Car with a 300 mile range which can recharge to 80% in 15 mins

michaels

The issue for me is the very poor mpg and poor reliability resulting / huge repair costs from only using the car for multiple short journeys from cold. With a pcp the car is new so any mechanical problems are not my problem and with electric I don't get the mpg hit from running on the cold cycle, nor of course suffer any depreciation.

Before when I had different usage patterns driving something old and accepting the repair / depreciation cot made sense but it doesn't currently.

kabayiri

michaels wrote: »

The issue for me is the very poor mpg and poor reliability resulting / huge repair costs from only using the car for multiple short journeys from cold.
...

I was told to push the diesel car beyond 3,000 revs once a week to "blow out the cobwebs".

It certainly seems a cheaper solution than DPF replacement which can easily be 4 figures in cost.

But I agree that diesel cars suit a certain journey profile.

wotsthat

cells wrote: »

Fuel for a diesel or petrol car over its lifetime is quite cheap. 110,000 mile life at 50mpg is about 10,000 litres. Fuel is what 40p plus 70p tax? So £4,000 fuel and £7,000 tax.

£4,000 fuel for a cars lifetime is quite good.
For a lot of people depreciation and insurance tends to be a bigger lifetime cost something self drive cars will hopefully help with

It's not £4k fuel it's £11k. You can't just ignore tax to big up petrol engines.

cells

wotsthat wrote: »

It's not £4k fuel it's £11k. You can't just ignore tax to big up petrol engines.

its an accounting trick. if all cars switched to electricity so the £7k a car tax bill went away what do you think would happen? well they would devise a way to charge more or less £7k an electric car maybe in the form of a tax per mile.

So yes I think its more than fair to say it costs about £4k to fuel an oil car for its life and ignore the tax as the tax is really on vehicle transport not on oil (which is why red diesel is not taxed) its just so far been the case that its very easy to collect by putting the tax on petrol/diesel when it changes to a per mile tax we will see what happens

wotsthat

cells wrote: »

its an accounting trick. if all cars switched to electricity so the £7k a car tax bill went away what do you think would happen? well they would devise a way to charge more or less £7k an electric car maybe in the form of a tax per mile.

So yes I think its more than fair to say it costs about £4k to fuel an oil car for its life and ignore the tax as the tax is really on vehicle transport not on oil (which is why red diesel is not taxed) its just so far been the case that its very easy to collect by putting the tax on petrol/diesel when it changes to a per mile tax we will see what happens

I can swap my fully funded company BMW for the near equivalent BMW 330 PHEV and reduce my tax by c£300/ month. Using your logic I might as well pay an extra £3600 tax today because it's an accounting trick and my tax might increase by £3600 in the future.

cells

Its simply fooling yourself thinking the £11k to power an oil car through its life is all fuel when its clearly a £4k fuel saving and a £7k tax saving.

Maybe fuel prices on your receipt should quote the fuel and tax separately so its more clear to you.

Anyone who claims they save £x on fuel with their EVs really should claim they save about 35% of x on fuel and contribute 65% of x less to taxes.

prowla

I think electric cars are not yet mature.

The F1 cars with supplementary electric motors as translated into some (expensive!) road cars.

The Formula E cars are a good comparative indicator; they can't carry charge for a full race and the drivers have to swap cars half-way through. It's said that next year's should be able to do a full race, so let's see.

For me electric cars are a way off being realistic yet, so it's still in the "early adopters" phase.

(Mind you, what about an old '70s milk float?)

tommysaver

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So that's £2k to £2.5k in petrol (using your figures and ratios), perhaps £300 in depreciation, 2 MOT's (one to sell it), 2 years of VED, and extra maintenance costs as EV's are cheap to maintain and have less wear on tyres, brake pads, brake discs etc.

Doesn't seem cheaper to me? I suspect michaels has gotten a 'new car' for the same cost as your old Saxo.

Mart.

Sorry, that was a massive over estimate on my part.

Could you clarify what type of deal you get with this £3000 malarky? Is that 2 years of 'renting' an electric car and then giving it back?

I've been driving 6 years now since the age of 17, unfortunately lumbered with relatively high mileage for 4 of those.

