Best car for high milage job - efficient and reliable?

iwb100

Herzlos said:

What's your driving pattern like and what's the tax set up?

40k miles with equipment sounds like you're doing ~200 miles a day - is that 100 miles to a work site and back? lots of different sites?

Whilst contraversial, an MG5 EV might actually suit you. The Long Range one would do the 200 mile round trip on a single charge (though you'd likely get the chance to recharge during the day), and is a fairly big estate.

You'd knock your fuel costs down to about 10% of diesel, and would get a huge BIK discount assuming it's a company car.

They might be a bit out of price range yet, though, but the tax/fuel savings would make it worth considering.

Edit: You can get the standard range (quoted 214 miles), 1 year old, from about £21k on autotrader, so not as far out of budget as I assumed. The longer range (250 miles) starts about £23k


Potentially some diesel/electric hybrid would save you a lot in tax too, and a little bit in fuel if you can take advantage of it.

Reported real range on motorway drives in colder weather is 150 miles.

This might work if drive is to a fixed place of work that has a number of charging points there and then home again. But If it’s round the houses driving…then no chance this is practical. 

Herzlos

iwb100 said:

Herzlos said:

What's your driving pattern like and what's the tax set up?

40k miles with equipment sounds like you're doing ~200 miles a day - is that 100 miles to a work site and back? lots of different sites?

Whilst contraversial, an MG5 EV might actually suit you. The Long Range one would do the 200 mile round trip on a single charge (though you'd likely get the chance to recharge during the day), and is a fairly big estate.

You'd knock your fuel costs down to about 10% of diesel, and would get a huge BIK discount assuming it's a company car.

They might be a bit out of price range yet, though, but the tax/fuel savings would make it worth considering.

Edit: You can get the standard range (quoted 214 miles), 1 year old, from about £21k on autotrader, so not as far out of budget as I assumed. The longer range (250 miles) starts about £23k


Potentially some diesel/electric hybrid would save you a lot in tax too, and a little bit in fuel if you can take advantage of it.

Reported real range on motorway drives in colder weather is 150 miles.

This might work if drive is to a fixed place of work that has a number of charging points there and then home again. But If it’s round the houses driving…then no chance this is practical. 

I'm not sure; with round the houses driving it may still be practical with sufficient rest stops. Of course that relies on being able to charge during those rest stops, which could be a nightmare if you're constantly travelling to completely random locations for very short visits (like measuring at a customers site, which could be a 200 mile round trip for 5 minutes of work).

It's admittedly much more practical if driving to a set number of known destinations and charging is available at/near those destinations or en route.

Petriix

iwb100 said:

Herzlos said:

What's your driving pattern like and what's the tax set up?

40k miles with equipment sounds like you're doing ~200 miles a day - is that 100 miles to a work site and back? lots of different sites?

Whilst contraversial, an MG5 EV might actually suit you. The Long Range one would do the 200 mile round trip on a single charge (though you'd likely get the chance to recharge during the day), and is a fairly big estate.

You'd knock your fuel costs down to about 10% of diesel, and would get a huge BIK discount assuming it's a company car.

They might be a bit out of price range yet, though, but the tax/fuel savings would make it worth considering.

Edit: You can get the standard range (quoted 214 miles), 1 year old, from about £21k on autotrader, so not as far out of budget as I assumed. The longer range (250 miles) starts about £23k


Potentially some diesel/electric hybrid would save you a lot in tax too, and a little bit in fuel if you can take advantage of it.

Reported real range on motorway drives in colder weather is 150 miles.

This might work if drive is to a fixed place of work that has a number of charging points there and then home again. But If it’s round the houses driving…then no chance this is practical. 

Yes, standard range MG5 gets as low as 140 miles at motorway speeds in the worst conditions. The right vehicle really depends on the OP's driving pattern and opportunities for charging. Relying on public rapid charging would be only a small saving vs diesel whereas home charging could be closer to 1/4 of the cost; any free charging at work and it becomes even better.

Unfortunately it’s impossible to charge enough to cover 40k miles in the 4 hour Octopus Go cheap rate (unless you have 3 phase and one of the rare EVs capable of charging at 22kW on AC). You'd need in the region of 50kWh per day which would take ~ 7 hours on a standard 7kW charge point. However, a combination of 5 hours at 8.25p on Go Faster and the occasional rapid charge might be sufficient.

There are a lot of variables but running an EV could save an enormous amount of money. 

Blessingdragon

My driving pattern is the different locations type of scenario- sometimes with a break in-between where I could find a Tescos but not always a possibility time wise. 

macman

Normally for 40K miles pa I'd say diesel every time, but I'm getting 70mpg on motorway joumeys in a Hyundai Ioniq petrol hybrid, which is well inside your budget for a 2/3 year old car.
Comfortable enough for that kind of mileage, decent hatchback boot, very reliable, and loaded with kit (heated seats, active cruise control, etc) on most versions. Road tax on mine is zero.

Jenni_D

Round here standard diesel is also typically 20p per litre more expensive than E10 petrol. So for a 50 litre fill up that's £10 per tank. (Although the OP doesn't say who pays for the fuel. e.g. I have a fuel card for my company car so the company pays for the fuel and then deducts from my salary for the personal miles ... currently I'm being charged 11p per mile whereas the current calculated actual cost is 16p or 17p per mile according to my tracking spreadsheet).

Blessingdragon

I'm self employed so economy is king. I've just found a 2015 Honda Civic 1.6 i-DTEC SE which has a good size boot and only has 29k on the clock for £11000 - thinking the 10k saving covers a fair amount of possible diesel price rises and it does 70 ish mpg - which is good over my Mini at 45 ish 

knightstyle

Sounds good, just check the tyres carefully as may be original and old enough to worry about if driving loaded.

walwyn1978

+1 for Skoda Octavia or Superb estate 

Blessingdragon

knightstyle said:

Sounds good, just check the tyres carefully as may be original and old enough to worry about if driving loaded.

Thanks x