Cheapest/Greenest car to run?

iamshell86

Hi
Every time I drive my van I feel guilty about the impact on the environment, but it's so expensive to use public transport!
I want to buy the greenest car AND keep costs as low as possible to run. I have a budget of up to £5k for a second-hand car and use the vehicle for infrequent (4 times a month) long distance (200 miles each way). 
Can someone please recommend the best car/s to buy?
Thank you

knightstyle

Our son uses a Smart For2 with the front seat removed for all his local deliveries unless they are too big in which case he uses his van. He also does some journeys over 150 miles away and is amazed at how little fuel he uses.  BUT servicing can be dearer than a Fiesta!
If it were me I would but an older Japanese car and service it myself as depreciation and servicing costs eat into any savings made by buying a frugal car.

BOWFER

For your budget, you're only really going to get petrol or diesel.
The cheapest to run (diesel) isn't going to be the greenest.
So you're down to petrol, which isn't the cheapest....
You COULD get an electric car (Zoe) for £5000, but you'll have battery rental (approx £70 a month) and it will only do around 80-90 miles before you need to recharge - are you will to do that on a 200 mile journey?

DrEskimo

BOWFER said:

For your budget, you're only really going to get petrol or diesel.
The cheapest to run (diesel) isn't going to be the greenest.
So you're down to petrol, which isn't the cheapest....
You COULD get an electric car (Zoe) for £5000, but you'll have battery rental (approx £70 a month) and it will only do around 80-90 miles before you need to recharge - are you will to do that on a 200 mile journey?

Worth noting you can buy the battery lease out on all Zoe's now. Price is dependent on age only, so a 2013 22kWh Zoe would be around £2-3k I think. You also get a 8-year warranty from date of registration, so a year or two on the oldest models still.

Alternative is a 24kWh Leaf. The higher charging rate (50kW) with Chademo would certainly make it much more viable for long distance...but 200miles 4x a week....you will probably be looking at about 50-70miles before a recharge at motorway speeds, so at least 3 stops at about 20-30mins a stop. I think that would get very boring very quickly....

It's a shame, as if you only did short journeys it would be absolutely ideal to achieve what you wanted....

ElefantEd

Agree, I've got a Leaf and its brilliant but I wouldn't use it for weekly 400 mile journeys. Your best bet is perhaps a 3-4 year old 2nd hand small cheap car like a Micra, which does good mpg and is cheap to service and run.

Scrapit

Motorbike?

forgotmyname

Define GREENEST.  My current car uses more fuel than my previous car but it must be green because it's only
£30 tax where the old one was £220.

My classic 1972 3500cc V8 Range Rover must have been even better for the enviroment as that was free to tax
even though it struggled to get more than 12mpg.

Is an electric car green? Probably not, your just pushing the emissions elsewhere unless you only charge it
using your own solar.  But what emissions were there making the car and making the solar panels delivered
in a diesel truck.

DrEskimo

forgotmyname said:

Is an electric car green? Probably not, your just pushing the emissions elsewhere unless you only charge it
using your own solar.  But what emissions were there making the car and making the solar panels delivered
in a diesel truck.

The reduction of tail pipe emissions from the lack of petrol/diesel  (not forgetting of course all the environmental impacts and energy required to mine and refine crude oil...) more than compensates for the energy and CO2 used to manufacture and charge an EV (and is only improving every year).

There are plenty of independent, peer review reports showing the 'well to wheel' impact of EV relative to ICE. There's nothing probable about it....

The other 'green' aspect is local air quality. There is obviously no doubt about the advantages of EVs there.

Herzlos

iamshell86 said:

 I have a budget of up to £5k for a second-hand car and use the vehicle for infrequent (4 times a month) long distance (200 miles each way).

If you're only using it 4 times a month for a 400 mile round trip, I'd be very tempted to just rent a car for the trips. You can normally get a supermini for something silly like £15/day if you book in advance.

With any car you're probably going to be paying more than that for insurance/maintenance/repairs/tax/etc.

jimbo6977

Suzuki Celerio allegedly gets 72 mpg running on petrol. 

However, in the context of the "reduce, re-use, recycle" hierarchy, is it not better to reduce the number of vehicles produced and just use your van?

Petriix

There are different kinds of 'green'. It depends whether you care more about global heating or local air quality. Diesel is generally significantly lower in terms of CO2 per mile but worse for particulate emissions.

Personally, I'd go for whatever consumes the least fuel per mile while comfortably fulfilling your journey requirements; with the caveat that you might be able to adapt your journeys to a lower pollution form of transport or even reduce or eliminate them if you really want to be green.