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Possible EV 🙄🙂

Mactech said:
Well I didn't buy that golf for a number of reasons.
  • It is a 'converted' car not one designed and built for the purpose of E motoring. The Golf is a great car but compromised as an EV in many ways.
  • The Golf is almost 2 years older and over 30k miles more used than the BMW i3 I just bought.
  • It's heavy.
  • I love the idea of a composite car after working with (somewhat quicker ones) for almost 40 years.
  • Not nearly quirky enough for my wife!
  • No theatre of stepping in to a brave new world of E motoring
View attachment 144751
The BMW was priced almost 10k higher a year ago and have just been realigned with reality. Good low mileage cars now represent good value and are flying off the shelves. There were 20 for sale which fitted my criteria 2 weeks age, now there are 2.
You can see the cluster of cars now selling well on the lower right.
Click to expand...

Love it. Agreed on all points. It was the "2nd car EV" that I had in mind when I picked up the S211. (And then the whinging started about colours and too many cars on the driveway)

The one point you didn't mention, maybe for the same reasons that I didn't, is that there are a lot of 1-2 year old ex-Rental Budget / Zipcar e-Golfs which would have given the e-Golf residuals a bit of a kicking earlier than usual.

We could go into the whole i3 / 1 series residual value game but they're not really comparable.

In rain sodden SW London, the I3 is the second car electric runabout of choice, with the Zoe as a runner up.



Screenshot 2023-08-08 at 19.13.17.png
 
markjay said:
The cheapest Ford Focus costs £27,000, so you are quite right in that it will take 6 years to recoup the fuel cost. But factor-in no VED and low maintenance cost, and you're probably breaking even after just a year or two.
Click to expand...
Who pays £27k for a new Ford Focus.?

Standard pre-reg Focus will be no more than £20k. It's standard mass market pricing. As you said with Nissan, List is a starting point for a negotiation and gets reduced with a "generous" trade-in" and a sales man's discount. That Nissan Leaf would have had list price well above the £30k that was negotiated.
 
MikeInWimbledon said:
Good point. He'd be buying a hundred gallons a year at a cost of £700, so by having spent £30,000 on that Nissan Leaf, he could be saving £500 a year in fuel costs.
Click to expand...
True if the only reason that person must buy the car is to save money. Lots of people buy cars because they want one or need one for other reasons.

So if that person would have otherwise bought an ICE costing £30k - which is more likely to be the case - then the saving relative to the replacement car is real.

Your argument could equally be used to explain why they also shouldn’t buy a replacement ICE car because keeping the existing one is usually least expensive.

That’s the reason that I - and others - keep their cars for absolutely ages. Replacing cars is an expensive luxury unless out of genuine necessity.
 
Bobby Dazzler said:
True if the only reason that person must buy the car is to save money. Lots of people buy cars because they want one or need one for other reasons.

So if that person would have otherwise bought an ICE costing £30k - which is more likely to be the case - then the saving relative to the replacement car is real.

Your argument could equally be used to explain why they also shouldn’t buy a replacement ICE car because keeping the existing one is usually least expensive.

That’s the reason that I - and others - keep their cars for absolutely ages. Replacing cars is an expensive luxury unless out of genuine necessity.
Click to expand...
Well said.

I must check the count on mine. It was 50 something but it must be higher now.

Need doesn’t come into it. Change is good.

Not wives, houses, area, employer or children: too demanding

But an AMG to an S and then to a CL or a 330 or an Mx: altogether different
 
MikeInWimbledon said:
Who pays £27k for a new Ford Focus.?

Standard pre-reg Focus will be no more than £20k. It's standard mass market pricing. As you said with Nissan, List is a starting point for a negotiation and gets reduced with a "generous" trade-in" and a sales man's discount. That Nissan Leaf would have had list price well above the £30k that was negotiated.
Click to expand...

Just had another look - the cheapest Nissan Leaf and the Cheapest Ford Focus are both £27,000 RRP.

