The EV announcement - How will you act now The Quiz.

DrEskimo

Sorry just a few misconceptions in your post to clear up...!

Grumpy_chap said:

I remain unconvinced.  The low depreciation on EV's (currently) is simply because of low supply.  That won't remain the case for long.

What low supply? I don't know that there is low supply of any EV models at the moment? 

Grumpy_chap said:

I am not so convinced that the EV will last as long as the battery will degrade and need a "write-off" cost to replace, or I accept a car with only 5 mile range from full charge.
Let's ignore that concern, and assume the EV will do 10 years before it is run into the ground.  I don't think residual (scrap) value of the EV will be any different to the residual (scrap) value of the petrol car.

The battery will be just fine....It will have an 8-yr warranty and degradation is nowhere near these levels. The early Leafs suffered from high degradation, but they are the exception, not the rule. I know of Zoe's from 2013 with over 100,000 miles that still have battery health of >85%.

I think scrap value for a 10-year car/75,000 miles is also a bit harsh! There are 10year old 24kWh Leafs with 75,000 still being sold for £5,000. My partners 10year old Mini has done 50,000 and is worth less. I can assure you, 10-years ago the Mini was substantially more to buy than the Leaf....Imagine what the value of higher capacity EVs will be!

Grumpy_chap said:

So, the petrol car is £9k upfront less to find.  I said "break-even" at 75k miles based upon paying for petrol but zero charge for electricity, which is unrealistic.  So, by the time I get to 75k miles, the electricity will have cost at least £3k to cover that distance.  Which means I can fund another 25k miles from the petrol car, by which time another £1k on the EV (electricity costs), which takes you to yet another 10k miles of petrol.  I am now nearing 110k mileage before I get to a break-even.

I think the first thing to point out is that even EV fans acknowledge that the C4 EV is an incredibly poor value for money EV...! It is far too costly for the spec, and more reasonable comparisons would be the ZS-EV and ZS ICE, or Clio vs Zoe, where the price difference is much smaller (remember to factor in more powerful petrol motors and automatics, as well as spec differences for a fair comparison), and the EVs are much more capable.

Even still, electricity would be about £2,000 on average. If you do all your charging over night on a cheap tariff it would be ~£1,000. But assuming your £0.15/kWh price and £3,000 to do 75,000, the petrol would be about £10,000. So you've saved £7,000 on fuel costs from the initial £9,000 cost difference. You could easily see an extra £2,000 savings in VED, increases in fuel prices, servicing cost and maintenance costs.

Grumpy_chap said:

BUT, actually, it is even worse, because to get a car equivalent to the £23k petrol Citroen, 400 mile range, I need a £50k Tesla.

Even a £50k Tesla wouldn't do 400miles. I guess the more pertinent questions is do you need it to? £25k would get you a Zoe or ID3 that would happily do 200miles+.

I also come back to the residual argument with Tesla. An equivalent BMW would be more expensive than a Model 3 SR+ for spec and options (something like a heavily specced 330i). Currently, there are plenty of 1/2year old BMW 3301s on sale for <£30k, whereas there is not a single Tesla Model 3 for <£35k despite the higher initial cost of the BMW.

Of course it's up to you, and you are right that I have no idea what will happen in the next couple of years (fairly good idea mind) let alone 10years, but I was in a very similar position to you and wanted to lowest cost car to suit a very modest use case. The last 2 years with an EV are hands down the cheapest running cost of any car I have ever owned. By a huge margin. I think if I sold today I would be looking at every cost all in (Fuel, VED, insurance, GAP, servicing, maintenance and depreciation) of around £1,000 for 2 years of private motoring. Fuel costs alone for a ICE would have been more than that, despite my low mileage.
This is for a 2-year old low mileage car from a main dealer with main dealer servicing. I plan on keeping the car under a full warranty for the next 5years, so no worries about other unexpected costs. It's also a great little car to drive!

AdrianC

DrEskimo said:

So how many will actually need to use motorway rapid chargers? How many travel 200miles+ that they need a hours long charge to get 200miles? That's 400miles I'm a single day...

You are assuming destination charging is available - it may well not be.

