Whats your strategy for year 2030 / ban of ICE vehicles?

[markjay]

I have owned cars with Cat markers on the V5 yes. Never had a problem with them.
Cat N is non structural. In the case of that Tesla that means there is no structural damage behind the plastic bumper or to the front chassis legs. Copart have even gone to the bother of removing the flimsy bit of Tesla Frunk trim to show you the non body colour inner wings, suspension turrets and chassis legs which appear to be as they came out of the factory. Undamaged. Value wise 20 to 30% off a £40,000 retail car. So it should go for around £30,000. Currently at less than £5,000 with less than 3 days to go.

Thanks but no thanks. Not for me.

When buying second hand cars, I quickly pass over all those with uneven bonet shut lines, asymmetrical panel gaps, faded-paint bumpers, and uneven headlamps.

Nothing wrong with a minor repair, mind - when I had these done to my cars I opted for top body shops and was sitting on their backs like a hawk. But it was my car and I chose the repairer and accepted the job once done.

But a garage who buys from Copart auctions cars written off by insurers, will likely be repairing them on a shoestring budget while cutting every possible corner. Not a car I'll ever personally want to own.

But I have no doubt that there will be those who will be happy to pay peanuts for a shiny Merc or Beemer or Tesla etc that harbours a dark secret that their envious friends and neighbours will never know about.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

The RRP for my IONIQ 5 was £50k when I got it back in Sep 2021.

Two years on, there are 7 on sale on Autotrader with an asking price of between £33k and £35k.

That's between 30% and 34% depreciation over two years.

For comparison, in 1998 I bought a 10 months old Vauxhall Omega 2.5L with an RRP of £20k for £12k. In 2001 I bought a 4 months old Vauxhall Omega CDX 2.6L with an RRP of £24k for £14k. That's 40% depreciation in under a year.

The IONIQ 5 isn't mine, it's on a lease, but had I bought it, I'd say I got a very good deal.

Not that any if it will stop the 'EVs depreciate like a free-falling lift because no one buys them second hand' myth. A good legend is more pervasive than any boring set of facts.

All's fair, but the natural first owner life is 3-4 years. That's really the benchmark for depreciation.
Anything shorter is weird and reflects the oddities of the new market - see Porsche, Ferrari and Ford saloons.
Some cars are hard to get (Porsche Ferrari), some are given away with hidden discounts (Ford and the Corporate fleet market)
(As a BTW can we talk about the embarrassing reliability of 911's after just 50k miles? Or is that too "off topic?")

 

[ChipChop]

Thanks but no thanks. Not for me.

When buying second hand cars, I quickly pass over all those with uneven bonet shut lines, asymmetrical panel gaps, faded-paint bumpers, and uneven headlamps.

Nothing wrong with a minor repair, mind - when I had these done to my cars I opted for top body shops and was sitting on their backs like a hawk. But it was my car and I chose the repairer and accepted the job once done.

But a garage who buys from Copart auctions cars written off by insurers, will likely be repairing them on a shoestring budget while cutting every possible corner. Not a car I'll ever personally want to own.

But I have no doubt that there will be those who will be happy to pay peanuts for a shiny Merc or Beemer or Tesla etc that harbours a dark secret that their envious friends and neighbours will never know about.

There is no secret. A car which has been insurance catergorised has it's cat status printed on the front page of the V5.

Unlike the Subaru Forester turbo i owned. Someone flung open their door while i was driving past and destroyed the offside front wing, front doors and rear quarter. Never recorded even though it had nearly £3000 of body repairs at a Subaru main dealer paid for by the other parties insurance company.

 

[markjay]

There is no secret. A car which has been insurance catergorised has it's cat status printed on the front page of the V5....

How often does one show their car's V5C to their friends and neighbours...?

 

[TrueSpirit]

To my mind, China's core issue is the abandonment of the party rule system and the transformation into a one-man dictatorship. This is also true for Putin, BTW (and for the US while under Trump).

These rulers think they are smarter than anyone else, and make all the decisions alone. But Organisational Psychology 101 will tell you that every study so far showed that decisions made by a group are always significantly better than those made by individuals. The Japanese mastered this art, BTW.

to think the trump administration was a dictatorship is quite a conspiracy theory. And completely false

 

[Dippo]

The RRP for my IONIQ 5 was £50k when I got it back in Sep 2021.

Two years on, there are 7 on sale on Autotrader with an asking price of between £33k and £35k.

That's between 30% and 34% depreciation over two years.

For comparison, in 1998 I bought a 10 months old Vauxhall Omega 2.5L with an RRP of £20k for £12k. In 2001 I bought a 4 months old Vauxhall Omega CDX 2.6L with an RRP of £24k for £14k. That's 40% depreciation in under a year.

