuff. I spent part of my childhood living on my grandparents farm and I was often given the job of having bonfires to get rid of piles of rubbish. I'd be given a box of matches and a can of diesel, and told to be careful! I did the classic trick a couple of times of dropping a lighted match into a cup of diesel and extinguishing the match. To burn diesel in open air and ambient temperature it really needs a 'wick' of some sort. 

The danger with diesel is if it gets very hot for any reason, for example coming into contact with a hot exhaust. In that situation it can spontaneously combust, and can actually be more dangerous than petrol which will often simply evaporate and disperse (as long as it doesn't meet a spark of course). 

[yossarian247]

Anyone remember this old episode of Top Gear with Chris Goffey spraying petrol and brake fluid onto at a hot exhaust manifold to see if it would catch fire?! Shame he didn't also test it with diesel, but then derv cars were still fairly rare in 1991.

 

 

[Rhymes with Paris]

No did not remember it Nick, but a very interesting video though.

I would hope that all foreseeable scenarios would be tested to the extremes with the information available at the time, before production.

But of course speed and money grabbing often takes precedence over safety.

But thankfully instances of car fires are relatively rare AFAIK.

 

 

[Shared]

9 hours ago, Haliotis said:

Mojo,  does having a free electric charger point really mean that the electricity taken from it is free?  Unless the use of that electricity is amortised into the service charge, the owner of the flats could be in for a significant loss.

 

I saw an interesting video the other day where I learned something about EV's Albert, something many might not be aware of, say for example you have an 83Kw Battery and you home charge it, it might actually cost you 93Kw's of power to do so, apparently home charges are less efficient not only in charging rates, but also in terms of how much goes into the car versus how much comes out of your house.

I dont drive an EV so am not too familiar with them but that did surprise me.