I've related many times in similar threads here a period I spent a couple of years back, doing regular c.350 mile round trip days - sometimes twice a week - while my father was ill, then moved into a care home; visiting him and clearing his flat after he moved. I would be leaving home post-breakfast at about 6am, getting to his flat at about 10am. There was simply nowhere I could have plugged a car in at his flats, short of throwing a very, very long extension cable out of his 2nd floor window, assuming I was parked in the one adjacent space, or at the care home or hospital. Many times, I would have spent much of the day doing local journeys, between flat and care home, and to the tip and charity shops. I would then leave about 4pm, and get in about 8pm to find my dinner waiting, then unloading the car-full of stuff I'd brought back with me. No need to break the journey either way, and all easily doable on £40 of diesel without refilling. If I had needed to fill up, a five minute detour to a supermarket at either end of the motorway stretch would have sufficed.

There is no way I would have been wanting to add an hour or two to that - and it would have been 100% additional time.

Grumpy_chap

DrEskimo said:

Grumpy_chap said:

BUT, actually, it is even worse, because to get a car equivalent to the £23k petrol Citroen, 400 mile range, I need a £50k Tesla.

Even a £50k Tesla wouldn't do 400miles. I guess the more pertinent questions is do you need it to? £25k would get you a Zoe or ID3 that would happily do 200miles+.

At present, I don't need any car given lockdown means such a low mileage.

If things return to normal, my daily commute was 70 miles each way, so 140 mile round trip.  Motorway, all weathers.  I looked at the ID3 webpage yesterday evening, because it has a high reported range ("up to 336 miles") but go to the range calculator and change to "normal" driving style, and 5 degC, and that range drops to barely achieve my daily commute.

Achieve the daily commute without charging is essential and, I think, reasonable.  A charge stop of 30-45 minutes seems OK on a long drive (where you should be taking a coffee / toilet break so would be stopped anyway), but to force a stop every day to my drive home is just too much.  There is work-place charging, but £32p/kwh makes it as pricey as ICE fuel costs and there is a charge of £20/half hour if you stay on the charger once full.  I understand why that is, but you are at work to work, not fill the car with energy and, if you are in a meeting, missing that "fully charged" status is easy to do.  Not many half-hour penalties at £20 to ruin any financial incentives.

Please don't think I don't want to go EV, I just can't seem to find a way to make the finances work.

DrEskimo

AdrianC said:

DrEskimo said:

So how many will actually need to use motorway rapid chargers? How many travel 200miles+ that they need a hours long charge to get 200miles? That's 400miles I'm a single day...

You are assuming destination charging is available - it may well not be.

I've related many times in similar threads here a period I spent a couple of years back, doing regular c.350 mile round trip days - sometimes twice a week - while my father was ill, then moved into a care home; visiting him and clearing his flat after he moved. I would be leaving home post-breakfast at about 6am, getting to his flat at about 10am. There was simply nowhere I could have plugged a car in at his flats, short of throwing a very, very long extension cable out of his 2nd floor window, assuming I was parked in the one adjacent space, or at the care home or hospital. Many times, I would have spent much of the day doing local journeys, between flat and care home, and to the tip and charity shops. I would then leave about 4pm, and get in about 8pm to find my dinner waiting, then unloading the car-full of stuff I'd brought back with me. No need to break the journey either way, and all easily doable on £40 of diesel without refilling. If I had needed to fill up, a five minute detour to a supermarket at either end of the motorway stretch would have sufficed.

There is no way I would have been wanting to add an hour or two to that - and it would have been 100% additional time.

Completely agree. Yea there needs to be a lot more investment and joined up thinking in all types of charging infrastructure. I'm a big advocate for slow chargers at workplaces (where they can also potentially accommodate battery storage and solar), off-street.

My point was simply I don't know what the demand will be like for rapid motorway charging, given (hopefully) the plethora or other charging methods.

DrEskimo

Grumpy_chap said:

DrEskimo said:

Grumpy_chap said:

BUT, actually, it is even worse, because to get a car equivalent to the £23k petrol Citroen, 400 mile range, I need a £50k Tesla.

