Commuter car (primarily motorway) - up to c. £20k

dannymccann

DrEskimo wrote: »

I was bored so looked at the total cost of ownership of both the Ioniq hybrid and the Ioniq EV over 5yrs with 20,000 miles per year. Hopefully I can prove to you that EV's are both great for the environment AND will save you money

We will compare this petrol hybrid for £18,500, with this EV for £23k.

We'll look at costs over 5yrs to coincide with the car warranty so we don't have to factor in out of warranty repair costs.

Depreciation at 60% for both; £7,400 for the Hybrid, £9,200 for the EV.
Fuel costs; 20k miles averaging 60MPG at £1.25 per lt for petrol = £9,000 over 5yrs.
20k miles assuming 4mi/kWh is 5,000kWh + 10% energy loss = 5,500kWh, at £0.05 per kWh = £1,375 over 5yrs
VED; £700 for the hybrid, £0 for the EV.
Servicing; Full servicing costs from Hyundai can be found on their website by typing in the reg of each car. Added up it works out at £2,473.51 over 5yrs for the hybrid and £1,073.37 for the EV (and only 1 per year, as apposed to 2 with 20k miles per year)
MOT/insurance; going to be the same for both so didn't bother...

Totals
Hybrid: £23,273.51
EV: £16,693.37

A saving of £6,580.14, or £1,316.03 per year....

Oh and there is the cost to replace brake pads/discs, which will probably never need doing on the EV!

So even if you kept it way beyond the 8yr battery warranty, you have save so much already that even in the unlikely scenario you need to pay £5k to replace the battery, you are still ahead. Besides, you could look at repurposing the degraded batteries into a home storage solution for minimal extra cost, and replace the cars battery with a higher density battery pack to not only restore the original range, but possibly double it from it's original range!

Nice analysis, you've got me thinking about it!!

It isn't really worth it for me at the moment. I've got a 12 plate 2.0d Mondeo I paid £10k for 4 years ago and when we needed a second car I picked up a 59 plate 1.6d Focus for £2k for the wife and kids to knock about town in.

I would love an all electric car as I have the space and facility to run one, my commute is only 20 miles each way, and I'm stuck on cruise control at 55 the whole way so an electric vehicle (or vehicles) would suit us perfectly. I just can't get over the asking price at the moment, if the purchaser is willing to sacrifice the comfort and 'newness' factors that come with a newer vehicle and buy a higher mileage older vehicle the value factor just doesn't kick in quickly enough to make it worthwhile.

For someone in my position however who was looking at new or nearly new I personally think you would be bonkers to completely overlook the electric vehicles

gord115

If I was doing that mileage I'd definitely go electric.

A nearly new Hyundai Ioniq would be perfect for you.

System

worried_jim wrote: »

I don't think anyone would seriously recommend a RR Evoque if they wanted a reliable car. I do get the style over substance though, they look very nice I'm my local Waitrose car park. Has anyone ever bought one with their own money or are they all rented for three years on pcp's?

Nice joke but the residuals on an Evoque are no joke suggesting you don't need to rent one considering how much they get back on part exchange.

Rockingfella

Anyone had any experience with the Audi TT TDI? They can be had extremely cheaply and seem to return above 45 real world MPG.

Seen a few below £14k fully loaded and with fairly decent mileage.

DrEskimo

Rockingfella wrote: »

Wow - some excellent responses here.

I find the EV argument interesting as the fuel saving is quite significant.

Interesting nobody has suggested a second hand EV - shame the Model 3 hasn't been around for a few years... That looks like a great car.

The issue with second hand is that there isn't much choice given than the EV market is still in it's infancy!

Your choices for the £20k bracket are mostly small hatchbacks/city cars, like the Nissan Leaf 24/30kWh, the Renault Zoe 22/41kWh or the BMW i3.

The Nissan leaf 24kWh, Renault Zoe 22kWh and the i3 would struggle to consistently do 75miles all year round on motorways. The Nissan 30kWh might just manage, and the Renault Zoe 41kWh will certainly manage, but they aren't what I would class as comfortable commuter cars!

