Thinking of swapping to an EV

Pocket9s

Hi, just looking for a few opinions on the economic sense of swapping to an EV.

Current situation is I have an 09 plate Focus Estate 1.6 Petrol. Not too bad condition but 135k miles on the clock, just had an MOT last month but may need a new cam belt in a few months been quoted £400.

Commute to work varies as work across a number of locations but average approx 20-30 miles return commute per day. Part of this can claim mileage via work. Current spend on fuel is £40 per week approx. Get around £100 back at £0.45/mile via work so paying net £60 per month fuel.
Anticipating that expansion plans at work may mean my commute will increase on some days, max 80 miles return.

Have been considering getting a loan to buy an EV. Plan would be to save up for a few months and buy an EV for circa £13k in March 2020. This would be with
£1k trade in car
£2k savings
£10k loan @2.8% over 4 years - £220/mo

So total for year would be approx
Loan £2640
Fuel £500? Not sure
Tax £0
Maintenance £100 per year (poss less as heard EV is low maintenance and would be a 3-4 year old model)

Total £3240 per year


Vs keeping Focus for another few years
Loan £0
Fuel £2600
Tax £200
Maintenance £350 (approx average per year)

Total £3150 per year


Basically it looks fairly close in terms of annual cost. Probably slightly higher to get the EV, but at the end of the 4 years I have a car that is peanuts to run and will likely last another few years / can be passed to the wife for school run and shops if the battery range starts dropping. Basically would keep for 10 years approx


Just looking for opinions - any drawbacks to my plan I’ve missed?
Also any EV recommendations- looking at a Nissan Leaf ideally 30kw maybe a 24 kw. Need a 5 door with reasonable boot as carry some kit around for work. Don’t need an estate but say a Renault Zoe size prob a bit too small

Many Thanks

born_again

I costed this out last year when I got a new car. Just Sub 10K miles a year.
Zoe is £20K ish I get free charging at work. But way to small for what I need.
I got a kia stonic for same price. Now fuel is approx £20 a week.
But to buy something the same size new is at least £10K more. So that is £10K worth of fuel & servicing.
So it will be at least 7 years before the EV would start to be cost effective. That is providing I still get free charging. If not ICE wins even longer.

DrEskimo

Pocket9s wrote: »

Hi, just looking for a few opinions on the economic sense of swapping to an EV.

Current situation is I have an 09 plate Focus Estate 1.6 Petrol. Not too bad condition but 135k miles on the clock, just had an MOT last month but may need a new cam belt in a few months been quoted £400.

Commute to work varies as work across a number of locations but average approx 20-30 miles return commute per day. Part of this can claim mileage via work. Current spend on fuel is £40 per week approx. Get around £100 back at £0.45/mile via work so paying net £60 per month fuel.
Anticipating that expansion plans at work may mean my commute will increase on some days, max 80 miles return.

Have been considering getting a loan to buy an EV. Plan would be to save up for a few months and buy an EV for circa £13k in March 2020. This would be with
£1k trade in car
£2k savings
£10k loan @2.8% over 4 years - £220/mo

So total for year would be approx
Loan £2640
Fuel £500? Not sure
Tax £0
Maintenance £100 per year (poss less as heard EV is low maintenance and would be a 3-4 year old model)

Total £3240 per year


Vs keeping Focus for another few years
Loan £0
Fuel £2600
Tax £200
Maintenance £350 (approx average per year)

Total £3150 per year


Basically it looks fairly close in terms of annual cost. Probably slightly higher to get the EV, but at the end of the 4 years I have a car that is peanuts to run and will likely last another few years / can be passed to the wife for school run and shops if the battery range starts dropping. Basically would keep for 10 years approx


Just looking for opinions - any drawbacks to my plan I’ve missed?
Also any EV recommendations- looking at a Nissan Leaf ideally 30kw maybe a 24 kw. Need a 5 door with reasonable boot as carry some kit around for work. Don’t need an estate but say a Renault Zoe size prob a bit too small

Many Thanks

If an EV in your budget fits your usage, and you can comfortably charge at home or at work (preferably at home), then I would highly recommend it.