I've averaged over 20k the past 4 years. My saxo VTR comparatively averaged around 48MPG, got over 50 once! But I'm nerdy with things like this and interested in costs. (I took it from 65,000 to 134,000, truly insane value for money.)

I currently have a diesel and figures to hand so...

I generally get 655 miles from my 13.2 gallon tank. Works out to around 49.5MPG.

At current prices this enables me to do ~ 23,500 miles a year to the cost of £2360.

So.. given an electric vehicle is let's face it not going to be doing that kind of mileage, it's not what it's designed for, I'd say 6000 miles a year a conservative estimate?

So the equivalent fuel cost in a saxo / efficient diesel is around £600, say £650 just to be sure then.

So you've got a £600 - £1000 car (Saxo) fully MOT'd and healthy if your lucky,

£50 reserved for the next MOT, and say £250 spending money for tyres (£50 each) and consumables,

£150 tax.

So, a total (worst case) of £1000

+ £250 + £150 + £650 for petrol = £1050

= £2050 for the car and 1 year running costs.

Have another years running costs (Very elaborate! I probably spent £340 on mine in 3 years of ownership, with all those miles!)

+ 250 +150 + 650 = £1050


So after 2 years, you now have a car half it's value at £500

and have spent out £2100 in total to keep the thing going and petrol for 6000 miles a year.

£2100 + £500 = £2600

And that's all very worst case in my opinion! Likely these electric cars won't even do 5k a year.

Sorry if that's a bit scrambled.. I need my bed.

wotsthat

tommysaver wrote: »

I currently have a diesel and figures to hand so...

I generally get 655 miles from my 13.2 gallon tank. Works out to around 49.5MPG.

At current prices this enables me to do ~ 23,500 miles a year to the cost of £2360.

So.. given an electric vehicle is let's face it not going to be doing that kind of mileage, it's not what it's designed for, I'd say 6000 miles a year a conservative estimate?

So the equivalent fuel cost in a saxo / efficient diesel is around £600, say £650 just to be sure then.

So you've got a £600 - £1000 car (Saxo) fully MOT'd and healthy if your lucky,

£50 reserved for the next MOT, and say £250 spending money for tyres (£50 each) and consumables,

£150 tax.

So, a total (worst case) of £1000

+ £250 + £150 + £650 for petrol = £1050

= £2050 for the car and 1 year running costs.

Have another years running costs (Very elaborate! I probably spent £340 on mine in 3 years of ownership, with all those miles!)

+ 250 +150 + 650 = £1050


So after 2 years, you now have a car half it's value at £500

and have spent out £2100 in total to keep the thing going and petrol for 6000 miles a year.

£2100 + £500 = £2600

And that's all very worst case in my opinion! Likely these electric cars won't even do 5k a year.

Sorry if that's a bit scrambled.. I need my bed.

I think you need to take the car itself out of the equation because a £1k Saxo vs a £20k EV will confuse things.

Why not assume, for the sake of argument, that in a few years you might be able to pick up an old EV for £1k?

Some calculations I did (a while ago) put the electric cost at around 2.5p/ miles so x 6000 = £180 vs £650.

EV's are cheaper to maintain and, currently, there's no road tax either. If you've got solar panels some of those miles will be free.

Like you I'm not ready for EV yet because, IMO, the cars are still a little too expensive and my mileage is far too high but they are getting cheaper and ranges further.

In a few years I doubt you'll have a choice.

wotsthat

cells wrote: »

Its simply fooling yourself thinking the £11k to power an oil car through its life is all fuel when its clearly a £4k fuel saving and a £7k tax saving.

Maybe fuel prices on your receipt should quote the fuel and tax separately so its more clear to you.

Anyone who claims they save £x on fuel with their EVs really should claim they save about 35% of x on fuel and contribute 65% of x less to taxes.

You're overthinking this.

If you put 1 less litre of fuel in your car you save £1.10. It really doesn't matter how you break down that £1.10.

If I drink 1 less bottle of wine I save £5.50 and am fully aware that some of it is a tax saving. I don't think I've only saved £2.50 and ignore the £3 duty and vat because I assume the government are only going to find a way to recoup it later.