The IONIQ 5 isn't mine, it's on a lease, but had I bought it, I'd say I got a very good deal.

Not that any if it will stop the 'EVs depreciate like a free-falling lift because no one buys them second hand' myth. A good legend is more pervasive than any boring set of facts.

I don't think the used car market 20 to 25 years ago is a valid comparison. There have been rather a lot of articles recently about the shortage of stock in the used car market, and the strength of residuals.

 

[Pontoneer]

Before buying an EV any prospective owner should carefully define what they're going to use it for. They have advantages and disadvantages like all cars Many EV owners are accused of virtue signaling- this may be true for some but probably not the majority of EV owners. Most have carefully analysed why an EV may be an advantage for their particular circumstance. Maybe taxation benefits, permission to access certain major city areas without extra charges, reasons of economy, inherent drivetrain simplicity and lower service costs. But the one major factor to bear in mind is that EV development is still a very rapidly changing technology so desirable ownership duration should be short and covered by manufacturer warranty. This would point towards leasing a new vehicle for 3 years as the sensible path to EV ownership at present. Motor vehicle manufacturers have worked hard to market their products as lifestyle statements and at present for historic reasons [been around longer] these are ICE vehicles. As the developed world moves towards EV It's perhaps time to recalibrate this image somewhat. After all EV's are not much more complex than a large washing machine with a battery attached and their Image and price should perhaps reflect this more than it does

I’ve remarked in the past that some of them , with their bland , plastic bodies , actually look like large washing machines . Actually , I think my washing machine looks better .

 

[grober]

to think the trump administration was a dictatorship is quite a conspiracy theory. And completely false

Trump wasn't a dictator-------But as a mentally deranged narcissistic sociopath with his finger on the nuclear trigger he would have liked to have been.

 

[Pontoneer]

Cripes, how did you get an S124 for £4k? They must be worth for way more than that now. Rocketship mileage?

My finance director had a forest green facelift TE300 back in in 1990/1 and I still think they were peak E class estate. Battleship spec. Fantastic quality.

It is only now knocking on the door of 200k , below average for a 1994 car .

There are lots around both above and below that price , but this was by far the nicest I could find at the time .

I’ve so far had two 300TE , a 300TE-24 , an E320 and now the E220 , all estates . Have also had an E250D saloon and a 320CE .

I like W124s

 

[markjay]

to think the trump administration was a dictatorship is quite a conspiracy theory. And completely false

Perhaps I should have phrased it differently. Not sure what would be the correct political term for a regime ruled by a single individual who makes all the decisions himself, consults no one, demotes removed or sacks anyone with skills and potential around him to ensure they don't meddle on his decision making, surrounds himself with obedient mediocre yesmen, and thinks that he's ruling by merit because he's the smartest person on the planet and everyone else are fools. If there isn't a name for it yet, then someone should invent it.

 

[markjay]

It is only now knocking on the door of 200k , below average for a 1994 car .

There are lots around both above and below that price , but this was by far the nicest I could find at the time .

I’ve so far had two 300TE , a 300TE-24 , an E320 and now the E220 , all estates . Have also had an E250D saloon and a 320CE .

I like W124s

I probably wouldn't drive an older car as such (not if I had the choice of driving a newer one), but I do love classic cars, and my dream is to one day have the time and space (and also the physical and mental abilities...) to restore one myself. I'll admit to devouring YouTube videos about classic Alfa's, MGs, and other gems.

 

[markjay]

I did not say anything about a bigger plan.

True.

But then you didn't say that you don't believe there is one, either.........

 

[markjay]

Do "ordinary drivers" buy brand new C, E and S class? Aren't they mainly sold to companies and to people via PCP's?

I read online (and posted it here) that 90% of all new car sales in the UK are done with finance. This figure includes business users who lease their car's plus all other forms of finance. Which is not surprising, I guess, with 1.6m cars sold, how many people have £20k to £80k lying around in cash? Some do, but my guess is that not 1.6m people (and businesses).

 

[Pontoneer]

....I remember those days, mobile phones were unaffordable and the only way to get one was via a 12 or 18 months contract (with or without air time). You basically paid in instalments because they were too expensive for people to buy outright. I was tempted by a BT Mobile offer of just £19.95 on an 18 month contract, but ended up getting a Motorla Flip (I think it was called the Alpha) as a gift - they were a novelty at the time.

The handsets did become unaffordable , but in those early days they were being given away : that Motorola wasn’t on a contract , although every handset I had after it was , but that first one was bought outright for a single payment of £31 . There was even something cheaper at £19.95 and if I’d wanted to pay more I could’ve had a Nokia .