I personally bought a used 41kWh Renault Zoe (battery owned, which are hard to find as most are battery leased...) and I'm currently getting 180miles on a charge, but I do very little miles in it (about 100/week) and would want something more...'luxury' for a daily 75mi commute I think.

For your price I think the Ioniq is a decent prospect. The only other option might be the NIssan Leaf 40kWh, but they are around the £25k mark? Might be some private sellers closer to £23k though.

As you say, a used M3 in a few years time would be nice! It's certainly what I am waiting for!

System

DrEskimo wrote: »

Data from high mileage Tesla's are showing how degradation barely drops below 80% even after 250k KM.

https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-data/

Tesla have an active temperature maintenance system which both heats and cools the batteries to keep them in optimal condition. Now go drag up the stats for the Nissan Leaf which doesn't have any of that. I think you'll find they're much different. In fact they lose range over twice as fast on average as that of the Tesla and whereas the degradation of the Tesla is fast initially and then slows down, with the Nissan Leaf the opposite occurs and as it gets older/higher mileage the rate of degradation actually increases.

https://pushevs.com/2018/03/20/nissan-leaf-battery-degradation-data-24-vs-30-kwh-batteries/

We will compare this petrol hybrid for £18,500, with this EV for £23k.

Why are you using a petrol hybrid for comparison? Why are you not using a pure ICE engined car? Oh wait that's right because the hybrid has a battery so narrows the difference in purchase price compared to full ICE vs EV and would show your claim to be bogus.

It's another one of those EV myths that batteries are a common fail point and degrade so quickly that the require constant replacements. Perpetuated largely by people not understanding the systems in place in EV's compared to their phones and laptops....

I know more about it at a technical level than you seem to. Little to no thermal management which is the route that most of the low cost "normal" EVs are taking as opposed to active battery thermal management in premium models such as the Tesla 3 results in much more rapid loss of capacity. Couple that with the fact that there's going to be a tendency for people who buy Leafs and the like to be charging them to 100% on a far more frequent basis and you're going to end up with a lot of Leaf/Zoe sized EVs like this one:

https://insideevs.com/news/342252/this-nissan-leaf-already-lost-more-than-half-of-its-battery-capacity-video/

From the article: The one unusual thing to notice about this particular LEAF is 4,828 AC chargers, which translates to an average of just 22.4 (13.9 miles) between charges. If those were charges to 100% SOC (full charges), combined with high temperature, then perhaps that's the reason.

Guess how your average mum is going to be charging their EV? At home, on AC, to 100% after a week of doing school runs so after only doing a few dozen miles a week.

DrEskimo

Tarambor wrote: »

Tesla have an active temperature maintenance system which both heats and cools the batteries to keep them in optimal condition. Now go drag up the stats for the Nissan Leaf which doesn't have any of that. I think you'll find they're much different.

Yes, which is precisely why the Gen 1 Nissan Leaf is the only EV ever made without temperature management. So the point is relevant to only Gen 1 Nissan Leafs, and completely irrelevant to any other EV.

Tarambor wrote: »

Why are you using a petrol hybrid for comparison? Why are you not using a pure ICE engined car? Oh wait that's right because the hybrid has a battery so narrows the difference in purchase price compared to full ICE vs EV and would show your claim to be bogus.

Because the Ioniq doesn't come in a pure ICE variant...?

I thought picking a car that was nearly £5k cheaper would satisfy your claim that an equivalent ICE is 'several thousand typically', but apparently not. So shall we re-run with £7k cheaper, but maintain the Hybrids better MPG to really stack it in favour of the ICE? OK...

RRP: £16k
Depreciation at 60%; Would be worth £6,400, so £9,600 in depreciation costs
Fuel costs; 20k miles averaging 60MPG at £1.25 per lt for petrol = £9,000 over 5yrs.
VED; £700
Servicing; Sod it, lets assume servicing costs are the same as the EV, even though they won't be....£1,000

Totals
ICE: £20,300

So now it's £3k cheaper than the hybrid (although not really, as servicing would cost the same, and fuel economy wouldn't be as good...), but still ~£3.5k more expensive than the EV.

