The big fat Electric Vehicle bashing thread.

grumiofoundation

Deleted_User said:

grumiofoundation said:

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

Electric cars are still priced out of reach for most ordinary folk who buy used cars outright and run them for a good few years until they fancy something newer or they need replacing.

Exactly this.

I get the green credentials of electric cars and accept that EV is a better way forward for the environment but they are out of reach for many money saving minded people. I find that some EV owners become totally blinkered to that. This is a money saving forum. I see people on here talk about how they save £1k-£2k per year in fuel costs by having an EV but are they actually saving that if you are spending more up front to get an EV?

Yes. If you save 1-2k per year then the cost of ownership will drastically decrease over time (don't really understand what the issue with that concept is?). 

Take a second hand leaf for 10k that saves you say 1.5k per year (vs petrol car). After two years the cost of ownership will be the same cost as buying a 7k petrol car, the cost after 4 years as if bought a 4k  petrol car and so on.

And that ignores the fact that the electric car is most likely going to be worth more after 2 years, 4 years etc than the cheaper petrol car.

How much is a petrol car equivalent to a 10k leaf?

For clarity I am talking about people who are in the position to buy and use a second hand electric car (not arguing that for various reasons many aren't). 

There is just nothing in the 7 seater market for EV that saves me money at this stage and that is an indisputable fact.

The rest of my post explained why that £10k 2nd hand leaf is totally unsuitable - not big enough, missing 2 seats, range all used up just with my commute, can't do a 300 mile round trip without stopping at least 4 times.

For £10k I got a lot more car for my money than a Nissan Leaf in terms of size, capabilities, specification.

And there's choice, even forgetting the 7 seats there are just 17x EV's in my price / age / mileage range versus 140x 7 seaters or 1000+ large 5 seaters now on Autotrader.

No point saving money and then not actually being able to use the car for what I want. Take the journeys I do with the family uses 6-7 seats in the car - what do I do then? Hire another car? All my EV savings gone.

And then the 300 mile trip I do 1-2 times a month - I don't stop at all each way and it is already a 6am - 8:30pm day, add a few hours charging time and it is just not possible on a Leaf.

So lets say I stump up another £4.5k that I might save over 3 years of owning it - again on Autotrader I get a BMW i3, Zoe or Leaf, first 2 are tiny, so back to a Leaf, 32 of them, some of them have the 30kWh battery which is still not enough.

Oh and the bonus is that when I fill my car with 6 or 7 people, I effectively half the fuel consumption compared to a 5 seater car because I only need 1 car to make the journey instead of 2. And at that point it is working out cheaper than 2x EV could possibly achieve in terms of fuel and purchase costs.

Then there is the load carrying capability. I filled my 7 seater with the remains of a shed I dismantled - a Nissan Leaf with half the load space would have taken twice as many trips to the tip (2,000 litres vs 1,100 on the Leaf)

What I'm trying to get across is that there are still scenarios where an EV is not cost effective.

 I don't think anyone (I am certainly not trying to) is actually claiming that your final point isn't the case.

In your initial post you stated "I see people on here talk about how they save £1k-£2k per year in fuel costs by having an EV but are they actually saving that if you are spending more up front to get an EV?" 

My reply was mainly to make the point that that yes, people can save despite spending more up front. 

In exactly the same way that your situation is not suitable for an EV, people also need to accept that in other situations it is but many seem to refuse to do so (I don't think you are such a person even though the statement quoted above could be interpreted as you dismissing the savings an electric car does offer to some people)

[Deleted User]

I can buy a decent used petrol/diesel motor for £7K or I can buy a Zoe with battery lease (there goes the savings) or a knackered old Leaf with worn out battery. Decisions. 

ComicGeek

For those who have company cars there are big savings from running an EV. 

For those who do lots of short journeys there are big savings from running a small second hand EV.

For those people who need 7 seats or do very high daily mileage it probably won't work well at the moment. But those are fairly niche requirements and don't reflect the majority of people.

iwb100

grumiofoundation said:

iwb100 said:

grumiofoundation said:

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

Electric cars are still priced out of reach for most ordinary folk who buy used cars outright and run them for a good few years until they fancy something newer or they need replacing.

Exactly this.

I get the green credentials of electric cars and accept that EV is a better way forward for the environment but they are out of reach for many money saving minded people. I find that some EV owners become totally blinkered to that. This is a money saving forum. I see people on here talk about how they save £1k-£2k per year in fuel costs by having an EV but are they actually saving that if you are spending more up front to get an EV?

Yes. If you save 1-2k per year then the cost of ownership will drastically decrease over time (don't really understand what the issue with that concept is?). 

