EV Discussion thread

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 said:

michaels said:

I would have thought you could probably build a cheap small third world suitable ev cheaper than an ice (aren't they less than 10k use in China?) and similarly having your own PV to charge might be cheaper and more reliable than the grid if you are paying Alibaba prices for the panels and invertor and no MCAS install prices

If China was dragging its heels, then that might have been an issue, especially for Asia, but as they are one of the leading driving forces for BEV's, it looks like things are now unstoppable.

Realised I should have explained that, as not everyone is as boring, and interested in Chinese sales data as I am.

Chinese PEV sales have been rising steadily all year. In Nov they reached 42%PEV / 27% BEV, bringing the 2023 total so far to 37% PEV / 25% BEV. Monthly Chinese PEV sales in Nov also reached an annualised rate of 10m.

The data for Dec and therefore 2023 as a whole should be out soon. Sales for 2025 will hopefully exceed 50%PEV, perhaps around 60%PEV / 45%BEV in the later months of the year.

China is actually nipping on the heels of some of the European leaders, such as the Netherlands at about 45%PEV / 30% BEV and Sweden roughly 60%PEV / 40%BEV. But of course trailing Norway's massive 90%PEV / 82%BEV for 2023.

JKenH

I mentioned in an earlier post about whether the Japan auto industry could survive as EV policies limit some of its export markets. I think Japan currently exports somewhere around 4m new cars (recently overtaken by China) but what I hadn’t realised is the scale of grey exports (used cars) which is considerably over 1m units per annum. This of course supports domestic new car sales. I am wondering how this will play out in the future as the world moves to restrict new ICE sales. 

https://blog.japanesecartrade.com/japan-used-car-export-statistics-top-20-countries-in-november-2023/

Edit: I struggled to find a figure for new car sales in Japan for 2023 but I believe annual new car sales are of the order of 4-5m units. If this correct then used car exports may be the demand trigger for 25 to 30% of new car sales. 

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

I struggled to find a figure for new car sales in Japan for 2023 but I believe annual new car sales are of the order of 4-5m units. If this correct then used car exports may be the demand trigger for 25 to 30% of new car sales. 

AIUI, the export of used cars from Japan is a symptom, not cause, of new car sales.
There is some rule in Japan that cars at a certain age require such an intensive (and expensive) MOT that people just swap their cars up instead.  Apparently this was introduced as a safety measure (officially) but to support the car industry (unofficially).
In the old Top Gear days, Quentin Wilson did an article about these cars being perfectly good and being exported and the potential bargains to be had.  IIRC, he even coined a term for is "NEWSED CARS" were the bargains he said to go and look for.
NOTE - all of the above is my recollection of quite old TV piece - I have not expended any effort to verify.

JKenH

MeteredOut said:

JKenH said:

<snip>

 The argument on costs is moot also.

<snip>

No it's not. For a not-insignificant percentage of the UK, who can charge at home, who don't have to do long trips multiple times a week, and who are going replace their car anyway, getting an EV really is a no brainer from a cost perspective.

I'd throw ignorance and laziness into the reasoning. People too quickly believe what they hear and/or read on social media or click-bait headlines, with no inclination to find out the facts for themselves.

Same reasons a lot of people are still adamant they don't want a smart meter.

But if people really buy an EV without doing some level of investigation as to whether it is a fit for them, leading to claims of being mis-sold, then I really have little sympathy for them.

MeteredOut said:

JKenH said:

MeteredOut said:

JKenH said:

MeteredOut said:

JKenH said:

<snip>

 The argument on costs is moot also.

<snip>

No it's not. For a not-insignificant percentage of the UK, who can charge at home, who don't have to do long trips multiple times a week, and who are going replace their car anyway, getting an EV really is a no brainer from a cost perspective.

I'd throw ignorance and laziness into the reasoning. People too quickly believe what they hear and/or read on social media or click-bait headlines, with no inclination to find out the facts for themselves.

Same reasons a lot of people are still adamant they don't want a smart meter.

But if people really buy an EV without doing some level of investigation as to whether it is a fit for them, leading to claims of being mis-sold, then I really have little sympathy for them.

But there is more to the cost of running a car than fuel. Yesterday I got an insurance quote for a Kia e-Niro that was for sale in Scunthorpe at at £19,798 (70plate 23k miles, 64kWh battery). When I loaded the details into the comparison website it produced a value for the car roughly £5k less. I decided to myself that I’m not going to lose £5k on a car before it has turned a wheel so haven’t pursued it further. 

You're trolling now - you know very well the same can and does happen for any car, not just EVs. The moment you drive a car away from a forecourt it will have lost value. If that lost value is 25% of what you paid, you either overpaid for it in the first place, or you've gone to a distress buying web site such as We Buy Any Car. In the past, when I've insured ICE cars, the "valuation" from the comparison sites has always been lower than recent sale price/market value.

I wasn't just referring to fuel though. Even if what you said was true for all EVs, and only EVs, your comment that "the argument on costs is moot" is still confusing. 

