[dashpool]

I guess one obvious question is, what are people buying in the cheap/small ICE category? People are not buying many really tiny cars any more. Dacia Sandero is pretty much where it is at: supermini, not especially narrow. 2-star 2021 NCAP rating. No lane assist, but emergency braking for cars but not pedestrians.

So if you stripped out some of the safety gadgets out of a Renault 5, but not quite to the point of the dearly departed Zoe, how much less would it cost? I'd guess a couple of grand, maximum.

I think that is where the low-end mass market is at, rather than very small/low-range commuter vehicles.

There are always lots of people excited about the idea of small/cheap EVs on discussion forums, but when it comes to UK sales, hardly anyone actually willing to buy e.g. a Spring. And they are still very cheap indeed: you can get a prereg one for under £10k now.

 

[Dave12]

https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/more-150-car-models-too-123313512.html

View attachment 180762



This is not uniquely a BEV problem but having low energy density is not a route to easing this problem.

Should you be allowed to park an oversized vehicle in a parking bay and overhang its white lines?

Is 'my car wouldn't fit' a justifying excuse to appeal a penalty, if one was given for your car. (You chose it, you knew ...).

Is 'I am a good driver and can keep inside the lane markings' an excuse for not knowing the width of your car and flouting the lane width restrictions in the outer lanes at motorway works?

Oversized and blacked out windows in small spaces makes them a right pain

 

[Dave12]

I used to live in a flat which had a parking area without marked spaces. If car parked close to each other you could fit six cars in. The problem came when someone turned up and just parked at 'random', i.e. not adjacent to another car or the end of the row. You'd end up with bigger than necessary gaps between the cars meaning that instead of six, only five or sometimes even only four cars could fit in.

As there were eight flats, this was not ideal. It meant people ended up parked on the access road, which in turn meant the bin lorry could not get through so our bins didn't get emptied. The situation was much improved when the management company marked out spaces.

They mark out the spaces in Spanish parking areas. That is a big waste of time paint and effort

 

[Dave12]

The problem isn't new! What you need is a car like my Midget. It's based on the A30/35 and it's tiny, especially in width. I can touch the outside of the passenger door while sitting in the drivers seat with my right arm on the door - great for squeezing through gaps!

This isn't mine but shows the comparison...

View attachment 180815

I had one of them 45 years ago lovely two tone colour. Muck and rust

 

[donald]

I guess one obvious question is, what are people buying in the cheap/small ICE category?

The smaller an ICE engine is, the less efficient it is.

The reason people assume small ICE are more efficient is because they are put in smaller cars. It's the 'smaller car' that is more efficient, but it is fighting the less efficient engine.

Consider the Smart cars, with their 800cc engines, which managed .... 40mpg. 50~60 on a good day.

With no VED advantage, no 'benefits' of insurance, parking, licence age, nothing, no incentives at all, on top of 40mpg, why would you by a two seater Smart?

The reason for the inefficiencies is that as the cylinder size goes up, the ratio of combustion volume to swept surfaces (meaning, friction and unburned hydrocarbons) goes down.

So, homologating and making efficient a small ICE becomes more and more difficult. But big engines in small cars make for a problem suspension, which are already bad on smaller cars.

Whereas small electric cars both the 'body' (aero) and drivetrain can just get more and more efficient.

'Microcars' are more popular on the Continent than here, so it'd make sense such a move happened there first.

 

[dashpool]

Hmm, I think BEVs are really pushing vehicle size/weight up rather than down. Hardly anybody cares about efficiency, but highway range matters, and that is achieved most easily with long vehicles with big batteries. Aero matters, weight doesn't hurt much.

Width is something the UK cares about, but we are getting "world cars" and in most places a 2m wide car isn't a problem.

 

[Mkultra]

And here's an interesting twist on the discussion.

Whilst I understand the benefit curve of the smaller car and in general I'd agree it, even though I'm an apex example of having a unit at the total other end of things, there is an interesting monetary discussion.

I was told only a few days back and from a very reliable source, that our local (large) shopping centre makes substantially more from parking fees than it does from the shop unit rental. How mad is that?

It's not for me to question their business model .... good luck to them. We all buy into it so maybe they should. But parking and the money made from parking, is a huge cash cow. Massive. So there is an argument for decent reinvestment and modification to requirement. The requirement may well be changing to slightly smaller but heavier m.o.

So be it privately owned shopping center, council run and managed car park profit centers or the substaintial margins made at hospitals and railways stations, there is a counter argument that increased revenue streams should be mirrored in volume and nature of parking spaces. By all means charge extra for larger bays and less for smaller ones. But don't loose sight of the profits and profit motive being mined in UK parking.

P.S ... my admission of driving a massively over bloated car is counter balanced to some extent but the fact we still run a small engine 94 Micra and super high efficiency small engine Aygo. When the Micra meets it's end, it will without doubt be replaced with an EV.

 

[L-EON]

You mean someone like this guy? 😂😂😂
View attachment 180766

I would stick a trolley on top of that.

 

[donald]

I would stick a trolley on top of that.

Where does it say 'no parking'?

There's actually a picture of a car on top of it!

 

[madbiker]

I had one of them 45 years ago lovely two tone colour. Muck and rust

And no need for electric windows or mirrors because you can just reach across.

 

[donald]

And no need for electric windows or mirrors because you can just reach across.

Ours had little rubber wedges to hold the window in place, and that wasn't a bodge, that is how they came. On a little chain attached to the door, so you didn't drop them.

That, the trafficators, the hand crank ... I'm trying to recall the other things 'in need of modernisation'.