Check My Thinking

missile

Batteries loose efficiency over time & use. I would be interested to hear what range is on a three year old EV?

I can't believe you still owe £4200 on a 7 year old Kia.

I would suggest you save up / get a bank loan to avoid expensive PCP interest.
You should be able to buy similar car with less miles for circa £2500 or £36/month.

jimbo6977

think like a minicabber and get a 2nd hand prius.

DrEskimo

forgotmyname wrote: »

Zero fuel but it costs money to recharge... Not free miles.

Leaf 100 miles in bad conditions is that the more expensive one?

Just checked some road tests and they used 108 miles of range in just 66 miles. (70mph at night in ECO mode).

Not seen anyone mention a range whilst crawling along in night time traffic with the heater and wipers going.

I would say that range is pushing it unless you can charge between journey's.

I think the OP says they can charge for free at work, but even then you are talking small amount for charging at home using off peak electricity tariffs. As low as £0.05/kWh.

Sat-nav, wipers, radio etc have very little effect on the traction battery, as they are run off the same 12v battery as a ICE. Heater/air-con does have a minor effect, but it's so low it's barely worth noting on individual journeys.

The reason EV's have lower range in winter is to do with the temperature of the batteries and the battery chemistry. Batteries like to operate in the optimal temperature range, so very low temperatures can affect their efficiency. It depends on the car, as like ICE, some EVs have better aerodynamics, more efficient motors, smaller tyres, less weight etc. but my Zoe will typically do 3.2miles/kWh in the winter (below 0°C), and 4.2kWh in the summer (above 20°C). So with my 40kWh battery, that's a range of ~130mi - 170mi.

This will vary amongst cars though. The Jag i-Pace is known to struggle to get 3miiles/kWh, whereas the Telsa Model 3 has been reported to get as much as 5miles/kWh...same with the Hyundai Ioniq, which seems able to get around 4-5mi/kWh all year round!

Slow moving traffic is much much better for EV range. Crawling along in traffic at 10mph for 10miles will use far less energy than travelling 10miles at 70mph. As with ICE, it's speed that really impacts on economy.

missile wrote: »

Batteries loose efficiency over time & use. I would be interested to hear what range is on a three year old EV?

My Zoe is now over 2.5yrs old and it's State of Health (SoH) is still 99%. But it's only done 7k miles so mileage is probably more of a strong indicator than age.

Here is some use case scenario's of higher mileage cars though:

My R90 was delivered in May 2017 with SOH 104%.
4 months 100% at 16500km.
10 months 98% at 28500km
12 months 97% at 37100km
17 months 96% at 45550km
20 months 95% at 53550km
26 months 94% at 62000km

https://www.speakev.com/threads/ze40-battery-soh.73041/page-11

As you can see, battery degradation is not a big concern at all, and has minimal impact on range.

The original Leaf is an exception rather than a rule. They tried to use specific battery chemistry to minimise degradation, rather than active battery management systems to cool/heat the battery. AFAIK, every other EV uses a battery management system. Again, some cars have better ones than others. Telsa have a very good one, for example.

missile

As you can see, battery degradation is not a big concern at all, and has minimal impact on range.

It would appear other EV users are concerned https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/tesla-model-s-85kw-battery-replacement-cost
You may find this article interesting? > https://avidtp.com/battery-degradation-in-electric-vehicles-explained/

DrEskimo

missile wrote: »

It would appear other EV users are concerned https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/tesla-model-s-85kw-battery-replacement-cost

Oh I'm sure people are concerned. The question is how founded these concerns are?
There are likely threads expressing concern of an impending apocalypse and the second coming of Christ....but like battery degradation, I don't let it worry me much...!

Here is some data from a collection of Telsa Model S' to show degradation as a function of mileage:

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

missile wrote: »

You may find this article interesting? > https://avidtp.com/battery-degradation-in-electric-vehicles-explained/

Yup, thanks

Summary very much in line with my comments:

Summary
In summary, battery degradation is a lot less than manufacturers had predicted it to be, and essentially that is because EVs are not being used as aggressively in the real world as the test cycles that the manufacturers were thinking about when these cars were being developed. Also, a vast amount of money has been used to make sure that the degradation has been absolutely minimised. There are a few things you can do to make sure you personally can minimise this further, such as avoiding fast charging on hot days when the ambient temperature is high, driving your car sensibly and not aggressively driving, charging your car from a 3-7kw charger whenever you can. All of this will help your battery in the long term.

Alanp

Just be aware that some ev,s lease the batteries, even when buying used...that is an extra monthly cost to consider