Sorry, I wasn’t trolling; I was just putting a counter argument forward on the subject of costs. However I must apologise as I got the wrong car in the example above. I couldn’t access my account on the comparison website as it was busy and I quoted the car I thought I had got the price for. I had in fact looked at two. The other was from the garage where we bought my wife’s Kia Picanto last year. 

Here is the advert. You will see the price is below average retail.

 
Here is the insurance valuation for the same car.

The difference is £5.4K. Yes I am aware that the trade values are lower than retail but last year when I bought my Golf the difference was around £2k or 12% and that was against the WBAC price! The difference here is almost 27%. You may not like my figures being used but they are real figures of just how much you would lose if the car were written off. 

It doesn’t matter what you think, the difference was enough to stop me looking into it further. 

Edit; I have just checked and the WBAC price for this car is £10,695!!! That’s a 47% difference! 

Edit: please see my reply to @Magnitio lower down on this page. This valuation of £10,650 is incorrect - it’s the wrong vehicle. It should be £16560 so the depreciation driving out the showroom is only £3.5k and not the £9.5k I suggested. (It is interesting though that WBAC’s valuation is £1.8k higher than the insurance comparison website.) 

The valuation of £10,659 relates to my old Leaf. I had started the Kia valuation from that old valuation and changed the registration and mileage but it seems it only accepted the new mileage. The text from WBAC hadn’t come through when I posted and I didn’t check my phone until @Manitio posted. 

That’s quite embarrassing really and I do apologise to anyone who read this post. 

Yet another edit: I was puzzled by why the WBAC value was higher than the insurance comparison website and I have concluded it must be down to mileage. The E-Niro had only done 12k miles and this was reflected in the WBAC price but there was no mention of mileage on the comparison site so it would probably assume a mileage of about 30k.  

To check it out I got a WBAC valuation of my Golf which is now exactly £12k and the comparison site suggests £13,270. (My Golf is on average miles at 34k). 

I know people like to build a straw-man argument to make a point, but you have gone beyond that! You first built the straw-man, knocked it down, gave it a kicking, built it back up again, made sweet passionate love to it, told it you were sorry and then rip it to shreds again.

I'm completely lost what point you're trying to make with this one anecdotal scenario. Come back with some real data please.

I will try and reply to that politely although the wording of your post perhaps doesn’t really warrant that. 
My point: You had challenged my view that costs savings were moot and quoted only the savings from fuelling an EV. The difference in fuel cost between my Golf and an EV charged at home, for me, is around £600, assuming of course I could get IOG. So in considering an EV, I would want to be sure that the other costs of running an EV wouldn’t wipe out the fuel saving. A big part of that can be the depreciation you lose buying and selling an EV, a substantial part of which can be the dealer’s margin. I quoted an example which you have dismissed as an anecdotal scenario. I’m not sure what specific “real data” you are expecting me to produce. 

Judging by your earlier posts you are obviously very happy with your recent EV purchase. So what are your thoughts as to why there seem to be a lack of enthusiasm in the UK among private buyers for EVs.

JKenH

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

I struggled to find a figure for new car sales in Japan for 2023 but I believe annual new car sales are of the order of 4-5m units. If this correct then used car exports may be the demand trigger for 25 to 30% of new car sales. 

AIUI, the export of used cars from Japan is a symptom, not cause, of new car sales.
There is some rule in Japan that cars at a certain age require such an intensive (and expensive) MOT that people just swap their cars up instead.  Apparently this was introduced as a safety measure (officially) but to support the car industry (unofficially).
In the old Top Gear days, Quentin Wilson did an article about these cars being perfectly good and being exported and the potential bargains to be had.  IIRC, he even coined a term for is "NEWSED CARS" were the bargains he said to go and look for.
NOTE - all of the above is my recollection of quite old TV piece - I have not expended any effort to verify.

Thanks for that - it explains a lot. As a consequence we have enjoyed some wonderful Japanese imports. All the MX5s I’ve owned have been imports. They were a better spec and generally rust free. 

Magnitio

JKenH said:

I will try and reply to that politely although the wording of your post perhaps doesn’t really warrant that. 

My point: You had challenged my view that costs savings were moot and quoted only the savings from fuelling an EV. The difference in fuel cost between my Golf and an EV charged at home, for me, is around £600, assuming of course I could get IOG. So in considering an EV, I would want to be sure that the other costs of running an EV wouldn’t wipe out the fuel saving. A big part of that can be the depreciation you lose buying and selling an EV, a substantial part of which can be the dealer’s margin. I quoted an example which you have dismissed as an anecdotal scenario. I’m not sure what specific “real data” you are expecting me to produce. 

Judging by your earlier posts you are obviously very happy with your recent EV purchase. So what are your thoughts as to why there seem to be a lack of enthusiasm in the UK among private buyers for EVs.

A few months ago my wife changed from a Mk6 1.4 Golf to a Mk7.5 e-Golf. For 10,000 miles per annum, the fuel saving will be about £1300 and car tax £200. Difficult to know at the moment on servicing costs, as I have always done most of the servicing myself and comparison to the Mk6 would be unfair as it was getting old. The largest bill on that car was £1600 for a new camchain and associated work. The e-Golf has a better reliability rating than the ICE Golf and the cost and availability of spares is not an issue.

