Electric cars

newhorizon1

Hi 
I am considering getting an electric car. I hope to do up to 50 miles a week travelling distance. I have looked at autotrader. What are your thoughts on second hand cars?

Grumpy_chap

newhorizon1 said:

Hi 
I am considering getting an electric car. I hope to do up to 50 miles a week travelling distance. I have looked at autotrader. What are your thoughts on second hand cars?

There is a massive choice of second hand EV for that use and no need to break the bank.  Look for a battery owned vehicle rather than battery lease

Petriix

Second hand EVs are in relatively short supply right now so prices aren't particularly affordable. 50 miles per week is very low (~2500 miles per year) so your savings vs petrol will be at most £500 per year including VED. So, from a purely economic perspective, it's unlikely to work out. However there are plenty of other reasons to go electric. 

If you're able to charge at home then even the older, very small battery Leaf might suffice. Really it depends on your longest regular journey: if you're sticking within 20 miles of home then you can cope with a smaller battery, but if you occasionally drive further then you might want to go a bit bigger.

Let us know what your budget is and we can advise you better.

Jenni_D

Do you currently have a car?

If not, what is alternative transport like where you live? (Trains, buses, taxis) ... once you factor in the purchase cost* of the car, plus insurance etc., then even taxis might work out more cost-effective for such low mileage.

* I appreciate that you'd have an asset to sell in future, so the true comparison would be vs the likely future value of that asset, but the cost for the asset would need to be found now.

Grumpy_chap

If the OP is changing their car in any case, it is a different calculation to if the OP would only change for going EV.

One big advantage I can see for an EV in such very low use would be that, AIUI, the EV will always be ready to use.  My Mum does a  very low mileage in her ICE and I am always being called round to assist as she has a flat 12V battery again so the car won't start.  This is not good for the battery and not convenient for Mum.

If I am correct that an EV would cope with the "idle" periods better than an ICE, then this is a good opportunity

Ectophile

If you leave an EV too long (weeks or months), then there's a possibility that the battery may go flat on its own.  With a Lithium Ion battery, that does it no good at all.

If it's regularly plugged in, it will be fine.

Herzlos

There's less to go wrong, so they should be a safer bet but you ideally want to try and get a battery health check. 

Assuming your 50 miles/week is spread across a few days and you could charge at home then pretty much used EV on the market will have enough range for you. The cheapest Nissan Leafs can still manage about 20 miles on a charge.

mgfvvc

Ectophile said:

If you leave an EV too long (weeks or months), then there's a possibility that the battery may go flat on its own.  With a Lithium Ion battery, that does it no good at all.

Apparently most/all EVs have a "deep sleep" mode that reduces battery drain to practically nothing. This should be used when leaving an EV for an extended period, but don't leave the car on 100% charge.

[Deleted User]

Renault Twizy

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

If the OP is changing their car in any case, it is a different calculation to if the OP would only change for going EV.

One big advantage I can see for an EV in such very low use would be that, AIUI, the EV will always be ready to use.  My Mum does a  very low mileage in her ICE and I am always being called round to assist as she has a flat 12V battery again so the car won't start.  This is not good for the battery and not convenient for Mum.

If I am correct that an EV would cope with the "idle" periods better than an ICE, then this is a good opportunity

Hiya. Tesla 3's and Y's lose less than 1 mile per day in 'vampire drain' but more if sentry mode is running. So not a problem. Our Tesla and IONIQ top up the 12V batt, from the big battery when needed, if left for a long time unused.

I've just done a random check by Googling about Leaf's, and they seem, from the comments on here, to also experience very low vampire drain. The example given of 83% down to 80% on a 30kWh model, over 11 days, would be less than 0.5 miles/day.*

*Very rough guesstimate based on ~120 miles of range, so 1% =1.2 miles, and therefore 3% is 3.6 miles / 11days = 0.33miles/day.

Grumpy_chap

I was thinking it would actually be better than @Martyn1981 has detailed for an EV in very low use not becoming inconveniently disabled by a low battery. 

I'm building my thinking from the example of my Mum, who has an ICE used very rarely so flat 12V battery is an inconvenience and only know when the car is needed for use.

The EV that is only rarely used, well it is easy to keep in a "ready to go" state assuming that you have access to even just a granny charger from the house, and that is how the car is designed to be used.  So, it would be a case of just plugging this in as per the normal use instructions every so often to keep the car available to use.  Something my Mum would do (assuming the weight and stiffness of the lead was within her physical capability).

I understand that the market leader in EV say in the manual to keep the car plugged in all the time and let the battery management take care of everything.  (Not sure whether there is further information about not using the car for a couple of weeks.)

The equivalent for her ICE is to keep the 12V battery connected via a CTEK, but that means lifting the bonnet and it is not how the car is described to be used as per the manual.  Something my Mum would not do.

In that context, vampire drain is not an issue and an EV seems more tolerable to the very low user than an ICE.

Of course, the MSE solution in both cases is to not own a car and use public transport, UBER, etc.  But let's ignore that argument as there are many people that simply won't give up their cars like that.  For those that insist on keeping a car even though it makes little sense, the EV seems like a good option.