The Great Debate. EV's will cost less than petrol cars over 5 years.

born_again

Bachelorplace said:

I just heard that someone from Auto trader say on BBC Radio 4 that EVS work out cheaper over 5 years than petrol cars overall?

I might need to be corrected here but surely that's utter nonsense when you add it all up?

All depends on the cost of cars & the miles you do.
In my case I have £9000 difference between EV & Hybrid kia Niro, so like for like car (new prices at time). Given my low annual mileage even @ todays prices I have more than 5 years worth of funds to spend on petrol. 
Over the last 2 years I have spent £1,607.29 on petrol over 12310 miles.

daveyjp

I'd want to see the maths which lead to the conclusion as I suspect by changing any number of factors and costs in car ownership it can swing either way.

Everyone I know who has an EV has their own company and it makes financial sense.  They lease models which offer decent range and very fast charging. Tesla, Jaguar, Porsche, Polestar etc.

When it comes to private purchase different factors play a part and it is still the case that the number of affordable full EVs is still severely limited, especially if you are a family needing one vehicle to be jack of all trades.

Bachelorplace

The Zoe argument stands up and is the only one as far as I can see. We should all get a Zoe, or a used BMW i3. End of discussion. 

Residual values of EV's are absolutely not going to be any good, no offence but polite disagreement there. 

Bachelorplace

daveyjp said:

I'd want to see the maths which lead to the conclusion as I suspect by changing any number of factors and costs in car ownership it can swing either way.

Everyone I know who has an EV has their own company and it makes financial sense.  They lease models which offer decent range and very fast charging. Tesla, Jaguar, Porsche, Polestar etc.

When it comes to private purchase different factors play a part and it is still the case that the number of affordable full EVs is still severely limited, especially if you are a family needing one vehicle to be jack of all trades.

100% YES companies..... 1000% yes. Incredible idea. Forgot that. But that was not what was being advised on the radio by the expert. I sometimes wonder if the company / revenue offset notion i.e. 100% in the first year has anything to do with the pricing? Interesting that its only NEW ... why is this? Do they want us in them or not? Oh wait... VAT?

Petriix

Bachelorplace said:

The Zoe argument stands up and is the only one as far as I can see. We should all get a Zoe, or a used BMW i3. End of discussion. 

Residual values of EV's are absolutely not going to be any good, no offence but polite disagreement there. 

Your opinion has no basis in fact. EV residuals are currently very strong and, with demand growing exponentially, it's unlikely to drop off a cliff anytime soon.

As for the total cost of ownership: there are obviously many variables which could swing it either way. However, with a sensibly priced EV, charged mostly at home on a cheap overnight tariff, the EV tends to work out cheaper with average mileage (and more so the more miles you do). 

In my personal circumstances, buying a new MG5 two years ago has saved me a little under £3k including depreciation, fuel and maintenance.

The purchase price is largely irrelevant - we borrowed £20k at 1.84% so it's cost about £700 in interest. Depreciation was a negative number until very recently but maybe we've lost £800 from new at this point. Fuel has been under £300 in total for ~ 21k miles and maintenance has been ~ £150 total for two 'services' and a puncture repair. That's £1950 in total.

Our old diesel car needed £800 of work to keep it on the road and typically averaged £500 per year in maintenance. Diesel would have cost about £3k. VED was just £30. So ~ £4860 total (assuming zero depreciation and ignoring insurance which was similar in price).

Depreciation would have to accelerate significantly for the total actual outgoings to come close to that of the ICE even though I already owned it. If compared to buying an equivalent one new then it tips further in favour of the EV.

Of course the picture changes all the time, not least because the OZEV grant has been withdrawn and manufacturers incentives have reduced. You'd be guessing about depreciation but I suspect that high inflation will keep residuals buoyant in the short term. 

There's a reason why EV sales are rapidly growing and it's not because people have been brainwashed. 

Money_Grabber13579

I haven’t heard the programme you refer to and can’t find it mentioned online so can I check whether they were talking about electric cars being cheaper to own than petrol cars over a period of 5 years, or that they would be cheaper to buy than petrol in 5 years? There are plenty of comments online about how the price of electric cars should equal petrol cars by 2027, but of course than was 2024 originally, then 2025…

Herzlos

It's not that hard to see that the total cost of ownership could be lower with an EV - in fact that's what most EV owners are saying.

Take the Corsa Ultimate, it's £24k in petrol and £32k in electric. Sounds like petrol will be much cheaper to own, right?

That's only an £8k difference over 5 years, so ignoring depreciation and congestion charging / LEZ zones (which would go in the EV's favour) we're only talking about £1600/year in running costs.  Let's also assume that nothing on either car goes wrong, and that tyres etc cost the same.

The petrol version will be £155/year to tax and ~£100/year to more to service. If we assume the petrol gets 44mpg (as per honest john), that's somewhere about 17p/mile, and an EV is getting 4 miles/kwh @ a standard 35p/kwh electric supply (and not a 10p/kwh octopus rate), then that's 9/pmile. So an 8p/mile saving.

So that'd mean you'd need to do 16.8k miles a year for the EV to be cheaper.

BUT, if you were to charge it on an overnight EV tariff @ 10/kwh, the EV would be cheaper after 9600 miles.

Factor in any of the stuff ignored above like congestion charges, depreciation, mainenance, and then the EV quickly becomes much cheaper.

Herzlos

Car_54 said:

Bachelorplace said:

I just heard that someone from Auto trader say on BBC Radio 4 that EVS work out cheaper over 5 years than petrol cars overall?

I might need to be corrected here but surely that's utter nonsense when you add it all up?

It may or may not be nonsense, if he is basing it on the last five years. But no-one has any idea what will happen with energy prices or tax over the next five years, which is what matters.

We know what'll happen to combustion fuel prices though? It's only going to trend upwards. When I started driving it was 80p/l and now it's 160p/l.

VED is only going to go up, too.

mgfvvc

Herzlos said:

We know what'll happen to combustion fuel prices though? It's only going to trend upwards. When I started driving it was 80p/l and now it's 160p/l.

The long term trend is always up, but the short/medium trend is likely to be down. I just filled up at £1.398 per litre.

Car_54

Herzlos said:

It's not that hard to see that the total cost of ownership could be lower with an EV - in fact that's what most EV owners are saying.

Take the Corsa Ultimate, it's £24k in petrol and £32k in electric. Sounds like petrol will be much cheaper to own, right?

That's only an £8k difference over 5 years, so ignoring depreciation and congestion charging / LEZ zones (which would go in the EV's favour) we're only talking about £1600/year in running costs.  Let's also assume that nothing on either car goes wrong, and that tyres etc cost the same.

The petrol version will be £155/year to tax and ~£100/year to more to service. If we assume the petrol gets 44mpg (as per honest john), that's somewhere about 17p/mile, and an EV is getting 4 miles/kwh @ a standard 35p/kwh electric supply (and not a 10p/kwh octopus rate), then that's 9/pmile. So an 8p/mile saving.

So that'd mean you'd need to do 16.8k miles a year for the EV to be cheaper.

BUT, if you were to charge it on an overnight EV tariff @ 10/kwh, the EV would be cheaper after 9600 miles.

Factor in any of the stuff ignored above like congestion charges, depreciation, mainenance, and then the EV quickly becomes much cheaper.

Something else you've ignored is the cost of financing the £8k difference. Even if you pay cash, there's an opportunity cost.