How do ordinary people make the switch to electric vehicles ?

Grumpy_chap

An ICE achieves around 1 - 1.5 miles per kWh.

An EV around 4 miles per kWh.

Nebulous2

Sea_Shell said:

What sort of miles per kWh are people getting from their EVs?

What tariffs are you currently on?

How do you see your costs increasing once you're on the cap (approx 21ppkwh)?

What if prices hit 30-35ppkwh?

I've just done a comparison - its scary how much my van costs to run - without me noticing.  It runs down, I put in £75 worth of diesel and continue regardless. 

Retired in March, I've taken a part-time job which I thought was 25 miles away but it turns out to be 27. I thought two return trips would be quite straightforward in my leaf, but dark weather, headlights, a need to demist and a few work miles while there add up and getting the two return trips was tight. I use public charging at 21p per unit, did exactly 120 miles and it cost £8.01 from full battery to full battery for both trips. My current tariff at home is 19.8p per unit, so very little in it if I could charge at home. 

By comparison my van has a long-term average of 42 mpg. Much of that recently has been on the same route. With the current price of diesel that works out at £9.50 per day. 

£19 in the van, versus £8 in the leaf, for my two shifts. 

Petriix

Sea_Shell said:

What sort of miles per kWh are people getting from their EVs?

What tariffs are you currently on?

How do you see your costs increasing once you're on the cap (approx 21ppkwh)?

What if prices hit 30-35ppkwh?

I'm averaging around 4.2 miles per kWh battery to wheel with ~ 15% losses from charging, so 3.6 miles per kWh meter to wheel.

About 70% of my charging is free - half of that from home solar and half from free supermarket chargers. Almost all of the rest is coming at (currently) 17.6p per kWh from Neon Reef since my 12.6p tariff died with Symbio.

I'm almost certainly going to be installing home batteries and switching to Octopus Go or similar in the next 6 months. I'm also investing in a wind farm with Ripple Energy.

So far it's averaging 1.3p per mile but that will likely increase until I get setup on the cheap overnight rate.

motorguy

Grumpy_chap said:

motorguy said:

Of course they'll be bothered, and heres the reason why - they are on commission to sell cars.  

They dont sell cars on list price, they sell cars on the monthlies.

Give them even £1 more commission to sell the electric car and they'll sell them.  Give them the choice between not selling a car and selling an electric one and they'll sell the electric one.  Target them to sell a percentage electric cars per month and they'll sell a percentage electric cars per month.  

Thats how sales people work.

And that will come when the manufacturer deems they want it to.  Just like MINI told their franchises to drop the percentage of diesels sold in preparation for them phasing them out, and just like the manufacturers tell the franchises they must sell a certain amount of finance packages from their finance divisions, the manufacturers will at some point lean on the franchises to maintain / gain market share and at that point the sales people will sell.

You might think they sit there and scratch their nuts and do sod all, but they do hit their targets otherwise they're out.  

And if you're consistently getting bad attitude when you try to buy a car then you're either very very unlucky finding only the bad dealerships or maybe the problem isnt them, Grumpy Chap?   

What is a punter meant to do?  Go to the Dealer and beg to be allowed to buy a car?  That is not going to happen regularly unless the customer is desperate:

Where did i say that?

People go in to dealers and buy cars successfully every day.  In fact millions are sold successfully every year.

Buying a new car has never been easier.  I dont see how / why you're saying its not.  You dont even have to go near a dealer any more if you dont want to.

motorguy

Grumpy_chap said:

BOWFER said:

Colleague here just asked if I could call the local Nissan dealer on the off-chance they had a Leaf in stock.
They've got one, he's hot-footing it over now.

That desperation can't possibly be the norm.  Particularly at a premium brand where the need can always be met at 2/3rd the price point.  That means the service has to be to-notch as the customer clearly has a significant amount of discretion in their choice.  Getting a new car is an entirely discretionary choice.

In fact, when I enquired about the ES, that would have pandered to the "monthlies" target if that's what the sales person prefers - selling finance not the car.  
Lexus marketing had successfully targeted me with an e-mail that got me from not changing my car (just something that I'd need to do in due course) and I'd never really thought of Lexus as a "brand for me" before to:

• review the Lexus models and pick one I felt would work
• Assess online against competitor models (I even wrote in another thread on here about assessing against the TM3LR)
• Check the offer against brokers
• Got me in to the showroom, only to be met with the killer line "that model is not really that good Sir" - it doesn't offer much route back for either the Sales person or the customer

