Yes good site, accurate
It is still early days in the EV technology. Batteries are the key factor and nobody knows how the situation will evolve in 10 years. EV owners may be faced with an expensive battery replacement and what will that do to the residual value of an EV?
It might be the case that because they are no longer manufactured quality ICE cars will be sought after and retain their value. If I was in the market for a new car today it would be a diesel. The last choice would be a hybrid.
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Things will always improve - if the current offering meets your needs then it is fine to take the plunge - otherwise you will simply wait forever.
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Diesel is/would be in last place for me - there are too many expensive ways that modern turbodiesels can go wrong and modern petrol engines are not that far off in terms of efficiency.
Hybrids are kind of an interesting one - they solve one of the problems of EVs (range) but once running on hydrocarbons their fuel efficiency is frequently nothing to brag about.
One technology that would have been interesting, but which has not made an appearance - perhaps it has been leapfrogged by pure EV - would have been petrol-electric or diesel-electric transmission in cars. That would have allowed the engines to be tuned for maximum thermal efficiency - and given all the benefits of electric motors actually driving the wheels (including true 4-wheel drive). I don’t see why real world thermal efficiencies of 40-50% and >100 MPG could not have been achieved.
There is a danger of doing that with any evolving technology, early adopters usually pay a price though.
I think diesel electric drivetrains in cars would probably be too expensive. Also, to keep the diesel engine at peak efficiency, wouldn’t you need a battery to act as a buffer between generator and motor ?. Probably no bigger than in a hybrid, but still more cost. Diesel electric has only really been used in BIG things AFAIK like trains, subs and huge diggers and transporters.
There is a really good reason why Mercedes have thrown in the towel trying to make diesel more efficient and suitable for the euro class vehicles.
Does anyone know do French farmers get “pink” (agri-) diesel too?
Possibly - of course if you stick a battery in it you have a self-charging hybrid and those have been built so clearly do-able. But also, since they haven’t caught on, maybe not a good idea one way or another.
I imagine the problem is particulates and NOx emissions, ultimately the swansong of ICE is going to be petrol, not diesel.
What is the problem, if said vehicles residual is very low that is just how it is but the battery or elements of can be replaced. Residual value of an ICE car was around £110 for scrap, snapped cam belt or blown head gasket. Rendes an ICE car scrap these days in many cases due to uneconomic repair. Electric motors work for so much longer, with thousands fewer parts to go wrong it is likely they will run on much longer. ICE cars efficiency drops off considerably and emissions increase as the engine ages. Then the point that we must stop burning stuff.
EV is the future embrace it, go for a drive in one or two even if you are not ready to buy yet the difference is fantastic.
I agree EV is the future, but the issue is when. This summer a jounalist drove from Paris to Nice in his EV. He planned his journey with stop overs at charging points. He came across several charging points that were not working. Until the charging infrastucture is suitable EV is not for me because of long journeys
I think that this is always going to be the Achilles heel of EVs
Completely understandable if all you do is long journeys as described but in reality they are how many times? The charging at home for the more usual journeys should not be overlooked.
That said, the car manufacturers are doing their best to transition (except Toyota) however the government’s are failing to ensure the success in a number of countries. Again one man has shown the world how to do it so the morons should be able to copy.
Cough, splutter 
Please, it’s worth avoiding Toyota’s misleading marketing phrase. That phrase implies that they have made a perpetual motion machine which, as we all know, is not possible.
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When did that BS phrase sneak in, I missed that and totally agree with Jonathan.
Lying marketing from a company that got it all wrong.
Why? If it has an ICE that is the source of power.
Such a vehicle could easily be more efficient than a straight petrol/diesel engined vehicle as it would be able to recoup power from braking, downhill etc.
Whatever you think of the man, he has, any large Co has things we would object to.
In my reply to hairbear when mulling that petrol-electric transmission was never a thing.
I don’t see why it necessarily has to be BS - I can see several advantages.
Oh and Kia as well as Toyota had one.
Its a petrol generator rechargeable that what the issue is. Like all hybrids only suitable if you actually use the EV part. In London 80% of hybrids have never recharged the battery (data from manufacturers stats on data downloaded from the vehicles) they were purely used to avoid paying the charges for london journeys.
I think you need to pause and re-read what you just said. If a large corporate body “has things we would object to” there is something wrong, isn’t there? - why should something otherwise objectionable be OK just because it is done in the pursuit of commercial gain?
As to Musk I agree Tesla is not all bad, and I will concede that they realised that charging is important, and has taken steps to provide a network for its customers which no other manufacturer has done. They have all preferred to rely on 3rd parties which will always have problems (though I suppose that the counter-argument is you can’t really have 20 or 30 charging networks, one per car maker).
The curse of good intentions I suppose - anyway I should stress that I was only referring to the fact that the existence of self charging hybrids demonstrated that petrol-electric transmission would definitely be doable using today’s technology.
As for self-charging being pointless - I don’t see it as inevitable - why are these vehicles not charging their batteries using recovered kinetic energy?