Electric cars

Stageshoot · 24 January 2017 at 9:43PM

Saying this as an electric car lover, (We have just purchased our 2nd) Bought our 1st 6 months ago and its been so good we got rid of our backup petrol car and got a second electric.

So taking the above into account I would say.

DON'T Until you have sat down with your head in spreadsheet and work out the costs and savings it can be a minefield and the costs and savings depend on where you live.

DON'T Buy New. The Depreciation in the first few months is a killer.

EG: Our latest one is a BMW i3 Battery Only. Got it as a 3month old PreReg with 57 miles on it.
Showroom Price £41000 (Before the £4500 Gov Grant) so £36500 True on the road cost.
At 3 months old and with only delivery mileage we paid £18000

Work out if you are in an EV hotspot.
Milton Keynes,, Get one no brainer
Travel into Central London,, Get one no brainer

Out in the sticks. really really think about the journeys you do and how far you travel etc etc.

Milton Keynes is swimming with Rapid Charger and Destination Chargers 100s of them Rapid is 0-80% in 20mins or so. Milton Keynes you get free parking in the centre,

Just up the road Northampton is a charging desert, if you cant charge at home you wont charge.

Central London.. no Congestion Charge Saves £11.50 a day. Free on Street Parking in P&D Bays Saves £16 a day

Realistically you are going to save more doing more miles in an Electric. The batteries have 8 year 100k warranties and there are taxis that have done 170k miles and only lost 15% of capacity, so the wear is turning out to be a non issue,.

So if you do high miles you save on fuel more than low miles, save on servicing costs, EV servicing costs are minimal.

EG: I drive from Nottinghamshire to Central London 3 days a week

In an Eco Diesel paying for Congestion Charge and Parking it comes in at at about £55 a day

In the i3 I charge overnight on E7 for 80p stop at Milton Keynes Coachway for a 20min rapid charge costs £1.50 then into London Park and charge during the day, on the way home rapid at Milton Keynes £1.50 so the whole day costs £3.80 and the miles are not ticking towards high servicing costs. and it costs me an hour extra on my day having to stop for the 2 charges in MK

That is on the extreme side I know

You can get a £500 Govt Grant to have a 32amp 7kw charger fitted at home. That charges in 3 to 4 hours (Very cheap on Eco7 overnight). There are a lot of 7kw destination chargers out and about (Probably a lot more than you would ever think) But the 20min rapid chargers are rare. and if you use the ones on the motorway network (Electric Highwayrobbery) at £6 for a 30min charge it would be cheaper to use petrol.

There are loads of companies operating the charge points its the wild west out there. You need a pocket full of RFID Cards and Apps for different companies. Its all confusing.

Saying that I would never go back to to a regular car until you drive a decent electric you dont realise how much fun and how civilised they are.

But buying a brand new one or buying without working out the financial ins and outs of what you will save can be a real costly mistake.

Don't try to convince yourself you will be hugging polar bears, its rubbish the only reason to buy one is if you sit down put the figures on a spreadsheet and work out if it will save you money,

(If your employer pays your mileage or you travel into London it will). Otherwise wait and see what happens.

Thats my 2p worth. As an Electric Car Convert & Lover of them

Richard53 · 24 January 2017 at 10:23PM

Stageshoot wrote: »

Thats my 2p worth. As an Electric Car Convert & Lover of them

Useful post, thanks.

dacouch · 24 January 2017 at 10:35PM

AdrianC wrote: »

Lovely, but "literally no running costs" is definitely an alternative truth, isn't it?

The cost of the tyres and insurance are paid for within eleven weeks from the savings I make on no congestion charge and the free parking.

[Deleted User] · 25 January 2017 at 12:28AM

I am now on my second Nissan Leaf electric car. It's a great car, very well designed. Expensive on paper but you can get massive discounts on them, or get a used one. 2 year PCP deals are available, or longer. They are starting to hold value now, although many people still get short deals so they can upgrade regularly.

At the moment you can get a grant for a home charger as well. If you don't have a driveway or garage you will need to rely on public charging, which is not ideal.

They are very cheap to run. The Leaf is fun to drive to, electric acceleration is nice.

I drove a lot of EVs. The Leaf is better than the Zoe and Ioniq I think, and while the i3 is good it's also expensive. Tesla is obviously great if you can afford it.

Range has not been an issue for me. A little planning on longer trips is all that is required.

bob_a_builder · 25 January 2017 at 1:23AM

Central London.. no Congestion Charge Saves £11.50 a day

Just to remind others of the need to register an electric car with CC zone BEFORE driving into CC zone ! otherwise it won't be free but a fine !

Odd how they can spot a polluting HGV and give it a fine, but not spot a lesser polluting car and give it the free pass automatically
Would have thought DVLA database would tell them all they need to know

But they always like to work it in their favor

Martyn1981 · 25 January 2017 at 5:41AM

mr_accountant wrote: »

Stick to petrol for the moment, it will be a long long time before we have the need and the technology for electric cars, not to mention the infrastructure required to facilitate them, ie power stations

We already have the power stations to electrify the whole UK car fleet, with about half the supply coming from the ramped down gas capacity at night, and the other half from the reduced demand by oil refineries which is roughly 6kWh per gallon of petrol.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth · 25 January 2017 at 6:59AM

And still the range is less than 100 miles! And the waste contamination from the battery is excluded.

agrinnall · 25 January 2017 at 9:46AM

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth wrote: »

And still the range is less than 100 miles!

But improvements are coming all the time, the Tesla Model 3 claims a range of at least 215 miles (although as the UK web page includes a price in USD that might need to be taken with a pinch of salt).

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/model3

peter_the_piper · 25 January 2017 at 10:21AM

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth wrote: »

And still the range is less than 100 miles! And the waste contamination from the battery is excluded.

I wonder what the % of people travel more than 100 miles per day, holidays excepted.

kmb500 · 25 January 2017 at 10:46AM

peter_the_piper wrote: »

I wonder what the % of people travel more than 100 miles per day, holidays excepted.

I can easily do 100 miles in a day.
Regular scenario (once every couple weeks): I go to my friend's, pick them up take us into town, then stop somewhere on the way back and do the trip in reverse. Whole thing is about 80 miles.
I've also got relatives who live about 45 miles away who I see very frequently, probably drive there once every 2 months, that's a 100 mile day.

It's not every day but it's not rare. But I don't live in a city; I think if you live in London it would be pretty easy to justify an electric car. There are probably lots of charging stations in London, and you don't do many miles, whereas I could drive both the journeys I just mentioned and wouldn't see any charging points on the way.

Electric cars

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