Practical/affordable electric cars?

Goudy

As already mentioned hybrid mileages on pure electric are limited, it's not really how they are designed to work.
They aren't really designed to choose one power supply over the other when you feel like it.

They are made so both work together to make the ICE as efficient as possible.
Some will run limited amounts on pure electric, but that's usually when the ICE is most inefficient, like slow stop start driving and pulling away.

A couple of the newer self charging hybrids has been improved so you get more of this slow, stop start driving on pure electric, but not nearly enough to hit 40 miles.

Toyota have improved their system in the new Yaris and Renault do the Clio E Tech.
Both are self charging hybrids that will run up to 80% of the time on electric around cities, or so they say.

I've had a Clio E Tech on test for a weekend no long ago and live in London.
It pretty much did as they say around town. The way it recaptured energy under braking was very impressive, far better than the older Yaris Hybrid I driven.
I reckon I could do 90% of my commute on pure electric, then again on my commute I average 9 mph as it's pretty much all stop and little start!

mysteryUser

I recently bought a 2016 VW Golf GTE and love it, there's also the Passat. 

Doesn't quite do the 40 miles you are looking for though, not the 2016 one anyway. Newer ones do more than mine. In summer mine does about 22 miles. In this colder weather it's more like 16. 

Petriix

'Self-charging hybrids' or, as I like to refer to them, 'unchargable hybrids' cannot possibly do 90% of their driving on electric. The only way they get electricity is by burning fossil fuels. They provide a marginal gain over a simple ICE because of regenerative braking at the expense of a vastly more complicated drive train with the commensurate additional purchase and maintenance costs.

That 500 mile (I presume round) trip is slightly tricky but it really depends how those miles are covered and where you go. If, for example, you drive to a destination 200 miles from home, then do 100 miles over the weekend before returning 200 miles home, and if it was possible to charge at your destination then you would potentially be able to get by with just a quick 15 minute rapid charge on each leg of the journey.

At 14k miles, and assuming 8 of those 500 mile trips per year, your remaining mileage is 10k so ~ 40-50 miles per working day. You might have to pay for expensive public charging for 2k miles, but 12k would be doable on Octopus Intelligent at 10p per kWh which works out at roughly 3p per mile. So ~ £300 for home charging and ~ £300 for public charging, £600 total for the year. Compare that to diesel at 50mpg at £1.80 per litre is ~ £2250 so a saving of £1650 per year or £137.50 per month.

You'd want a 60kWh battery to make that long trip easy so you're looking at about £25k for an MG5 but, if you could stretch the 50kWh of a Zoe out then I've seen them second hand for £18k at 2 years old. If you can push the budget to £30k then the MG4 might be preferable (look for the LR version).

Alternatively, hire a car for those long trips and buy a short range EV. It's about £120 to hire a car for the weekend.

Goudy

I didn't say 90% of driving, but 90% of my commute.

My commute is around 30 to 40 minutes and in that time my current ICE car runs 100% of the time.
When I tested the Clio E Tech over the same trip, there and back and the car recorded the ICE was running for around 5 minutes each way.
I admit my trip is pretty specific, all stop start, 20 mph max speed limits but the car was still pretty impressive.

The ICE doesn't just kick in to power the cars wheels, it also starts for short bursts to recharge the battery alone or power the wheels and recharge the battery.

As it has two electric motors/generators and two batteries it has more options on how it powers the car and recharges the batteries depending on driving conditions.
It can regen brake and use short engine bursts to recharge at the same time and can use the ICE or EV motor independently or together.

It means it can, on these sort of trips drive on the electric motor and get it's energy from regen braking and short bursts from the ICE on recharge alone (not powering the wheels).
As the load on the engine is much smaller recharging the batteries than it would powering the wheels, it means the ICE only kicks in for very short bursts.

Out on more open roads, it does something similar.
The ICE runs for a while then drops out and then the car runs on the electric motor even at nation speed limits.
Sometime you can sense the ICE is powering the wheels, other times you sense the ICE is just topping up the batteries and you're still using the electric motor.

