{"id":8785,"date":"2025-08-04T16:39:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T15:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8785"},"modified":"2025-08-04T16:39:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T15:39:58","slug":"going-electric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8785","title":{"rendered":"Going Electric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We\u2019re the kind of people who have tended to buy a car and run it into the ground. We\u2019re also the kind of people who buy cars – that if not quite models that no one else want to buy – tend to be cars that no one wants to steal.<\/p>\n

This is a strategy that has worked well. We\u2019ve been pleased with what we\u2019ve run and none have been truly terrible. The only breakdown (other than punctures) we\u2019ve had on the road has been the rear brakes binding due to rust on our Rover 400. This meant out only trip in a tow truck. The same car once needed a call out on the drive to get it started due to damp. (It hadn\u2019t been used for two weeks when it rained the whole time.) Everything has passed their MOT first time (or only failed on minor stuff like lights or windscreen wipers) even when 10-12 years old.<\/p>\n

The last combustion car we had \u2013 and the last we\u2019ll ever drive – was a Honda Civic. It was reliable, but two years ago starting to show its age (the car was by then 12 years old) with a variety of minor problems. Bits of the trim inside were falling off. The CD player stopped working (or would only play certain CD\u2019s) then mysteriously started working again. Parts of the allied entertainment display stopped working and then finally a most peculiar rattle developed for a few months which was very hard to locate. One day when the wife was out doing a house call the offending part fell off (her patient helped tie it back on). It was the sump guard. Our (very local) garage put back in place more permanently held in place by plastic ties.<\/p>\n

Time to get new car we thought. The question was could I persuade the other half to get an electric car? Up until now I\u2019d not been terribly interested in them and not really been following their progress much. You\u2019ll find very little on the blog on them. In our book we were relatively negative about them and its certainly true that changing the means of propulsion in a vehicle certainly doesn\u2019t overcome all the problems with cars (particulates are reduced but not eliminated and the problems of congestion and parking aren\u2019t solved at all*). Nevertheless people are going to continue to want cars of their own (I think all the autonomous driving not own a car stuff is unrealistic hype).<\/p>\n

In the end it was a toss up between a second hand Civic or a second hand Leaf. The Leaf won. In the next post I will describe the experience so far (spoiler alert its been vanilla) and work my way through objections to EV\u2019s based on my experience.<\/p>\n

* I had a re-read of David MacKays\u2019s book \u201cSustainable energy without the Hot Air\u201d. He\u2019s extremely pro – due to their much reduced energy consumption compared to fossil fuel vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>

Our Nissan Leaf<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re the kind of people who have tended to buy a car and run it into the ground. We\u2019re also the kind of people who buy cars – that if not quite models that no one else want to buy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nGoing Electric - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8785\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8785\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8785\",\"name\":\"Going Electric - 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