The big fat Electric Vehicle bashing thread.

GunJack

Herzlos said:

It's also ignoring the fact that £500 cars are almost impossible to find anymore unless you're in the trade, know someone who just wants rid of an old car, or are willing to take a gamble on something that's borderline scrap.

There are 33 cars on Autotrader under £500, and the vast bulk of them are spares or repair, MOT failures or need work.

Maybe things will come back to normal at some point, but the £500 car is a total myth now.

...err, no, it's not. They may not be as plentiful as they once were, but can still be had.

Herzlos

GunJack said:

Herzlos said:

It's also ignoring the fact that £500 cars are almost impossible to find anymore unless you're in the trade, know someone who just wants rid of an old car, or are willing to take a gamble on something that's borderline scrap.

There are 33 cars on Autotrader under £500, and the vast bulk of them are spares or repair, MOT failures or need work.

Maybe things will come back to normal at some point, but the £500 car is a total myth now.

...err, no, it's not. They may not be as plentiful as they once were, but can still be had.

Show me some, then

Only requirements are that it doesn't need work, and it's within 100 miles of Glasgow.

Like I said, some can be found but they certainly aren't common enough to be a viable option for most people looking at cars.

Brie

Just wondering if it's possible charge a car on Eurotunnel or on a ferry crossing.  Seems a practical thing to have in place.

But other than that I think I'll be needing to wait to get my deLorean fitted with a Mr Fusion so I can feed it banana peels.  

Herzlos

GunJack said:

Petriix said:

Buying a £500 car every 3-4 years is a bit of a false economy. You're looking at an average of > £500 per year in maintenance to keep it on the road, then ~ £1000 in fuel for every 5,000 miles. Then there's VED and potentially congestion charges, ULEZ etc. Around £2500 per year all in for average mileage. In comparison, running an EV would cost more like £500 for the same miles. That £2,000 saving per year can pay for a lot of interest and depreciation.

Jeez, your numbers are way out!! >£500 a year on servicing a bangernomics car?

I guess it depends on the car and how much work you can do. I've certainly paid >£500 on welding to get through MOT's before.
Any largish mechanical failure could run to that sort of money if you're not doing the work yourself.

Herzlos

Brie said:

Just wondering if it's possible charge a car on Eurotunnel or on a ferry crossing.  Seems a practical thing to have in place.

Currently no, you'd need to charge at the port. I believe they are looking into providing something though

GunJack

Herzlos said:

I guess it depends on the car and how much work you can do. I've certainly paid >£500 on welding to get through MOT's before.
Any largish mechanical failure could run to that sort of money if you're not doing the work yourself.

Absolutely it does. My last one referred to above got scrapped when clutch & DMF needed doing..bout £700-worth. The replacement car cost about that (minus the £156 scrappage)

Petriix

GunJack said:

Petriix said:

Buying a £500 car every 3-4 years is a bit of a false economy. You're looking at an average of > £500 per year in maintenance to keep it on the road, then ~ £1000 in fuel for every 5,000 miles. Then there's VED and potentially congestion charges, ULEZ etc. Around £2500 per year all in for average mileage. In comparison, running an EV would cost more like £500 for the same miles. That £2,000 saving per year can pay for a lot of interest and depreciation.

Jeez, your numbers are way out!! >£500 a year on servicing a bangernomics car? You really are blinded by the shiny LED headlights or something. My last car did 3.5 years, at a total all-in cost of around £900. Fuel £1k pa for just under 8k miles (oops, less than that, that's at last month's prices, more like £850), and I then got £156 back scrapping it at the end. £30 p.a. VED, avg. 60 mpg. 

My numbers are factual reality from my own experience.

It's possible that you got lucky, but probable that you're being somewhat optimistic in your memory. There aren't many 'bangers' that average 60 MPG combined, unless you happen to have a particularly economical commute. Once you add up all the oil changes, replacements for things like clutch, timing belts, injector seals, water pumps etc, I think £500 per year is fairly generous. That's roughly what I averaged over 11 years with my old diesel, at old prices with much of the labour done by myself.

As time passes, these 'bangers' get more and more complex with higher and higher maintenance. More sensors, computers, electronic components, complicated drivetrains with things like DPF filters etc. all become more expensive to maintain. Unless you're not bothering to maintain it at all and just scraping through the MOT with bits taped up, and just getting extremely lucky with nothing going seriously wrong.

At a more realistic 50 MPG, 8,000 miles is costing £1,300 at current diesel prices.

My EV is running at 1.1p per mile in electric. £33 for its first service. No VED, no MOT until December 2023, no replacement parts apart from tyres eventually. Yes, the cost of entry is high, but the total cost of ownership is lower.

