Thinking for car change

grumiofoundation

Herzlos said:

Ibrahim5 said:

It's like a game of 'pass the parcel'. Who's got the car when the battery is dead. With normal depreciation you might not  spend much so the risk might be worth it. In the current environment you risk spending £10K and then either lose your £10K or spend a lot on a new battery. A lot of people say you shouldn't spend more on a repair than a car is worth. Like the guy who has spent £20K on an old motorhome to find the engine is rubbish and the chassis corroded. Do you throw more money at it or accept the loss?

You know that you can test the range and battery health before buying an EV, right? And that the degradation is gradual? You won't just buy a car and find the battery completely dead.

In the unlikely event the battery degrades to a point you can't use it, then you can get a new battery fitted. It'll cost less than a new engine if you buy one that's got a bad belt. All cars require maintenance, but EV's have less to maintain.

Of course you'd know all this already if you had any idea of what you were talking about, but for some reason you just want to keep derailing threads with this anti-EV garbage.

Wait what? ICE cars require maintenance? Having never owned one I assumed from the poster's comments that ICE cars were faultless and had repair costs of 0, since the poster comes across as so knowledgable and their posts so well researched it never crossed my mind that they might be inaccurate. 

 

DrEskimo

[Deleted User] said:

Petriix said:

iwb100 said:

Can I ask what the equity figure is based on? And why an old diesel has zero equity? That part is messing with my mind. 

I should have labelled it 'increase in equity'. It's the change in difference between what the car is worth and what I still owe on that part of the mortgage. 

In my example the old diesel was effectively worthless - they scrapped it when I traded it in, but would probably have some value in today's inflated market. 

And that's where your accounting goes all wrong - it isn't an income when you have a net increase in equity. Equity is the balance of all your assets minus all your liabilities. You are saying that because you are reducing your liabilities by £100 per month and your equity is increasing therefore by £100 per month, that offsets the cost of having a car by £100 per month - but it doesn't.

If you were say to inherit £25k and pay off all the mortgage debt taken out for your car, that doesn't suddenly reduce the total cost of owning and running the car by £25k yet you seem to think it does.

The whole mortgage thing is irrelevant, just think in best case terms that the OP has £100k sat in the bank doing nowt. If they buy a £25k MG5 it doesn't mean it costs nothing, it costs the depreciation .... and on that note....

Petriix said:

While you call it a 'gross miscalculation' to factor in the residual value of the EV, I'd suggest it's wildly inaccurate to completely ignore it. Of course you don't get the equity in your pocket each month, but you do receive it all as a lump sum on the day you sell. The OP could drive their £15k Zoe for a year, then likely sell it for the same or more, having only actually cost them some interest as all of the capital repayments would come back to them. 

Do you really think that a £15k Zoe will lose significantly more value than a £5k Fiesta over say 5 years? There aren't any EVs under 7 years old for < £7,500 on Autotrader. Demand is high and will only get higher in the medium term. Now is a great time to buy.

All you need to do to include the residual value of the EV is include a good estimate of the depreciation into the balance sheet, you don't need to add the equity as actual income in accounting terms. If the depreciation is zero then just include that.

I know there is a bubble of increased used car prices at the moment but that bubble will burst once supply chains are back to normality - potentially causing a significant crash in 2nd hand prices. The old saying "Past performance is not indicative of future results" applies right now, we are in exceptional times, a car will not be worth more in 12 months if the new car market gets back to normal.

£15k might get you anything from 2017 - 2019 Zoe right now on Autotrader but the car does lose value (new ones are £26k to £33k) , if the OP keeps it 5 years then Autotrader suggest £7k to £10k for 2012-2014 Zoe. Clearly they do depreciate in line with norms.

And now is not a great time to buy a used car but it is a good time to sell one.

Petriix said:

And you're completely barking up the wrong tree suggesting that an EV tariff might cost you more money than the standard variable rate. All you have to do is switch 30% of your usage to the off peak window and you're saving money. It's saving me hundreds because I was able to fix in January at 5p/24p while no other fix made sense. That's another massive benefit of EV ownership. 