If you are suggesting that you can get a new Focus for £20k but you won't be able to get a similar deal on a new Leaf, then I can't argue with that because I am not familiar with the new car market and the deals that can be negotiated.
 
Hi,
It’s really interesting seeing how the mainstream media is perpetuating the negative image of EVs - catching fire, reliability, residual values, battery life, range in winter etc.
For a UK company car driver who changes their car every three years - then an EV makes perfect financial sense.
For low mileage private buyers without a home charger - then it could be much less financially viable.
My brother got a company funded Tesla Model Y long range in December and he is very happy with it. He travels all over the country and does not have a home charger (despite having a driveway and place to put it)
He simply uses Tesla Superchargers connected with his company credit card. He plans his journeys and makes necessary charging stops around comfort, food breaks and phone call/meeting breaks.
Regarding the media coverage - here are my thoughts:-
Catching fire - an EV is much less likely to catch fire than a regular petrol or hybrid car. Many videos of cars from China catching fire are not pure EVs apparently- they are a particular brand‘s hybrid that has a known fault with the fuel system.
Reliability - an EV has ten times less parts than a regular ICE vehicle and much less to go wrong or require servicing. The worst culprits for reliability and complexity are hybrids - they are much more complex than a regular ICE vehicle and are heavier due to having an engine plus battery/motor system. I am convinced these were only introduced by legacy auto makers to benefit company car drivers tax breaks - my brother had a BMW 3 series hybrid to get low company car tax but never, ever plugged it in!
Residual values - these will probably stabilise over time once more vehicles hit the ex-lease market and people get more confidence around the issues we are discussing. Some good bargains to be had - as long as people choose wisely (and dont buy early generation EVs with low range and leased batteries, for instance).
Battery life - many early Teslas have covered huge mileage with minimal batter degradation (maybe 12% less range after 200,000 miles). It’s not a real issue with the latest cars.
Range in winter - the latest cars with heat pumps are more efficient in cold (or hot ) weather - but there is still a learning curve for EV owners to know their vehicle range in different conditions.
We are now a two EV family and are very happy with our choices!
But - when finances allow - I will still be looking to purchase an ICE fun car for the weekend!
As a quick aside - our 18 year old started driving lessons in Abu Dhabi this week.
We chose the VIP intense package over 4 days (16 lessons plus the test).
He was surprised and delighted on the first day to send us a photo of the car he is learning to drive in!

33538561-7F68-4DFF-A648-B1114ECB6D15.jpeg

It is a brand new Nissan Patrol Nismo with only 200km on the clock. They have a 5.6 litre V8 putting out 428hp and cost about £95,000.
Bit different to the Datsun Sunny that I learnt to drive in!
Cheers
Steve
 
markjay said:
Just had another look - the cheapest Nissan Leaf and the Cheapest Ford Focus are both £27,000 RRP.
If you are suggesting that you can get a new Focus for £20k but you won't be able to get a similar deal on a new Leaf, then I can't argue with that because I am not familiar with the new car market and the deals that can be negotiated.
Click to expand...
We've gone a long way from my original point about why has an e-Golf depreciated so much while a GTI hasn't...

But hey...

We need to be very cautious about alleged new prices of vehicles. Traditionally Mercedes used to be difficult to discount, except for run-out vehicles when they couldn't give 'em away. CL500's and SL63's come to mind. My neighbour bought a run out SL63 for something like £80k, an enormous discount on list.

Ford, Vauxhall and Renault always had artificially high prices which could be negotiated down just by asking. Something to do with fleet sales, methinks.

Despite all that.... the last three years have turned prices on their heads because the European manufacturers face the threat of billion euro fines for not hitting emission targets, which is why Focus and Fiesta are being culled, despite being top selling cars in Europe. So Focus has now jumped up in both spec and price to limit the number sold.

Where does that "leaf" us going forward? Who knows? The very good news is that the Leaf is now a gobsmackingly cheap buy at both six months and 36 months old. For an EV with a 170 mile range. And there's a lot of stock about, with demand that's allegedly "a bit soft."

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