Practical/affordable electric cars?

knightstyle

Like many people I have been following the development of electric cars.  Whilst all electric are going to be the future what would suit us now is a plug in hybrid Focus/Fiesta size, that will do about 40 miles on electric and if on a longer journey a small, (economical under 1ltr?) petrol engine would take over.
Trying to find something like this is not easy, there seems to be a reluctance by the manufacturers to state the expected electric only range.  Had a look at the Kia Nero and others, so where can I find the range?
Plus any secondhand recommendations?

Herzlos

The hybrid market is a bit of a stop gap and really only covers larger cars.

Unless you do a lot of larger journeys where charging isn't viable I'd skip hybrid and just go to a full electric with something like a Nissan Leaf. The cheapest used ones will have a range of about 50 miles, whilst new ones claim to do 239 miles.

baser999

Best bet is to pick up and read the major car magazines that’ll run tests and publish real-time findings of reliability, EV range, fuel consumption etc. Many of these use these cars over a period of time, rather than as one-offs, so do produce decent long-term reviews

Dogbyte009

For full electrics have a look at the ev-database website. It allows you to compare by various different factors like, range, speed, price, etc.

Nifty_Purse

My understanding is that all hybrid cars are very complicated technology, much more so than both ICE and electric-only engine vehicles. It doesn't surprise me that you have found manufacturers unable to give you reliable information on performance.

A quick search engine search suggests that the range for plug-in hybrids is 20-30 miles on the electric motor and even that seems to be best case scenario so I suspect that the range you're looking for just doesn't exist in hybrid cars.

Some surveys of hybrid car users have shown that they tend to end up using the electric part very little and essentially are driving the car no differently to an ICE vehicle the majority of the time.

So the question is do you really want an over complicated ICE vehicle that is likely to be less fuel efficient than the most efficient petrol car (two engines and a battery means a heavier car, the smaller the car size the more the increased weight will use up petrol/electric charge)? 
If you are looking for an affordable car I would be concerned about the following: is it more likely to breakdown? Will it need replacement parts more frequently than an ICE car? Can the replacement parts be obtained easily? If I end up driving it on the petrol engine am I burning through more petrol than I would in an equivalent ICE car?

I currently drive a car with a just less than 1 litre engine as soon as there is any weight added to the vehicle for example a passenger, any luggage or a full tank of petrol it is burning faster through fuel.  

For affordability and the environment it's better to use the most fuel efficient petrol secondhand car until small electric motor cars become available and more affordable.

On-the-coast

Nifty Purse gives good advice. 

I have seen some very good lease deals on new electric cars. 

They are also incredible value for those of us lucky enough to have one as a company car. (The goalposts are in the process of slowly changing though)

mark_cycling00

From memory, Dacia and fiat are developing cheap, low range vehicles for towns. In the £10,000 range. Fiat thinking about a small battery and allowing you to add extra when you need more range.

Supply issues have pushed back launch dates. 

Prices with ICE cars don't necessarily compare, electric cars may last much longer, have much higher resale values and be cheaper for finance.

Most journeys could also he done in an electric BMW C1-style moped. The bike/moped area is crushed by regulations sadly 

Petriix

Hybrids typically solve a purely psychological problem, in practice it's incredibly unlikely (but possible) that your driving pattern would get any benefit (environmentally or financially) from getting one.

Electric range is highly variable depending on a number of factors so definitely don't think you'll get the manufacturer's quoted figure in anything but ideally circumstances. My MG5 has a WLTP 'range' of 214 miles but I average around 200 miles with (mostly) careful driving in the city and single carriageway rural roads. On a long, fast journey I might only get 150 miles in poor weather.

If you want to provide some details about your driving then we can help figure out if there's an appropriate EV within your budget:
What's the longest journey you do in a typical year, month, week, day?
How often do you do longer journeys?
What's your total annual mileage? 
Do you have a driveway at home?
Is your car regularly at home between 23:30 and 05:30?
Do you have/can you get a smart meter for your electricity?

knightstyle

Lots of replies to sift through, my idea was to use electric only for most journeys but every 6 weeks or so we do a 500 mile trip so wanted a car that could do that without hastle.
Yes we have a smart meter but it does not work smartly and I have to give readings every month.
Yes driveway and meter box is easy to access.
Milage about 14k a year.

jimbo6977

BMW i3 REX. Electric car with an on-board petrol genny for longer trips. 

TadleyBaggie

Is that 500 in one go, or would it be possible to recharge at suitable stopping points.