Even when Dealers have put the effort in to secure my business, they totally blow it. 
Many years ago I wanted a Rover 414 SLi saloon and one evening driving home from work, I noticed the local used car Dealer had one on the forecourt - it was even in the best colour, British Racing Green - and the price was just about in the limit of what I'd been saving up. 
Come the weekend, I polished my MG Metro to within an inch of it's life so it would look good for a trade in and duly visited the Dealer only to be told the car was already gone. 
The Salesman said "wait there, let me check my stock list, I can see what we have at our other branches or due in"
A short wait later and the Salesman emerges all excited "Yep, we've got just the perfect car for you in our neighbouring branch - I've called them up and it is still there.  I've asked them to get it ready for you and put a hold on it, so let me run you over to look at it"
Naively, I simply agreed and off we go chatting about the features of the car as we go.
Leapt out the car, met by the eager colleague at the other branch and shown the "perfect" car to my utter disappointment. 
Sitting in front of me was a sporty (but not XR2i) Fiesta with the headlight hanging loose over the bumper. 
I held my nerve and said "so, where's the car I'm looking at?" 
The overly excited response from both salesmen "this is it - the perfect car for you, ideal moving from the Metro"
I simply shrugged and said "but I want a Rover 414" and was met with silence before my annoyance set in and my next question was "why have you wasted my time bringing me here to show me this?" and then on the receiving end of abuse from the Salesmen for wasting their time (!)

I did eventually get a 414SLi from a Rover dealer a few months later, and I loved it.  It was not better than any other car of the time, but it was the car I wanted, which made up for any shortcomings and I absolutely loved it.


So, car sales representatives are absolutely useless in my experience. 

It does seem as though the salesman in 1992 and at the Lexus dealer recently were unduly swayed in what I'd want next by what I had already - the sporty Fiesta being similar to the MG Metro and the UX being more similar to my Focus.

For a discretionary purchase, the want is always as important as the need.  In the case of a car, when the need (desperation) is not there, it is all want and all discretionary, so the sales representative needs to work to make me part with my finance agreement.

If anyone ever wants me to buy a car, they need to make me feel that my custom is valued as I won't ever be begging to be allowed to buy.

There is a genuine shortage of new cars out there.

Your experiences are not anywhere near what i've experienced buying maybe 40 cars off main dealers over the years and knowing many car sales people.  Your experience is clearly not the norm as millions of new and used cars are successfully sold to customers year in year out.  We'll have to leave it that as you'll always have a counter whataboutism with your experience from some salesman from decades ago.

motorguy

Grumpy_chap said:

AFTERNOTE:  I notice with the Lexus, the car they had unregistered in the showroom in September (which was the exact configuration I'd have purchased apart from preferred colour choice) had list price £36k and the Lexus marketing e-mailed offer £32k 0% finance PCP (but I'd not mentioned that offer before being told the ES is not very good) was registered and on the forecourt at £36k 5.9% finance as a used car when I walked past yesterday evening.  Perhaps, the car industry has worked wonders with persuading us there is a genuine shortage of vehicles and some unsuspecting victim will buy that car and pay more used than the new car promoted by Lexus.  Scary - but it is Halloween 

Yup.  Its an unfortunate reflection of the shortage of new cars right now.  The dealer might have been under obligation to register cars by month end to meet their targets so have chosen to do so.  I guess someone looking for one -  - has missed the opportunity to snap up a relative bargain.  

I have heard also that MINI have told their franchised dealers to cease all discounting as delivery times for something like a new Cooper S is now at heading towards a year.  When i bought mine new in 2018 list price was around £22,500 and that was for one with a load of optional extras on it.  We got it for around £20K after discount and it arrived, factory built 6 weeks later.  Same spec of Cooper S new has a list price of £27,000 and you'd have to wait a year on it. 

Bluebell1000

Sea_Shell said:

What sort of miles per kWh are people getting from their EVs?

What tariffs are you currently on?

How do you see your costs increasing once you're on the cap (approx 21ppkwh)?

What if prices hit 30-35ppkwh?

We're paying 5p per kWh for 4 hours overnight charging on Octopus Go. Average 4.5miles per kWh on an eniro. We have pretty much run the car for free from March to October on solar generation though. Just coming to the time of year when we need to start paying for charging!

Grumpy_chap

motorguy said:

There is a genuine shortage of new cars out there.

This is an odd one - I do think it is real (not just media hype) and the registration data supports it:
https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

Yet, there seem to be more new (post-COVID) cars on the roads than ever.  I can't be simply in an odd area that is an exception.

Nebulous2

Grumpy_chap said:

motorguy said:

There is a genuine shortage of new cars out there.

This is an odd one - I do think it is real (not just media hype) and the registration data supports it:
https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

Yet, there seem to be more new (post-COVID) cars on the roads than ever.  I can't be simply in an odd area that is an exception.

I'm in a fairly prosperous area, where the new registration is a big attraction and a lot of new cars usually appear at this time of year. This year I'm seeing very few 71 plate cars. There has been an impact here. 

maxmycardagain

First off, unless you can sit at a garage or charging point for 30+ minutes every time you need off road parking (on the £20,000/year wages...)