Tarambor wrote: »

I know more about it at a technical level than you seem to. Little to no thermal management which is the route that most of the low cost "normal" EVs are taking as opposed to active battery thermal management in premium models such as the Tesla 3 results in much more rapid loss of capacity. Couple that with the fact that there's going to be a tendency for people who buy Leafs and the like to be charging them to 100% on a far more frequent basis and you're going to end up with a lot of Leaf/Zoe sized EVs like this one

Ah yes....Nissan's decision to use battery cell chemistry (so-called Lizard battery) in lieu of battery Thermal Management System (TMS) has a lot to answer for when it comes to the misconception about EV battery longevity!

Just to be clear, it is ONLY the early Nissan Leafs that do not have TMS.

To suggest other EVs, like the Zoe don't is false. All Renault Zoe's have thermal management:

"Fortunately the Renault ZOE has a TMS (Thermal Management System) to make sure that the battery pack stays near its ideal temperature of 25º C."

https://pushevs.com/2019/02/10/renault-zoe-ze-40-full-battery-specs/

It is why I have seen users of Zoe's as old as 2014 with over 200k KM reporting SoH of 91%. Mine only has 6k miles on, but after 2yrs my SoH currently stands at 99%

The issue was thought to be reduced for the 30kWh version, until fleet data provided evidence of even more accelerated degradation compared to the Gen 1 24kWh, however it turned out to be a software issue, whereby the BMS was not using the correct capacity to indicate SoH (certainly didn't help squash peoples concerns about degradation!!):

"The problem came to Nissan’s attention in the late fall of 2017 and was diagnosed as a possible software issue with the battery controller providing inaccurate calculations that are used to determine the state of charge (SOC) and the range available from the battery. Analysis and testing by Nissan identified that this was indeed the issue. Recently a software update was issued to correct the inaccurate calculations."

https://insideevs.com/news/338528/update-nissan-has-software-fix-for-2016-17-leaf-30-kwh-battery-reporting-issues/

Personally, I have seen plenty of high mileage 30kWh Leafs for sale that have minimal battery degradation, since the SoH is directly displayed on the right side of the indicated remaining miles, but the lack of TMS would still dissuade me from buying an early Leaf.

Even the 40kWh Leaf only has passive cooling IIRC, hence all the throttling at rapid chargers after one use. Quite why they ignored the use of proper active TMS is beyond me....

silverwhistle

Yep, from my reading Nissan have really shot themselves in the foot and will suffer badly with all the new models being announced. Not for nothing do Nissan owners call the mileage indicator the GOM (GuessOMeter) and Rapidgate has put off many. Still good for a household with 2 cars but not for other usage profiles.

The issue with second hand is that there isn't much choice given than the EV market is still in it's infancy!

This deserves highlighting. At least the OP is doing the mileage to justify spending a reasonable amount on a car. I'm early retired and although I could afford (say) a SH battery lease Zoe it wouldn't make economic sense. For all the talk of Uber and other "personal mobility solutions" I still need the convenience of a car in my circumstances. In two year's time I'll renew my interest, and my current car will a potential first car or snapped up by the Bangernomics crowd.

mutley74

OP I do 70-80 miles per day = 2 hours in the car. Just traded in my Nissan diesel for a new Ioniq hybrid. Looking forward to driving it. Life is too short to just keep saving. If you want a better car - do some test drives and buy if you within your budget. Enjoy.

jimbo6977

Buy the most comfortable car you can afford, by which I don’t mean most toys or flashiest interior but literally the most comfortable. You could be spending 4 hours a day in that bad boy. A life on the M25 does not require great handling or rubber-band tyres on 22in rims. Rather it befits a comfy seat, decent ergonomics and a “pliant” ride.

I’d go for a Citroen C3.