Which car should I get?

daveyjp

Herzlos said:

There's more weight to carry, more to go wrong and virtually no fuel savings, plus there have been complaints about the 12V starter battery going flat on hybrids with low usage but I can't remember what models that applies to. 

Having owned both a petrol only Yaris and now a hybrid the figures don't back up these statements.

2017 Yaris 1.5 petrol. 

2021 Yaris 1.5 hybrid

Kerb weight of both is circa 1100kg.  Hyrid is a 3 cylinder petrol, petrol 1.5 is 4 cyclinders.  Weight saved.

Mpg petrol about 40
Hyrid 60-70 

Both on predominantly urban running of about 100 miles a week.

12v battery issue?  £6 plug in voltmeter and read the manual.

SiliconChip

daveyjp said:

Herzlos said:

There's more weight to carry, more to go wrong and virtually no fuel savings, plus there have been complaints about the 12V starter battery going flat on hybrids with low usage but I can't remember what models that applies to. 

Having owned both a petrol only Yaris and now a hybrid the figures don't back up these statements.

2017 Yaris 1.5 petrol. 

2021 Yaris 1.5 hybrid

Kerb weight of both is circa 1100kg.  Hyrid is a 3 cylinder petrol, petrol 1.5 is 4 cyclinders.  Weight saved.

Mpg petrol about 40
Hyrid 60-70 

Both on predominantly urban running of about 100 miles a week.

12v battery issue?  £6 plug in voltmeter and read the manual.

I'm glad you posted this as it saved me having to say the same thing, the only thing I'd add is that my Yaris hybrid (which I've had for nearky 2 years now) consumption figures are a bit better than yours, between 65 and 75. I wonder if @herzlos has actually driven a hybrid.

On the 12V battery I had 6 weeks earlier in the year when I was unable to drive after knee replacement so I followed the instructions in the manual to turn the ignition to Ready for an hour or so to ensure the battery is charged, which I did a couple of times so that once I came to start driving again all was fine.

sheslookinhot

GDB2222 said:

silverwhistle said:

GDB2222 said:

Herzlos said:

I had an XC40 rental a while back and it was certainly nice though I'm not sure I'd ever get used to the handwriting recognition for the GPS. 

As mentioned, cars have advanced hugely in the last few years so everything will be quite different to your 16 year old car. I'd go and sit in as many as you can, see what they are like to get in and out of. 

What kind of mileage do you do? If it's really low and you've got a driveway, then you may find a full EV is going to be easier to maintain than a hybrid. 

We do about 3000 miles a year, and an electric car would be fine for now. However, we are thinking of downsizing, and I don’t know whether the house we move to will have a driveway.  I won’t want an electric car if we can’t charge it at home.

I can understand that home charging is so convenient and cheap, but with your prospective mileage charging once every two or three weeks, maybe when you do a shop, may not be as bad as you think. If you get a subscription for the most convenient charge company the cost should be acceptable too.

Frankly having a hybrid with the extra technical complexity and servicing costs seems pointless with your mileage. Getting a vehicle with V2L like my MG4, is also quite useful in different situations. Imagine not having to take a flask on days out, just remember the kettle!

As for prospective mileage costs, bof, it'll happen eventually or they could do the simpler solution of putting up income tax which at least has the advantage of being a progressive tax.

Fuel duty is effectively a tax per mile travelled, and it’s reasonable to expect something similar for electric cars. So, it’s something plausible for the Chancellor to introduce soon, if not this year then soon.

 The MG 5S looks tempting at £23k. Does anyone have any views? 

Have you checked out MG 5S  owners reviews anywhere. There is a dedicated forum.

GDB2222

sheslookinhot said:

GDB2222 said:

silverwhistle said:

GDB2222 said:

Herzlos said:

I had an XC40 rental a while back and it was certainly nice though I'm not sure I'd ever get used to the handwriting recognition for the GPS. 

As mentioned, cars have advanced hugely in the last few years so everything will be quite different to your 16 year old car. I'd go and sit in as many as you can, see what they are like to get in and out of. 

What kind of mileage do you do? If it's really low and you've got a driveway, then you may find a full EV is going to be easier to maintain than a hybrid. 

We do about 3000 miles a year, and an electric car would be fine for now. However, we are thinking of downsizing, and I don’t know whether the house we move to will have a driveway.  I won’t want an electric car if we can’t charge it at home.

I can understand that home charging is so convenient and cheap, but with your prospective mileage charging once every two or three weeks, maybe when you do a shop, may not be as bad as you think. If you get a subscription for the most convenient charge company the cost should be acceptable too.