Octopus EV is 12:30am to 4:30am for the off peak window - Personally I can't move my lights, fridge, oven, TV, computers to that time. Spinning a washing machine at the time is just anti social. Just the dishwasher and that is it. All my heating is gas, I really can't see how 30% could be moved to off peak. But again you've based your calculation on your specific electricity consumption, circumstances and a deal that is no longer available so again, great if it works for you but what about the OP?

It just feels very "me me me" in your responses on this thread without considering the OP's circumstances.

So if they buy a £15k Zoe + £1k charger installation and keep it for 5 years, spend £400 on elec and it is worth £8.5k looking at average on Autotrader then it has cost £7.9k

Or spend £15k on a 2020 1.0L Ecoboost + £3k fuel and find that they are selling for about £10k 5yrs later according to Autotrader and therefore it has cost £8k.

It is about the same either way.

Add in the fact that the Zoe is an awful looking car with poor reviews, the latest model given zero on the NCAP safety test as well and your beloved MG5 got 3 stars.

I'm not against EV at all, I looked very hard into whether it would work for me when I recently bought a 2nd hand car with £10k budget and it was impossible to save any money with EV - I'd challenge you to find me a better deal with EV than I have with a 2.0 turbo diesel that does 43 mpg without trying to be eco, oh and it has 7 seats so avoids using 2 cars when I fill it up with people.

Your assumptions about the depreciation of the Zoe are flawed I'm afraid.

Each generation of the Zoe had a different capacity battery, and therefore had a different purchase price. You're assuming the 2012-2014 Zoe's were around the same £25k to buy when new than the current generation (2019-2022). That's completely wrong.

Gen 1 (2013-2016; 22kwh) was around £8-9k brand new for the lease version after discounts. So given they are still £7-£10k that's little to no depreciation.

Gen 2 (2016-2019; 41kWh) were about £12-£14k after discounts for the lease version. About what they sell for now. Was higher towards 2019 when discounts lowered (about the only time I've seen cars get more expensive towards the end of their cycle)

Gen 3 (2020 - present; 52kWh) were about £23k when I was looking for the top spec. Don't seem them for sale under £25k now.

So you need to account for the different prices each generation were to accurately calculate depreciation, which has generally been very little.

Also the zero NCAP is only for the current generation Zoe.

FWIW I bought mine used for £14,500 and AT suggests it's private value is currently £14,000. So over 3yrs it's had £500 depreciation, whilst costing me 1/12th in fuel costs and very little in servicing and maintenance.

[Deleted User]

DrEskimo said:

Each generation of the Zoe had a different capacity battery, and therefore had a different purchase price. You're assuming the 2012-2014 Zoe's were around the same £25k to buy when new than the current generation (2019-2022). That's completely wrong.

....

So you need to account for the different prices each generation were to accurately calculate depreciation, which has generally been very little.

Firstly I just want to remind you I'm not anti-EV car but I am pro-facts and truths and there seems to be a real issue here with the facts about EV's that are really misleading. Now we've sorted the dodgy accounting on the MG5, I've now got to fact check the original price of the Zoe as I really don't believe this zero depreciation nonsense.

DrEskimo said:

Gen 1 (2013-2016; 22kwh) was around £8-9k brand new for the lease version after discounts. So given they are still £7-£10k that's little to no depreciation.

Gen 1 was £19k with a battery lease (before applying £5k government grant) and the battery lease was £70 per month (for 6,000 miles) - yes the price of a tank of fuel for 8,000 mile per year at 2012 prices.

https://www.theaa.com/cars/news/hot-topics/every-electric-car-in-production-you-should-know-about-8228.html

You could buy the battery outright for another £5k taking it up to £24k before the government grant.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/renault-offer-new-battery-purchase-option-zoe-and-kangoo-evs

This clean 2014 with average miles is going for £8,800 fully owned battery - worth less as a trade in or private sale - so has depreciated about £16k before government grant.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202204254996150

DrEskimo said:

Gen 2 (2016-2019; 41kWh) were about £12-£14k after discounts for the lease version. About what they sell for now. Was higher towards 2019 when discounts lowered (about the only time I've seen cars get more expensive towards the end of their cycle)

£25,495 with battery / £19,895 plus £59 per month battery lease:

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/renault/zoe/first-drives/2016-renault-zoe-r90-ze40-signature

Now about £13k for a 2016 same model with battery lease - depreciated £7k or £2.5k with government grant.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202204194804966

But you have £708 per year battery lease cost for just 6,000 miles - adding another 12p per mile to the running cost - about the same as a small economical petrol / diesel car.

