New Car Purchase: Petrol or Hybrid?

SylvanMoonscape

My husband and I need to purchase a new car (either this year or in the new year) and are uncertain what type of car to go for. This will probably be our last car before we give up driving, so want to buy something that will be economical for us in that short term. Would we be better off just buying a straight petrol car than going for a more expensive hybrid at this stage?

Herzlos

What do you plan on using it for? Annual mileage and journey types? Are you near any low emission zones? Do you have off street parking you can charge from?

Bigwheels1111

First I would wait until late next year.

As Euro 7 arrives on the 1st July 2025.

Local gov will be champing at the bit to raise parking charges and emmissions zones again.

Local or distance driving.

My next car will be a hybrid, most milage will be local, 3 or 4 long trips a year.

If going for new, look at online brokes.

I not saying use them but you can show the quotes to local dealers and get them to match the price.

Autotrader has some good new and pre reg deals.

MikeJXE

I was in that position 5 years ago and bought what I wanted for me 

2016 Jaguar XE and it still feels like it did the day I bought it

I’m 83 and thought it would be my last car and I still expect that to be the case 

Who knows how long I will be able to drive, who knows how long the car will last ?

I could die tomorrow or in 2045 

What does in that short term actually mean ?

Have you a crystal ball ? 

Go with your gut

Goudy

It's a difficult one without further information regarding use and what sort of car you need.

Generally a modern straight petrol would be cheapest to buy particularly if you aren't doing many miles as fuel isn't a major cost pottering around town, but there are some hybrids that are getting cheaper (or more like the straight petrols are getting dearer).

You can easily buy a full hybrid these days, new for around £18k. (MG3 Hybrid+).
You'd pay that for most similar new petrol hatchbacks.

Less to spend, then the mild hybrid Suzuki Swift is almost on par, mpg wise with much more expensive full hybrids.

More to spend, then perhaps look at one of the Toyota full hybrids.
Keep them in the dealer network for servicing and you'll get another years warranty up to 10 years or 100,000 miles.

SylvanMoonscape

Herzlos said:

What do you plan on using it for? Annual mileage and journey types? Are you near any low emission zones? Do you have off street parking you can charge from?

Thanks. We are probably looking at doing 6-8,000 miles a year, with a mix of local journeys in the UK and one or more European trip a year. We aren't really affected by any low emission zones and we do have a drive we park on and if we had to, invest in a charging station in our garage. 

MX5huggy

I see no reason not to go for a full EV. Something like a Kia e Niro. 2nd hand you’ll get a bargain. Your fuel bill could be £200 per year plus a bit for you continental trip (where charging is a piece of cake). 

Mildly_Miffed

For that kind of low mileage, I'd be looking at a plug-in hybrid, given you have somewhere to charge it - even an accessible three-pin plug.

All your local use would be electric, but you have the petrol engine for long journeys.

Herzlos

MX5huggy said:

I see no reason not to go for a full EV. Something like a Kia e Niro. 2nd hand you’ll get a bargain. Your fuel bill could be £200 per year plus a bit for you continental trip (where charging is a piece of cake). 

I was thinking the same but a Leaf or a Zoe.

The 1 or more European trips a year may cause problems though, so something newer with a larger range might be ok there.

Otherwise at that mileage I'd probably just stick with petrol as there won't be much cost saving from having a hybrid.

Goudy

Herzlos said:

MX5huggy said:

I see no reason not to go for a full EV. Something like a Kia e Niro. 2nd hand you’ll get a bargain. Your fuel bill could be £200 per year plus a bit for you continental trip (where charging is a piece of cake). 

I was thinking the same but a Leaf or a Zoe.

The 1 or more European trips a year may cause problems though, so something newer with a larger range might be ok there.

Otherwise at that mileage I'd probably just stick with petrol as there won't be much cost saving from having a hybrid.

You can't buy a new Zoe these days, they've stopped making them and they are looking for a new car. I presume the OP means new as in brand new.

But I tend to agree a petrol, mild or full hybrid looks like in might be the way to go if buying new.

As pointed out, an EV would cost less to run in the long run but there are a couple of factors worth considering.
They aren't doing a lot of mileage, so to make back the initial expense of one from fuel savings is going to take a lot of time.

With a small hybrid averaging 50 mpg, there could be as little as £600 to £800 a year difference in fuel costs based on the quoted £200 for an EV, that's before you factor in the cost of a home charger.
You wouldn't get that far with only £200 from an on street charger, so you would have to invest in a home charger and that comes with a cost.

If the difference is say £6000 in purchase price plus the cost of a home charger, that's a long time before they see that back on any fuel savings and when they give up driving, the home charger is now redundant and not saving them anything. 

Most small hybrids will smash 50 mpg, particularly around town.
Making back the difference in purchase costs of an EV isn't going to happen anytime soon but might with a hybrid as the cost differences aren't as big.

Time might not be on the OP's side, when do they envisage giving up driving?
Along with the question of balancing the cost of an EV vs fuel with mileage/time, this also leads on to the question of deprecation.
 
EV's tend to depreciate at a much faster rate and if they have to give it up before they've made the fuel saving not just match, but beat the cost of petrol considerably, then it's going to hurt.

Initial higher purchase cost, higher deprecation, not doing many miles and an uncertain ownership length doesn't really make a new EV that appealing.
Ok there are other good reasons for an EV but on all these considerations, it's perhaps not the wisest choice.

You have the same sort of issues with a Plug in, though maybe not as pronounced.

Which leads us back to the suggestion of the Renault Zoe.
It might be better option if they were to buy an EV is to buy a used one that has shed a large portion of depreciation already.

Due to the way things work in the car industry, hybrids are the new straight petrols.
More and more straight petrols have gone off sale and been replaced by some sort of hybrid power train.

The Toyota Yaris is only available in the UK as a hybrid (though they still make and sell straight petrol ones for other markets) so there is basically no price difference as they don't sell us a straight petrol version.

Other brands sell the same models in petrol and hybrid form but when you weight up things equally, there isn't really a lot of difference in price.
Yes there are cheaper petrol versions of the same models, but hybrids tend to be all autos and if you bought a straight petrol auto as that's what you might want with the same trim as a hybrid version, there'd be little in the purchase price between the two.

I actually think for your circumstances you'd stand a better chance of a hybrid being a better value product overall.
I'm not saying that's the same for everyone, just when you weigh things up it might be the way to go.
 

Herzlos

Good point; I was thinking new to them, not newly registered. My thinking was that a few year old Zoe will have deprecated quite heavily already, and with low mileage and home charging it'll be a lot less hassle than a petrol car, as well as being cheaper to run over the longer term.

It does fall over with the occasional long trip unless renting something or stopping regularly are options.


I'm also assuming that we're talking about small hatchbacks and not SUVs or something, because there's no indication of car size requirements.