Even a £50k Tesla wouldn't do 400miles. I guess the more pertinent questions is do you need it to? £25k would get you a Zoe or ID3 that would happily do 200miles+.

At present, I don't need any car given lockdown means such a low mileage.

If things return to normal, my daily commute was 70 miles each way, so 140 mile round trip.  Motorway, all weathers.  I looked at the ID3 webpage yesterday evening, because it has a high reported range ("up to 336 miles") but go to the range calculator and change to "normal" driving style, and 5 degC, and that range drops to barely achieve my daily commute.

Achieve the daily commute without charging is essential and, I think, reasonable.  A charge stop of 30-45 minutes seems OK on a long drive (where you should be taking a coffee / toilet break so would be stopped anyway), but to force a stop every day to my drive home is just too much.  There is work-place charging, but £32p/kwh makes it as pricey as ICE fuel costs and there is a charge of £20/half hour if you stay on the charger once full.  I understand why that is, but you are at work to work, not fill the car with energy and, if you are in a meeting, missing that "fully charged" status is easy to do.  Not many half-hour penalties at £20 to ruin any financial incentives.

Please don't think I don't want to go EV, I just can't seem to find a way to make the finances work.

That sounds awfully pessimistic....

I can't find this calculator, but the ID3 has a 58kWh useable battery, so efficiency would have to be as low as 2.4miles/kWh to only do 140miles. I haven't even seen that in minus temps with my Zoe. The ID3 happens to also be a very efficient EV.

I would be very surprised if you can only manage 150miles in a full charge in even the most extreme weathers.

As above, your workplace charging needs serious overhaul and development too....those terms are ridiculous. They need lots of slow chargers. Even 3pin sockets would be fine....that would give you around 10miles of range per hour, so given a typically work day of 8hours that would be more than enough for most just to top up.

Keep_pedalling

Grumpy_chap said:

DrEskimo said:

Grumpy_chap said:

BUT, actually, it is even worse, because to get a car equivalent to the £23k petrol Citroen, 400 mile range, I need a £50k Tesla.

Even a £50k Tesla wouldn't do 400miles. I guess the more pertinent questions is do you need it to? £25k would get you a Zoe or ID3 that would happily do 200miles+.

At present, I don't need any car given lockdown means such a low mileage.

If things return to normal, my daily commute was 70 miles each way, so 140 mile round trip.  Motorway, all weathers.  I looked at the ID3 webpage yesterday evening, because it has a high reported range ("up to 336 miles") but go to the range calculator and change to "normal" driving style, and 5 degC, and that range drops to barely achieve my daily commute.

Achieve the daily commute without charging is essential and, I think, reasonable.  A charge stop of 30-45 minutes seems OK on a long drive (where you should be taking a coffee / toilet break so would be stopped anyway), but to force a stop every day to my drive home is just too much.  There is work-place charging, but £32p/kwh makes it as pricey as ICE fuel costs and there is a charge of £20/half hour if you stay on the charger once full.  I understand why that is, but you are at work to work, not fill the car with energy and, if you are in a meeting, missing that "fully charged" status is easy to do.  Not many half-hour penalties at £20 to ruin any financial incentives.

Please don't think I don't want to go EV, I just can't seem to find a way to make the finances work.

I think you are being rather pessimistic with the cold weather performance there. The range drop off between 20 degrees and 0 degrees is about 30% which would put you on the edge for the mid range battery but not the bigger 336 mile tour model. Even with the mid range battery you should be able to manage the 140 mile round trip if you trim a little bit off your motorway speed. If you don’t fancy doing that there is always the expensive heat pump option which will extend your cold weather range.

AdrianC

Grumpy_chap said:

Please don't think I don't want to go EV, I just can't seem to find a way to make the finances work.

