Is now a good time to buy a 3yr old EV

crikaus

Im thinking of doing the dirty and buying a three year old used EV it would be a Kia Nero 4+ model with 30K miles for £18,000 

I believe this model was £40,000 new, so lost over 50% of its value so even by ev standards can't go much further down, even if it continues to depreciate slightly more than petrol

I don't do many miles and initially I'd be using it charged via a granny cable at home and very occasionally public chargers but after a while look to a home charger thought by no means guaranteed

so I'm just after people's opinions if this would be a sensible proposition bearing mind I would keep the car for at least six years

Peter999_2

My father has a Kia Soul that he's had since 2020.  He absolutely loves it and it is by far his favourite car and he's in his 80s.      Literally everyone told him to get a charger installed but he didn't   As he's retired he just charges overnight and in the afternoon and does about 250 miles a week.  

Obviously make sure that the power socket in your house is fine and try not to use an extension cable.    My dad has never had a problem with his and it has never got even remotely hot.

Even though it's 4 years old he gets about 4.4 miles per kWh and a range of 300 miles.

I got him onto Octopus Agile and he pays an average of about 12p per kWh and quite often they actually pay him to take the energy.   I think you're making a right move, though in the current climate £18,000 is on the high side - I'm about to buy my 3 year old Nissan Leaf e+ 62kWh for £12,500.

Ectophile

My opinion: provided you can charge at home, it's a good time to buy a used EV.  I bought one last November.  The prices of used models crashed in 2023, so in the space of only a few months, they suddenly became affordable.

crikaus

Peter999_2 said:

My father has a Kia Soul that he's had since 2020.  He absolutely loves it and it is by far his favourite car and he's in his 80s.      Literally everyone told him to get a charger installed but he didn't   As he's retired he just charges overnight and in the afternoon and does about 250 miles a week.  

Obviously make sure that the power socket in your house is fine and try not to use an extension cable.    My dad has never had a problem with his and it has never got even remotely hot.

Even though it's 4 years old he gets about 4.4 miles per kWh and a range of 300 miles.

I got him onto Octopus Agile and he pays an average of about 12p per kWh and quite often they actually pay him to take the energy.   I think you're making a right move, though in the current climate £18,000 is on the high side - I'm about to buy my 3 year old Nissan Leaf e+ 62kWh for £12,500.

I would have to use an extension cable as the garage is 10 metres back from the drive

the car comes with the kia type 2 to 3 pin plug cable, I was thinking of buying the following lead

https://toughleads.co.uk/products/ev-extension-lead?variant=19514036060248

Peter999_2

That lead looks fine, I was meaning one of the £10 4 way extension cables from places like Argos.   The one you've linked looks fine to me.

ididgetwhereiamtoday

Peter999_2 said:

 I think you're making a right move, though in the current climate £18,000 is on the high side - I'm about to buy my 3 year old Nissan Leaf e+ 62kWh for £12,500.

£18k for 30,000 mile Kia Eniro 4+ is bang on the money. The Leaf is not comparable. 
You will not be disappointed with Niro, the 4+ is the model to go for as it has everything and 4 years warranty left on it.

I'm getting over 320 miles out of a full charge this time of year. I would recommend a wall charger as soon as you can to take advantage of cheap nighttime charging. It's costing me around £7 to take it from 0 to 100%. 

Petriix

A home charger is pretty much essential if you want to minimise hassle and costs. The "granny" charger runs at ~ 2.2kW while a proper EVSE will be over 3x as fast while giving you access to the cheapest charging tariffs. Make sure you get something compatible with Intelligent Octopus Go. 

Now is an amazing time to buy. I was recently looking at a 1 year old Megane E-Tech with 20k miles for £18k. There are sometimes crazy cheap lease deals available so you might get more bang-for-your-buck if you keep your eye on what's being dumped.

It's worth keeping an eye on the Speak EV cheap deals thread: https://www.speakev.com/threads/cheap-deals-thread.126112/page-140

WellKnownSid

Definitely a great time to buy.  All the cars coming off lease need to have somewhere to go, so low auction prices are keeping all used EV prices lower.

We bought our Zoe - 11 months old under 3k miles - for 13k last year approved used.  It replaced a car which was covering about 1500-1700 miles a year.  It was always going to be our second car.

Last month we covered 400 miles in the hybrid but over 1600 miles in the Zoe including a 700 mile round trip to London to see family.  Yes, it's nicer to drive an EV over local distances than an ICE but it's on the much longer runs that you realise it's just so much better in every way - proper fatigue-free driving.

All I would say is to check out if there are slightly newer / lower mileage cars out there for the same money.  It's what we did - kept iterating on price until we found the exact car, spec and colour we wanted in the end over £3k less than when we first started looking.

born_again

crikaus said:

Im thinking of doing the dirty and buying a three year old used EV it would be a Kia Nero 4+ model with 30K miles for £18,000 

I believe this model was £40,000 new, so lost over 50% of its value so even by ev standards can't go much further down, even if it continues to depreciate slightly more than petrol

I don't do many miles and initially I'd be using it charged via a granny cable at home and very occasionally public chargers but after a while look to a home charger thought by no means guaranteed

so I'm just after people's opinions if this would be a sensible proposition bearing mind I would keep the car for at least six years

Bought my 3 year old 4+ Sept last year 8K miles for £24K
I've done 7k miles so far & the savings made have already paid for the wall box (£1K). On Octopus intelligent tariff, even with a average charge every 2 weeks.

If you are using granny charger, get a external 32 amp socket for safety.

Make sure you have a fully stamped service book & they are dated either 10K miles or 12 months which ever is 1st. Or Kia will decline warranty claims.

If you are keeping car for 6 years, then depreciation is not a issue to worry about.

lordmountararat

I bought a 2 year old Fiat 500e in February with fewer than 2,000 miles for less than half the new price. It is immaculate, and still looks brand new. It is an absolute joy to drive. It cost £265 to insure and has a real world range of around 165 miles (less in winter). This is fine for me; I do approx 4000 miles a year mostly pottering around town and my longest journey this year will be 90 miles. I charge it with a granny cable overnight twice a month. It is slow, but there are fast chargers nearby if I need them. I looked into a wall box, but I have a double loop electricity supply, so not really practical (road outside would have to be dug up). I am 78 years old and as this car is so easy to drive it suits me very well. I wouldn't go back to an ICE car.

crikaus

Update, sorry I forgot about this thread

After looking at all options I leased a hyundai kona advance 65kwh for a couple of years as it was on a good deal, after doing the maths yes it's a little more than used but it's new and hopefully no repair bills, also I had a new consumer unit installed (it needing updating) with rcbos and surge protection and this was a good time to install a home ev charger, a hypervolt home 3 pro all looks neat and cables all wrapped around the unit, the led's are cool