Just a few years later , I was on the Nokia bandwagon , running up the range every year or so from the 6310 etc , and had the brilliant Nokia hands free kits.

Towards the end of that run , I got a Handspring Visor PDA which linked to the Nokia via ir , then about a year later the Treo 600 came out , that followed by a Treo 650 , was my first smartphone , colleagues saw it and got them too ; some had Blackberries .

Then the iPhone came out and cornered the market ; a friend queued overnight to get one of the first ; I got mine on day two , the only handset I ever paid big money to buy outright . After that it was always ‘free’ upgrades by extending the contract .

Thing is , the contracts were always decent value for money compared to that first airtime only contract , so the handset cost was invisible .

They marketed them well and within a short time almost everyone had one .

 

[ChipChop]

How often does one show their car's V5C to their friends and neighbours...?

Keeping up with the Joneses has never been a hobby of mine. My daily driver was manufactured in 1991, has patina but is appreciating in value. Not that the Chinese EV leasing Joneses of this world would know.

 

[ChipChop]

to think the trump administration was a dictatorship is quite a conspiracy theory. And completely false

Still takes the attention away from the senile old fool currently in the White House. The one that okayed blowing up the Nordstream pipelines plunging Europe into an energy crisis. Thanks a lot.

 

[Pontoneer]

Which billions are unaccounted for, at the moment?

Aren't you confusing this with the very old story about the EU auditors refusing to sign off EU books? Pop over to the States and you'll find very similar stories. In both cases, it's hard to pin it on the environmental activists who are calling for the CO2 reductions that we signed up for at COP26

COP26 Global Climate Change conference at Glasgow: COP26: Together for our planet | United Nations

The poliiticians you elected made this happen.

View attachment 146755

Oh yes , COP 26 . That was the one Biden brought The Beast over for , and had a rolling closure on the M8 for his motorcade .

Also reported at the time that when the vehicle was running low on fuel , the whole motorcade had to go into a petrol station , with him sitting in the back and the vehicle flanked by security as the hapless driver filled up ...

 

[Pontoneer]

I have a bridge to sell you, MJ ... currently in Arizona but originally a genuine Bridge over the river Thames in London.

and so the story goes , the American who bought 'London Bridge' sight unseen thought he was buying Tower Bridge ... until the pile of stones arrived .

There's one born every minute .

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

My first mobile phone was a Motorola MR1 , bought out of Comet for £31 sometime in the late eighties/early nineties ;

That would have been remarkably good value in the late eighties or early nineties. From memory the MR1 was a GSM phone and so would have been later, probably 1994 or later if discounted.

My first mobile phone was a Sony in around 1990-2, and I bought it on special offer from Comet, because it was reduced from £800 to £400 - I think it was so heavily reduced because it was a run out model.

I still have it but haven’t seen it for many many years. Mrs D found me updating my spreadsheet which documented my rather large collection of mobile phones, which I had managed to hide in my office!

Without digging it out I can’t be more specific on the date as I can’t remember the model number. I know it was analogue (pre-GSM so cannot be used now) and I know I was still at school at the time

It was in the Hutchinson Telecom network and cost an absolute fortune to make and receive calls, it predated the days of discounted handsets and inclusive-minute call plans, and the like.

 

[Pontoneer]

I read online (and posted it here) that 90% of all new car sales in the UK are done with finance. This figure includes business users who lease their car's plus all other forms of finance. Which is not surprising, I guess, with 1.6m cars sold, how many people have £20k to £80k lying around in cash? Some do, but my guess is that not 1.6m people (and businesses).

My friend Jack , the one I mentioned earlier , who was a butcher and ran his one shop , certainly bought a new Merc each time it had been superceded by a newer model , thus getting a good deal on the old model , still a new car . My dad did the same , and I know a few other , reasonably well off people , mostly older and retired , who did . Our plumber bought a new W124 260E when he retired , and used it mainly to go to the golf club .

In the street where my mother lived , most of the neighbours , who bought the houses when the estate was built in the seventies were elderly , retired and had nice cars , mostly newish .

I think for comfortably off retired people it is quite normal to buy such cars .

Oh my W140 , I bought from a retired doctor who had bought it new , along with his several others , including his R107 and his Pagoda which are kept in carcoons inside his garage ; he'd tired of the S Class and had just bought a G-Wagen , also new , so he sold me the W140 for £500 ; and I ran it for three years until it was going to need an expensive ABS repair , at which point I gave the car away to a friend who was willing to take a punt on it