Drive hard and of course you can provoke it to start using it's motor options in a less than efficient way but that's the same with any petrol, diesel or EV.

I'm not saying it's the answer to everyones motoring needs, just that some self charging hydrids have moved on a bit and some manufacturers have stretched their abilites over what used to be available.

As the OP stated they were looking at Hybrids (Focus or Fiesta) something like the E Tech might be an option.
OK is won't do 40 miles on electric alone, but it's not really the big picture, it's how efficient the package is overall.

A plugin might do 40 or 50 miles on electric than 35 mpg once the battery is flat.
A modern selfcharging Hybrid might only do a mile or two on electric but overall it might average 60, 70 or 80 mpg. 

silvercar

I'm looking for a smaller EV. 

OH changed his high emission diesel BMW for a long range Tesla Model 3. We haven't had any problem with charging on long journeys. Accepting that the Tesla charging network is probably the best there is at the moment in the UK in terms of speed of charging as well as charging opportunities, other networks are not terrible.

We've now decided to go total electric and will change my petrol car for an EV.

For a second car, we don't need a super range. I'm looking at the Leaf standard 39 KWH battery, that claims 160 miles, so should deliver 120 at least.

My very rough calculation is that each KWH delivers 4 miles at speeds of 30mph in the warm weather, dropping to 3 miles in cold weather when going at 70 on the motorway. 

Herzlos

Petriix said:

Alternatively, hire a car for those long trips and buy a short range EV. It's about £120 to hire a car for the weekend.

I think this is something a lot of people forget about, and it doesn't just apply to EV owners. If you only need something specific out of a car for a week a year (like a huge car to go on holiday, or a super long range or whatever), then it's going to be much cheaper in most cases to just run the smaller car all year and hire what you need for that week.

If I'm doing business travel, I just rent something because it's easier to expense and it's always gone fine.

Of course you may need to book in advance and there's a risk of peak pricing issues, but it's a model that works fairly well most of the time.

jimbo6977

Herzlos said:

Petriix said:

Alternatively, hire a car for those long trips and buy a short range EV. It's about £120 to hire a car for the weekend.

I think this is something a lot of people forget about, and it doesn't just apply to EV owners. If you only need something specific out of a car for a week a year (like a huge car to go on holiday, or a super long range or whatever), then it's going to be much cheaper in most cases to just run the smaller car all year and hire what you need for that week.

If I'm doing business travel, I just rent something because it's easier to expense and it's always gone fine.

Of course you may need to book in advance and there's a risk of peak pricing issues, but it's a model that works fairly well most of the time.

Hire cars are great in theory but there are too many horror stories of people being stiffed by unscrupulous hire desks for damage they didn't cause. 

[Deleted User]

I'd try to go fully electric if you can, avoid hybrids. The problem with hybrids is you pay a premium to buy them, and then you have to maintain that petrol engine too. With an EV you greatly reduce your maintenance costs.

The charging infrastructure is much better than it used to be, and long journeys aren't a big problem now.

Jenni_D

If buying new then probably the best value offerings at the moment are the MG4 variants. (Starting from £25,995 for the SE standard range, up to £32,190 for the top spec Trophy with the most expensive paint colour)

https://www.mg.co.uk/new-cars/mg4-ev

I have an SE SR in Camden Grey and I love it.  

Bigwheels1111

[Deleted User] said:

I'd try to go fully electric if you can, avoid hybrids. The problem with hybrids is you pay a premium to buy them, and then you have to maintain that petrol engine too. With an EV you greatly reduce your maintenance costs.

The charging infrastructure is much better than it used to be, and long journeys aren't a big problem now.

EV you greatly reduce your maintenance costs.

I have found that this is not so.

My friend MG ZS EV costs more than my Diesel to service for 5 years.

£805 Peugeot 5008 Diesel

MG £900.

I got him the quotes.