DrEskimo said:

Gen 3 (2020 - present; 52kWh) were about £23k when I was looking for the top spec. Don't seem them for sale under £25k now.

£25-28k with a battery:

https://www.buyacar.co.uk/cars/1511/2020-renault-zoe-prices-specs-and-release-date

Top spec 2020 used down from £28k to £20k:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202203243900361

Bear in mind these are all forecourt prices - private or trade in will be lower and that will be the actual value you will get as an owner so all the above are optimistic pricing.

I know there was a government grant on the above cars which close the gap on the depreciation for the buyer but that is now only £1500.

And as per the gen 1 & 2 examples - why does nobody mention the battery lease costs? You have used the lease price to demonstrate depreciation but haven't actually worked back in the fact that the lease costs about the same or more than putting petrol or diesel in the car!

ontheroad1970

Because not everyone is leasing the battery.  There are one or two on here that specifically purchased the cars with owned battery rather than leased.

DrEskimo

Deleted_User said:

DrEskimo said:

Each generation of the Zoe had a different capacity battery, and therefore had a different purchase price. You're assuming the 2012-2014 Zoe's were around the same £25k to buy when new than the current generation (2019-2022). That's completely wrong.

....

So you need to account for the different prices each generation were to accurately calculate depreciation, which has generally been very little.

Firstly I just want to remind you I'm not anti-EV car but I am pro-facts and truths and there seems to be a real issue here with the facts about EV's that are really misleading. Now we've sorted the dodgy accounting on the MG5, I've now got to fact check the original price of the Zoe as I really don't believe this zero depreciation nonsense.

DrEskimo said:

Gen 1 (2013-2016; 22kwh) was around £8-9k brand new for the lease version after discounts. So given they are still £7-£10k that's little to no depreciation.

Gen 1 was £19k with a battery lease (before applying £5k government grant) and the battery lease was £70 per month (for 6,000 miles) - yes the price of a tank of fuel for 8,000 mile per year at 2012 prices.

https://www.theaa.com/cars/news/hot-topics/every-electric-car-in-production-you-should-know-about-8228.html

You could buy the battery outright for another £5k taking it up to £24k before the government grant.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/renault-offer-new-battery-purchase-option-zoe-and-kangoo-evs

This clean 2014 with average miles is going for £8,800 fully owned battery - worth less as a trade in or private sale - so has depreciated about £16k before government grant.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202204254996150

DrEskimo said:

Gen 2 (2016-2019; 41kWh) were about £12-£14k after discounts for the lease version. About what they sell for now. Was higher towards 2019 when discounts lowered (about the only time I've seen cars get more expensive towards the end of their cycle)

£25,495 with battery / £19,895 plus £59 per month battery lease:

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/renault/zoe/first-drives/2016-renault-zoe-r90-ze40-signature

Now about £13k for a 2016 same model with battery lease - depreciated £7k or £2.5k with government grant.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202204194804966

But you have £708 per year battery lease cost for just 6,000 miles - adding another 12p per mile to the running cost - about the same as a small economical petrol / diesel car.

DrEskimo said:

Gen 3 (2020 - present; 52kWh) were about £23k when I was looking for the top spec. Don't seem them for sale under £25k now.

£25-28k with a battery:

https://www.buyacar.co.uk/cars/1511/2020-renault-zoe-prices-specs-and-release-date

Top spec 2020 used down from £28k to £20k:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202203243900361

Bear in mind these are all forecourt prices - private or trade in will be lower and that will be the actual value you will get as an owner so all the above are optimistic pricing.

I know there was a government grant on the above cars which close the gap on the depreciation for the buyer but that is now only £1500.