The 80miles return in a 30kWh Leaf should be OK, but would check any prospective purchase with an OBD reader and the LeafSpy app to check the exact battery health. In the winter, 90miles should be easily achievable, but obviously degradation would lower that. The Leaf's are quite bad when it comes to degradation, whereas pretty much every other EV it's a very minor issue.

Perhaps look at where 40kWh Leafs are on the market when you come to buy to give you that breathing space? I have a 41kWh Zoe, and range would not even be an issue for a 80mile trip in winter, assuming you can charge at home.

With a home charger on an EV tariff, you could get as low as £0.05/kWh between off-peak times (e.g. 00:30-04:30). 'Fuel' costs would therefore be pretty negligible (around £150 a year if you do ~10,000 miles).

Why does you loan have a cost of £2,640 though? 4yr loan at 2.8% APR for £10k would cost you £560? Obviously that's the headline rate. You might get offered higher.

DrEskimo

born_again wrote: »

I costed this out last year when I got a new car. Just Sub 10K miles a year.
Zoe is £20K ish I get free charging at work. But way to small for what I need.
I got a kia stonic for same price. Now fuel is approx £20 a week.
But to buy something the same size new is at least £10K more. So that is £10K worth of fuel & servicing.
So it will be at least 7 years before the EV would start to be cost effective. That is providing I still get free charging. If not ICE wins even longer.

Putting aside the differences in trim/spec/performance of the £20k Zoe and the £10k ICE (not even an automatic ICE is as nice as an EV), your economic comparison is flawed.

By taking the difference in just the purchase price, you are either assuming you will never resell it (in which case the 7-year repayment window isn't that bad, considering the other savings in servicing/maintenance/possible increased usage/VED), or you are assuming a £10k ICE after X years will be worth the same amount as a £20k EV after X years.

In other words, the savings in fuel needs to be counted against the difference in depreciation, not the difference in purchase price, as you need to account for the fact a more expensive EV will have a higher resale cost than a cheaper ICE.

In fact, so far the high demand and low supply have made EV's even cheaper when it comes to depreciation, as well as other ongoing costs.

Of course I appreciate a higher purchase price is a barrier to entry for some people, and may increase other costs, such as finance needed, but it's not an indication of total cost of ownership.

Pocket9s

DrEskimo wrote: »

If an EV in your budget fits your usage, and you can comfortably charge at home or at work (preferably at home), then I would highly recommend it.

The 80miles return in a 30kWh Leaf should be OK, but would check any prospective purchase with an OBD reader and the LeafSpy app to check the exact battery health. In the winter, 90miles should be easily achievable, but obviously degradation would lower that. The Leaf's are quite bad when it comes to degradation, whereas pretty much every other EV it's a very minor issue.

Perhaps look at where 40kWh Leafs are on the market when you come to buy to give you that breathing space? I have a 41kWh Zoe, and range would not even be an issue for a 80mile trip in winter, assuming you can charge at home.

With a home charger on an EV tariff, you could get as low as £0.05/kWh between off-peak times (e.g. 00:30-04:30). 'Fuel' costs would therefore be pretty negligible (around £150 a year if you do ~10,000 miles).

Why does you loan have a cost of £2,640 though? 4yr loan at 2.8% APR for £10k would cost you £560? Obviously that's the headline rate. You might get offered higher.

Hi thanks for the info, when costing I just looked at the total loan repayment per year, rather than the interest. You are right though the total finance cost will only be 560 over the 4 years, and the residual value of the car will obviously be higher than my current car would be.


Was put off the Zoe due to size and battery lease cost, but doing some more research it’s not much smaller than the Leaf. Leasing the battery will be £1320/yr though plus the 40kWh Zoe will be £16-17k to buy so numbers might not stack up as well.

Might need to wait fir the 40kWh leaf to come down a bit and hope my cam belt holds out!

Pocket9s

DrEskimo wrote: »

If an EV in your budget fits your usage, and you can comfortably charge at home or at work (preferably at home), then I would highly recommend it.