Take a second hand leaf for 10k that saves you say 1.5k per year (vs petrol car). After two years the cost of ownership will be the same cost as buying a 7k petrol car, the cost after 4 years as if bought a 4k  petrol car and so on.

And that ignores the fact that the electric car is most likely going to be worth more after 2 years, 4 years etc than the cheaper petrol car.

How much is a petrol car equivalent to a 10k leaf?

For clarity I am talking about people who are in the position to buy and use a second hand electric car (not arguing that for various reasons many aren't). 

Why don’t you offer up the cost of cars equivalent to what people actually have already?

Instead of rocking out a second hand Nissan Leaf.

Top selling cars in 2022 are the Corsa, Kia Sportage, Ford Puma, Hyundai Tucson…

Whats the relative cost of something equivalent to the Sportage, Tucson, Qashqai (further down but in the top 10 sellers list). The sort of family cars people are actually buying. And given these are family cars needs to be something with similar space and storage and a pretty decent range.,.

I was replying to the poster who stated

"I see people on here talk about how they save £1k-£2k per year in fuel costs by having an EV but are they actually saving that if you are spending more up front to get an EV?"

With how this can result in savings.


It was also this poster who 'rocked out' a second hand leaf....


I would suggest that on most fronts a second hand leaf is comparable to most 5 seater family cars (I assume you mean second cars versions of all those cars)  - the range being the (potential) issue.

What constitutes a 'pretty decent range' is surely dependent on the driver(s). Someone who drives <50 miles a day doesn't really need a car that can do 400 miles between charges/going to the petrol station. Someone who drives a >200 miles every weekend is not going to really enjoy a car with 70 miles range.

The leaf has the boot space and cabin space equivalent to a smallish hatch or a small suv.

Im taking family suv or large suv/estate size. 

Corsa buyers sure they can get a leaf. But most of the top 10 are family sized SUVs. I’m asking for something equivalent to those sorts of cars what are we talking about in EV terms and cost?

laidbackgjr

This to me is the big issue, the manufacturers simply aren't making the EV's that people 'need' - e.g. Skoda - the top selling Skoda is the Octavia - a traditional large family hatchback - so why are all of Skoda' EV's SUV's - they would sell more EV's if the made an E-Octavia! Given range is one of the biggest issues with EV's why make them big / heavy / unaerodynamic to reduce the range further? 

iwb100

laidbackgjr said:

This to me is the big issue, the manufacturers simply aren't making the EV's that people 'need' - e.g. Skoda - the top selling Skoda is the Octavia - a traditional large family hatchback - so why are all of Skoda' EV's SUV's - they would sell more EV's if the made an E-Octavia! Given range is one of the biggest issues with EV's why make them big / heavy / unaerodynamic to reduce the range further? 

Worldwide. But in UK the Karoq was their biggest seller I believe. And you only need look at best selling car lists in UK to see why they are focussing on the SUV market and hatch market mainly for EVs.

laidbackgjr

Worldwide. But in UK the Karoq was their biggest seller I believe. And you only need look at best selling car lists in UK to see why they are focussing on the SUV market and hatch market mainly for EVs.

The Octavia was the UK biggest seller in 2021 as well as Worldwide.

iwb100

laidbackgjr said:

Worldwide. But in UK the Karoq was their biggest seller I believe. And you only need look at best selling car lists in UK to see why they are focussing on the SUV market and hatch market mainly for EVs.

The Octavia was the UK biggest seller in 2021 as well as Worldwide.

Do you have a source for that? In 2020 it was the Karoq.

Uxb1

If you are doing long journeys NS in the UK you will mostly be using the motorway network..with its charging locations.
If you are doing long distance East-West journey you won't be.
So when I do my regular EW journey I'm using A roads and the odd B one and stopping for a rest/pee/lunch etc in a rural layby which has never seen an electric supply in the history of the planet and probably never will.

So charging en-route would require diversions to some metropolis location (no thanks).
So we are back to a previous poster sensibly wanting EV's to do around 300 miles+ in all weathers and at night with the heater/lights/wipers on for the whole route inc an allowance for diversions/accidents  before they'd be interested to ensure they don't have to charge enroute ever.
When that happens I'm possibly interested - though given that the amount I paid to buy my last car is not much more than my neighbor pays in monthly PCP costs for his EV lease, I reckon I can put quite a lot of fuel in and cambelt changes before they come out tops on costs.

laidbackgjr

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/business-dealership,-sales-and-marketing/skoda-sales-down-129-electric-enyaq-volumes-strong