And as per the gen 2 example - why does nobody mention the battery lease costs? You have used the lease price to demonstrate depreciation but haven't actually worked back in the fact that the lease costs about the same as putting petrol or diesel in the car!

These are RRP. No one paid RRP.

Both Gen 1 and Gen 2 were heavily discounted by dealers and had large deposit contributions.

I wasn't in the market for gen 1, but I know people were paying ~£8k for leased and £12k for battery owned.

For gen 2 when they were first released they were around £11k leased and £16k brand new. That went up to around £18k for a battery owned by about 2019. I know as I had one on order before I found my used battery owned one for £15,500 (used PCP deposit contribution knocked £1000 off).

You are right about the lease. I avoided them, and it's now possible to buy them out, but the depreciation costs do not reflect reality. They are worth as much as they are today because of those heavy discounts when new (including the grant value at the time).

EDIT: Just looked at my order form from when I asked for a quote from my local dealer and it wasn't even finance deposit contributions. Mine was just cash price. 

£6500 discount

£4500 grant

So £11,000 off those RRP.

Didn't even haggle, just rang and asked for a quote at my local dealer.

Herzlos

Ibrahim5 said:

Never had any engine problems. Never suffered any engine degradation. No reason why a 1.25 Fiesta should have any engine issues. EVERY ev has a gradually deteriorating battery. ALWAYS going to cost a fortune to fix.

I don't suppose you can prove any of that?

I've never had an ICE car that didn't need some work eventually; new belts, chains, plugs, etc. I also haven't actually seen any reports of EV batteries degrading close to as badly as feared. 

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't have any 1st or 2nd hand experience with EVs? 

[Deleted User]

DrEskimo said:

These are RRP. No one paid RRP.

Both Gen 1 and Gen 2 were heavily discounted by dealers and had large deposit contributions.

I wasn't in the market for gen 1, but I know people were paying ~£8k for leased and £12k for battery owned.

For gen 2 when they were first released they were around £11k leased and £16k brand new. That went up to around £18k for a battery owned by about 2019. I know as I had one on order before I found my used battery owned one for £15,500 (used PCP deposit contribution knocked £1000 off).

You are right about the lease. I avoided them, and it's now possible to buy them out, but the depreciation costs do not reflect reality. They are worth as much as they are today because of those heavy discounts when new (including the grant value at the time).

EDIT: Just looked at my order form from when I asked for a quote from my local dealer and it wasn't even finance deposit contributions. Mine was just cash price. 

£6500 discount

£4500 grant

So £11,000 off those RRP.

Didn't even haggle, just rang and asked for a quote at my local dealer.

So 4-6 years ago when the £4,500 grant was available and massive discounts to stimulate the market, but those aren't available now, you bought at a great time but those offers are not around right now - only a £1.5k government grant.

The OP can't go back in time and you can't use that to say the a current new model will not depreciate - as per my Gen 3 example, it has lost 25% in 2 years compared to the price I could get today brand new and that is more representative of what buying one looks like right now.

The fact that you got £11k discount meant that personally you saved £11k but the pre-discounted price of the car has depreciated down to the current value - yes you personally have avoided that cost but the car has depreciated in the same way the new non-discounted Zoe's will and that is my point, Zoe's are depreciating like any other car.

Anyway It is clear what Renault think of the buyers of Zoe when they decided it wasn't important to protect the head of the driver on the new models.

mgfvvc

[Deleted User] said:

grumiofoundation said:

E.g. What is the enormous bill being risked for a 6 year old leaf with 90% of its original battery capacity? 

Alternatively make vague claims 

Nothing vague about this long term data, 90% after 6 years is wishful thinking. Mileage is more important than age though.