Frankly having a hybrid with the extra technical complexity and servicing costs seems pointless with your mileage. Getting a vehicle with V2L like my MG4, is also quite useful in different situations. Imagine not having to take a flask on days out, just remember the kettle!

As for prospective mileage costs, bof, it'll happen eventually or they could do the simpler solution of putting up income tax which at least has the advantage of being a progressive tax.

Fuel duty is effectively a tax per mile travelled, and it’s reasonable to expect something similar for electric cars. So, it’s something plausible for the Chancellor to introduce soon, if not this year then soon.

 The MG 5S looks tempting at £23k. Does anyone have any views? 

Have you checked out MG 5S  owners reviews anywhere. There is a dedicated forum.

https://www.mgevs.com/forums/mg-mgs5-ev-forum.85/

That's a fair bit of reading to do!

Herzlos

daveyjp said:

Herzlos said:

There's more weight to carry, more to go wrong and virtually no fuel savings, plus there have been complaints about the 12V starter battery going flat on hybrids with low usage but I can't remember what models that applies to. 

Having owned both a petrol only Yaris and now a hybrid the figures don't back up these statements.

2017 Yaris 1.5 petrol. 

2021 Yaris 1.5 hybrid

Kerb weight of both is circa 1100kg.  Hyrid is a 3 cylinder petrol, petrol 1.5 is 4 cyclinders.  Weight saved.

Mpg petrol about 40
Hyrid 60-70 

Both on predominantly urban running of about 100 miles a week.

12v battery issue?  £6 plug in voltmeter and read the manual.

The thing is you're not comparing like for like there, and you can't because there doesn't appear to a 2021 onwards Yaris that isn't hybrid. 

So I did a bit of poking around to try and find a car that's available in petrol/hybrid and just petrol, and the first one I found is the Hyundai Tuscon (quite a nice car):

https://www.parkers.co.uk/hyundai/tucson/suv-2021/16-tgdi-48v-mhd-se-connect-5dr-2wd-dct/specs/

https://www.parkers.co.uk/hyundai/tucson/suv-2021/16-tgdi-hybrid-230-premium-5dr-2wd-auto/specs/

The hybrid is 1564kg whilst the petrol is 1491kg, which isn't as big a difference I was expecting, 65kg isn't much at all. 

Very roughly, 40mpg is about 17p/mile and 70mpg is 10p/mile, assuming petrol is £1.50/l. or a 7p/mile saving over 3000 miles is £210. A reasonable saving to be fair, but it's going to take a long time to recoup the price difference to the hybrid. For example, the Tuscon hybrid is £4k more, which would take 20 years to 'win'. 

If OP was doing higher mileage, a lot of city driving, or get some other perks like LEZ or BIK savings it'd make sense. 

kimwp

My friend gave me great advice which was to go to a we buy any car lot and sit in lots of cars to see how I felt about them. That narrowed it down quite quickly for me as I like a reasonably high seating position and really good visibility. It would help you judge if a car is a good height, comfortable etc. to narrow the search. Then you can go looking for the spec you want.

Albermarle

kimwp said:

My friend gave me great advice which was to go to a we buy any car lot and sit in lots of cars to see how I felt about them. That narrowed it down quite quickly for me as I like a reasonably high seating position and really good visibility. It would help you judge if a car is a good height, comfortable etc. to narrow the search. Then you can go looking for the spec you want.

Not a bad idea, but personally I would need to see how a car drove, as much as how comfortable it was.
High seating position/good visibility effectively means a SUV, which often means poorer handling and fuel consumption compared to a traditional saloon/hatchback/estate. 

silverwhistle

daveyjp said:

Herzlos said:

There's more weight to carry, more to go wrong and virtually no fuel savings, plus there have been complaints about the 12V starter battery going flat on hybrids with low usage but I can't remember what models that applies to. 

Having owned both a petrol only Yaris and now a hybrid the figures don't back up these statements.

What about the more to go wrong? There seems absolutely no reason to carry around any engine block, oil sumps, belts of various kinds, plugs etc, all of which require more maintenance than an EV, and to what real advantage I'm not sure. Certainly not range for someone doing 3000 a year.

Herzlos

I've long wondered how, when looking at a used hybrid car, you can get any indication of how many miles the battery/engine have done.  It's entirely possible that with local enough driving the petrol engine has never actually kicked in, or if a PHEV is never plugged in, that the battery is almost never used. 

So you presumably run all the risks of a car with virtually no mileage on one with normal mileage.