I drive a Mk7.5 Golf Estate which used to be the main car, but since buying the e-Golf it hardly gets used. The e-Golf is much nicer to drive, quiet, comfortable, quick and obviously has less environmental impact. The only issue is range, but as we very rarely travel more than 100 miles in one day, that doesn't impact us much.

I agree that depreciation is an issue with new cars, but it is unpredictable and the reason why I have only ever bought one new car. As has been discussed before, there are plenty of schemes to allow employees to purchase an EV in a tax-efficient manner and plenty of those would have previously been private buyers. The secondhand market has been flooded with the EV's that were purchased 3-4 years ago through these schemes and that has had an impact on used prices. The market will hopefully stabilise at some point. 

The other issues that you regularly mention are charging infrastructure and cost of charging away from home: both of these need to be addressed, especially as EV ownership increases. Maybe a change of government is needed to make headway in this area. You just need to look at countries like Norway to see how change can be effected when there is the right motivation.

JKenH

I wouldn’t disagree with anything you say there, although with my 1.0Tsi Golf estate I reckon my fuel cost currently is 12p a mile at worst, hence the potential saving over 6000miles is around £600. I have had one main dealer service so far just over £200 iirc (but at my age memory can play tricks). My insurance renewed in October at £232.69 after shopping around. The e-Golf is I am sure a great runabout as was my Leaf. I did try and persuade my wife after I bought the Golf that we should sell her 11 year old Picanto and keep the Leaf which would have been perfect for us IMO. She won’t have an EV though - the main reason given being if she has to rush off in an emergency to babysit the grandkids 100 miles away she doesn't have to worry the car won’t have any charge. She also likes small cars for parking so we got her a 22 plate Picanto - happy wife/happy life. My son wanted a 40kWh Leaf so took ours rather than incur dealer margins buying one. 

MeteredOut

<snip>

Judging by your earlier posts you are obviously very happy with your recent EV purchase. So what are your thoughts as to why there seem to be a lack of enthusiasm in the UK among private buyers for EVs.

In addition to Magnitio's post, which I agree with, I'd say range anxiety/charging infrastructure concerns is the main one, and not unwarranted (notwithstanding the awful reporting/click-bait we all see online). If I had more "longer than a single charge" daily travels, or had to regularly charge out on the road rather than at home, I'd have probably gone for a plug-in hybrid rather than a pure EV, for both convenience and fuel cost reasons.

I'd say a small but not insignificant minority also believe the "burst into flames" and "batteries need replaced after 8 years" nonsense.

And for those that do private PCP/HP (so no reduced BIK tax benefits), where the depreciation might matter, then the anecdotal "EV's depreciate faster" stories (such as yours) stick in their mind. My last 3 cars have been "buy nearly new, keep for years" so the depreciation difference (if there is one) between an ICE and an EV is essentially irrelevant for me.

Then there's definitely the "the government can't tell me what to do" lot too, and I can almost understand/appreciate their thinking, but not when it gets in the way of them actually making the decision that is right for their usage patterns.

So, its not one thing - its some or perhaps all of the aboive, but definitely involves a lot of noise, a lot of misinformation, a lot of people unwilling (or, in the kindest way, unable) to actually do research for themselves and so end up watching the social media platform of choice where the creators are incentivised in not providing the facts, but in sensationalism in order to generate more clicks and comments (and therefore £s).

JKenH

Used EV prices boosted, reports Aston Barclay

The shortage of new sub-£25,000 electric cars gave the used EV sector a welcome boost in Q4, according to Aston Barclay.

For the last three months of 2023, used EVs rose in price by 6.4% (£1,309) to £21,707 after five consecutive quarterly price falls. Used EVs were also the only fuel type to experience a price rise in Q4 as demand from buyers for cheaper EV turned to the used market due to restricted new car supplies in this price bracket.

https://fleetworld.co.uk/used-evs-prices-boosted-reports-aston-barclay/

JKenH

This is a Bloomberg report republished in a UK trade magazine Insurance Journal. Bloomberg do tend to show an anti EV bias but are the facts reported true or false? (No anecdotes required as per previous comments everyone pays less than the average.) What might be of more interest would be the median price. 

Electric Vehicles Cost Twice as Much to Insure as Fuel-Burning Cars in UK

British drivers have to fork out twice as much to insure electric vehicles as they do for combustion-engine models, adding to hurdles to make the switch to zero-emission cars.

The average insurance premium for EVs jumped to £1,344 ($1,700) at the end of last year, around double the cost of cover for traditional cars, according to UK insurance broker Howden Group Holdings Ltd. The group cited higher repair costs, more time spent in workshops and a lack of mechanics trained to fix EV batteries.

Accidental damage claims for EVs are on average 35% more costly than similar ones for combustion vehicles, according to Howden.

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2024/01/24/756971.htm