Petriix

Kwik-Fit think an average of £29 per month for repairs and maintenance...
https://www.thecarexpert.co.uk/average-car-costs-more-than-160-per-month-to-run/

GunJack

Petriix said:

GunJack said:

Petriix said:

Buying a £500 car every 3-4 years is a bit of a false economy. You're looking at an average of > £500 per year in maintenance to keep it on the road, then ~ £1000 in fuel for every 5,000 miles. Then there's VED and potentially congestion charges, ULEZ etc. Around £2500 per year all in for average mileage. In comparison, running an EV would cost more like £500 for the same miles. That £2,000 saving per year can pay for a lot of interest and depreciation.

Jeez, your numbers are way out!! >£500 a year on servicing a bangernomics car? You really are blinded by the shiny LED headlights or something. My last car did 3.5 years, at a total all-in cost of around £900. Fuel £1k pa for just under 8k miles (oops, less than that, that's at last month's prices, more like £850), and I then got £156 back scrapping it at the end. £30 p.a. VED, avg. 60 mpg. 

My numbers are factual reality from my own experience. (1)

It's possible that you got lucky, but probable that you're being somewhat optimistic in your memory. There aren't many 'bangers' that average 60 MPG combined, unless you happen to have a particularly economical commute. Once you add up all the oil changes, replacements for things like clutch, timing belts, injector seals, water pumps etc, I think £500 per year is fairly generous. That's roughly what I averaged over 11 years with my old diesel, at old prices with much of the labour done by myself.

As time passes, these 'bangers' get more and more complex with higher and higher maintenance. More sensors, computers, electronic components, complicated drivetrains with things like DPF filters etc. all become more expensive to maintain. Unless you're not bothering to maintain it at all and just scraping through the MOT with bits taped up, and just getting extremely lucky with nothing going seriously wrong.

At a more realistic 50 MPG, 8,000 miles is costing £1,300 at current diesel prices.

My EV is running at 1.1p per mile in electric. £33 for its first service. No VED, no MOT until December 2023, no replacement parts apart from tyres eventually. Yes, the cost of entry is high, but the total cost of ownership is lower. (2)

1. As are mine...

2. I still dispute that statement..... the fuel/servicing may be cheaper, but that's still a massive chunk of change just to get in in the first place - I still recon my method of getting around is cheaper than yours overall

[Deleted User]

GunJack said:

Petriix said:

GunJack said:

Petriix said:

Buying a £500 car every 3-4 years is a bit of a false economy. You're looking at an average of > £500 per year in maintenance to keep it on the road, then ~ £1000 in fuel for every 5,000 miles. Then there's VED and potentially congestion charges, ULEZ etc. Around £2500 per year all in for average mileage. In comparison, running an EV would cost more like £500 for the same miles. That £2,000 saving per year can pay for a lot of interest and depreciation.

Jeez, your numbers are way out!! >£500 a year on servicing a bangernomics car? You really are blinded by the shiny LED headlights or something. My last car did 3.5 years, at a total all-in cost of around £900. Fuel £1k pa for just under 8k miles (oops, less than that, that's at last month's prices, more like £850), and I then got £156 back scrapping it at the end. £30 p.a. VED, avg. 60 mpg. 

My numbers are factual reality from my own experience. (1)

It's possible that you got lucky, but probable that you're being somewhat optimistic in your memory. There aren't many 'bangers' that average 60 MPG combined, unless you happen to have a particularly economical commute. Once you add up all the oil changes, replacements for things like clutch, timing belts, injector seals, water pumps etc, I think £500 per year is fairly generous. That's roughly what I averaged over 11 years with my old diesel, at old prices with much of the labour done by myself.

As time passes, these 'bangers' get more and more complex with higher and higher maintenance. More sensors, computers, electronic components, complicated drivetrains with things like DPF filters etc. all become more expensive to maintain. Unless you're not bothering to maintain it at all and just scraping through the MOT with bits taped up, and just getting extremely lucky with nothing going seriously wrong.

At a more realistic 50 MPG, 8,000 miles is costing £1,300 at current diesel prices.

My EV is running at 1.1p per mile in electric. £33 for its first service. No VED, no MOT until December 2023, no replacement parts apart from tyres eventually. Yes, the cost of entry is high, but the total cost of ownership is lower. (2)

1. As are mine...

2. I still dispute that statement..... the fuel/servicing may be cheaper, but that's still a massive chunk of change just to get in in the first place - I still recon my method of getting around is cheaper than yours overall

I've done my fair share of challenging EV's on this thread but I wouldn't try to compare £500-£1000 bangers with purchasing an EV - it is a totally different ball game with added risks and issues with bangernomics that don't reflect in the cost side of it, such as having a tatty old car lacking technology features with outdated safety and environmental credentials and the increased risk of inconvenience due to sudden failure.

When I tried to compare costs earlier in this thread I started at a more realistic £10k as a decent starting point to compare EV's. I don't know what the average spend on 2nd hand cars is but around half the cars on Autotrader are in the £7k - £20k band so I'd say somewhere in the middle of that.

Nothing wrong with bangernomics, I've done it myself in the past with mixed results but none of those cars could be compared to the the newer generation of either ICE or EV's.