Don't look at list prices. Look at monthlies.
Somebody earlier mentioned the Citroen C4 as having a ~£10k price difference. Citroen's config doesn't quickly quote finance figures - but Peugeot do for the 208/e208. They've got three power choices, and the rest of the configurator is identical...
https://offers.peugeot.co.uk/choose-your-peugeot/configure-all-new-208

Basic "Active" spec starts at £17.2k petrol, £19.4k diesel, £29k electric.
But look at the headline PCP figures... £250/mo petrol, £295/mo diesel, £160/mo electric...
Dig a bit more deeply, into those finance figures, and that's an anomaly from a very high £10k up-front. So let's twiddle slightly.
Base-spec 1.2/75 petrol = 47 x £250 + £950
But if you want a two-pedal petrol = 1.2/100 = 47 x £280 + £950
Bring the upfront down for the electric, and 47 x £340 + £950.
£3k upfront? £295/mo, same as the diesel.
All are for 6k/yr.

So the total cost on a four year PCP is just £2k more up front for the electric compared to a diesel, or 47 x £45 = £2.1k if you want to drip-feed it. Compared to a two-pedal petrol, and it's £3,500 upfront to bring the monthlies down to the same level, so £2,500 more, or 47 x £60 = £2.8k

OK, so that's for 24k miles - and let's wet-finger a 50mpg average at £1.20/litre = £576 in fuel saved, plus 4 x £150 VED = £1,176 over the four years - so the EV works out £900-£1,400 more expensive. But let's face it, people are going to WANT that "Look! I hug bunnies!" kudos of an EV.

Grumpy_chap

DrEskimo said:

That sounds awfully pessimistic....

I can't find this calculator, 


As above, your workplace charging needs serious overhaul and development too....those terms are ridiculous. They need lots of slow chargers. Even 3pin sockets would be fine....that would give you around 10miles of range per hour, so given a typically work day of 8hours that would be more than enough for most just to top up.

I made a mistake, the calculator was for the eC4, which showed 196 mile range at default setting, but at "normal" driving style, 70 mph and 5 degC, that range shows at 119 miles.  Applying the same reduction to the VW ID3 "up to 336" miles would mean around 200 miles, which would be fine.  However, for the "big" battery, the cost goes from £30k BMW 3-series competitor to £40k Tesla-competitor and, at that price Tesla are the technology leaders...

I don't agree with the comments about the finance being better.  There may be tricks that get the monthly PCP down to whatever low figure was plucked from thin air (by the car manufacturer), but that leaves either a massive deposit or balloon.  We all know in this forum what rotten products PCP's are unless you take it for a deposit incentive and pay off within 14 days.

DrEskimo

AdrianC said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Please don't think I don't want to go EV, I just can't seem to find a way to make the finances work.

OK, so that's for 24k miles - and let's wet-finger a 50mpg average at £1.20/litre = £576 in fuel saved, plus 4 x £150 VED = £1,176 over the four years - so the EV works out £900-£1,400 more expensive. But let's face it, people are going to WANT that "Look! I hug bunnies!" kudos of an EV.

Of course whether this terms out to be the actual cost largely depends on the GFV for each model being accurate. Now the ICE models have a fair amount of history to make pretty decent predictions. The EV on the other hand...

As I've already highlighted above, the GFV for my Zoe was about £8500, whereas at the 3yr mark I was getting trade in values of £14,000. 

The pug above has a GFV of £10,000. I would predict that the true value for a 50kWh Pug like that will be around £2-3k higher at least. If that turns out to be true, the EV is hands down cheaper.

Grumpy_chap

Current used values of EV's is high because of short supply of new EV's (because of the batteries availability), which cascades down to unrealistic used prices.  Personally, I would not buy a used EV because of there being no way to know whether the battery has been cared for or killed and no battery means "write-off" replacement.

In January this year, I enquired to Kia for a Niro EV only to be told that they cannot source a car for demo or test drive until August at the earliest but that would only be possible if I placed an order.  The dealer explained that with such a waiting list, if he could get a demo, he would sell it and take the profit.
Hyundai gave an equally poor service with regard to the Kona, I was advised I could place an order and pay deposit and take a test drive when my car arrived in September and if I didn't like it, then he'd simply sell it to someone else, but the deposit is non-refundable.
Atrocious service, no wonder the online sites do well.  With what turned out, I'm glad not to have committed though.  One assumes next year will not have the same type of upheaval as 2020.