The 80miles return in a 30kWh Leaf should be OK, but would check any prospective purchase with an OBD reader and the LeafSpy app to check the exact battery health. In the winter, 90miles should be easily achievable, but obviously degradation would lower that. The Leaf's are quite bad when it comes to degradation, whereas pretty much every other EV it's a very minor issue.

Perhaps look at where 40kWh Leafs are on the market when you come to buy to give you that breathing space? I have a 41kWh Zoe, and range would not even be an issue for a 80mile trip in winter, assuming you can charge at home.

With a home charger on an EV tariff, you could get as low as £0.05/kWh between off-peak times (e.g. 00:30-04:30). 'Fuel' costs would therefore be pretty negligible (around £150 a year if you do ~10,000 miles).

Why does you loan have a cost of £2,640 though? 4yr loan at 2.8% APR for £10k would cost you £560? Obviously that's the headline rate. You might get offered higher.

Didn’t know about these tariffs thanks for the info

If you know of any good online resources for further info re uk EV driving would be much appreciated.

missile

jeepjunkie wrote: »

You need to look on plugshare, zapmap etc to see what charge points are near home, work, your usual routes and if any are free.

Home charging is all very well but pretty limiting if there is no opportunity to charge when out and about. Public chargers are often broken, ice'd and taxi'd with no backup chargers nearby.

Personally if my EV broke tomorrow I'd probably go back to petrol cos although cheap to run they are all low range and limiting. Even Teslas still have a crap range when compared to the wife's diesel.

Hard to recommend unless you really want to give them try, it's early days...

I am pleased to hear an honest appraisal from someone who owns an EV :beer:

DrEskimo

Pocket9s wrote: »

Hi thanks for the info, when costing I just looked at the total loan repayment per year, rather than the interest. You are right though the total finance cost will only be 560 over the 4 years, and the residual value of the car will obviously be higher than my current car would be.


Was put off the Zoe due to size and battery lease cost, but doing some more research it’s not much smaller than the Leaf. Leasing the battery will be £1320/yr though plus the 40kWh Zoe will be £16-17k to buy so numbers might not stack up as well.

Might need to wait fir the 40kWh leaf to come down a bit and hope my cam belt holds out!

Not all Zoes have a leased battery. It's not easy, but there are a few battery owned versions knocking around. You can tell by the fact it's called an 'i' version, and has a small 'i' badge on the back.

I picked up my battery owned 41kWh Zoe in Feb for £14,500 from a main dealer (2years old with 5,500miles on the clock) by taking advantage of their PCP deal contribution and then selling soon after. Typically they are around £16-£17k now though. That's what I mean about taking into account the residual value...many owners have experienced appreciation!

Worth keeping an eye out if you can find something similar. Zoe's tend to be lowered priced than the Leaf's.

DrEskimo

jeepjunkie wrote: »

You need to look on plugshare, zapmap etc to see what charge points are near home, work, your usual routes and if any are free.

Home charging is all very well but pretty limiting if there is no opportunity to charge when out and about. Public chargers are often broken, ice'd and taxi'd with no backup chargers nearby.

Personally if my EV broke tomorrow I'd probably go back to petrol cos although cheap to run they are all low range and limiting. Even Teslas still have a crap range when compared to the wife's diesel.

Hard to recommend unless you really want to give them try, it's early days...

Completely agree RE the charging infrastructure (non-Tesla), but not sure about the range bit. It all depends on the user.

Between me and my partner, we have only once in the last 5yrs driven a distance that would make me doubt taking the Zoe and probably just use the OH petrol Mini.

If I had a Tesla I wouldn't even think twice. After 200miles I would happily stop for a 30-45min break, and the Tesla infrastructure is never an issue.

My father-in-law regularly drives his Model S 85 from Bedfordshire to Newcastle and never has an issue. Even driven to south Italy in it on two occasions....

JamoLew

I think your maths is possibly a bit wonky

You mention paying £60 net a month currently for fuel yet have your annual fuel bill as £2600

Even increasing the commute to 80miles on some days wont get close to this.

£2600 would be likely if you were doing the 80miles per day and not claiming any back however

GunJack

You're worried about £400 for a cam belt but considering a £10k loan? Think I'd be looking at the cambelt kit tbh....