That data is from Nissan Leafs, which had passively cooled batteries and you shouldn't generalise to all EVs from that. Almost all modern EVs have actively cooled batteries which are claimed to degrade less. No, I don't have hard data. The guy from Go Green Autos reckons that typical degradation is less than 1% per year, but for a Leaf you are looking at more like 3% per year (Youtube fact that is ;-)
For the claim that batteries degrade gradually and don't fail suddenly, that's generally true, but people have had battery packs die suddenly. I suspect that those incidents are failures in the circuitry rather than cells dying, but if you have to replace the battery pack you don't care which bit has died. In time I imagine there will be companies that recondition batteries in the same way that there used to be loads of companies that reconditioned engines. I'm not sure that there is yet a reliable market in pre-owned battery packs.

iwb100

Herzlos said:

Ibrahim5 said:

Never had any engine problems. Never suffered any engine degradation. No reason why a 1.25 Fiesta should have any engine issues. EVERY ev has a gradually deteriorating battery. ALWAYS going to cost a fortune to fix.

I don't suppose you can prove any of that?

I've never had an ICE car that didn't need some work eventually; new belts, chains, plugs, etc. I also haven't actually seen any reports of EV batteries degrading close to as badly as feared. 

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't have any 1st or 2nd hand experience with EVs? 

This is correct that the comparison suggesting ice cars never have problems is hilariously flawed. 

However he does make a good point and something even EV dealers have said. The value of EVs bought today in 7 or 8 years is highly dubious depending on battery tech improvements in the meantime and battery degradation over that time. It’s not a myth. It’s a bit unknown. 

DrEskimo

Deleted_User said:

DrEskimo said:

These are RRP. No one paid RRP.

Both Gen 1 and Gen 2 were heavily discounted by dealers and had large deposit contributions.

I wasn't in the market for gen 1, but I know people were paying ~£8k for leased and £12k for battery owned.

For gen 2 when they were first released they were around £11k leased and £16k brand new. That went up to around £18k for a battery owned by about 2019. I know as I had one on order before I found my used battery owned one for £15,500 (used PCP deposit contribution knocked £1000 off).

You are right about the lease. I avoided them, and it's now possible to buy them out, but the depreciation costs do not reflect reality. They are worth as much as they are today because of those heavy discounts when new (including the grant value at the time).

EDIT: Just looked at my order form from when I asked for a quote from my local dealer and it wasn't even finance deposit contributions. Mine was just cash price. 

£6500 discount

£4500 grant

So £11,000 off those RRP.

Didn't even haggle, just rang and asked for a quote at my local dealer.

So 4-6 years ago when the £4,500 grant was available and massive discounts to stimulate the market, but those aren't available now, you bought at a great time but those offers are not around right now - only a £1.5k government grant.

The OP can't go back in time and you can't use that to say the a current new model will not depreciate - as per my Gen 3 example, it has lost 25% in 2 years compared to the price I could get today brand new and that is more representative of what buying one looks like right now.

The fact that you got £11k discount meant that personally you saved £11k but the pre-discounted price of the car has depreciated down to the current value - yes you personally have avoided that cost but the car has depreciated in the same way the new non-discounted Zoe's will and that is my point, Zoe's are depreciating like any other car.

Anyway It is clear what Renault think of the buyers of Zoe when they decided it wasn't important to protect the head of the driver on the new models.

Yes those discounts and grants aren't available now, but that's reflected in the higher value of the Gen 3 car.

You were looking at current Gen3 prices, and stipulating that they would be worth Gen1 prices in a few years. That's simply not true, as the Gen1 values are reflective of the prices they were available at. The level of discounts when new directly affects their value when used.

Your example of the Gen3 is still flawed. No one, even today is paying £28k for a GT Line model. I was getting quotes of £23k. So the fact you can sell it over 2-yrs later with 30k miles on for over £20k represents just 10% depreciation.

It's certainly not a buyers market right now, with new supply and inflated used prices, so appreciate your point about the OP not being in a great position and possibly buying too high and then seeing larger depreciation, but that is no different to buying an ICE either. So I agree with the advice to hold fast with the Fiesta until things change.

I was specifically addressing your specific point about depreciation of Zoe's though. I hope you can see why looking at a 2014 Zoe at £8k, and stating its depreciated £16k before the grant is not reflective of actual reality.

I still think if the OP bought a GT Line Gen 3 Zoe privately at £20k, they would likely have a decent value in 3-5yrs. It would be interesting to see how the Total Cost of Ownership stacks up relative to keeping their ICE (based on its current value today).