The Electric Car Thread

When I look, mine's about 12kW at motorway speeds

Yours is a lightweight, single motor vehicle though.. And it seems impressively efficient!

My polestar 2 cruises at the above suggestion (25-30kWh, at about 60mph)...

I think the single motor, newer version has more efficient motors and probably averages 18-20kWh at 60..

DrP

Does anyone know anything about the budget end of the EV world?

My daughter recently passed her test. She doesn't want to go very far (just drive to work 7 miles away and visit friends locally) and I'm going to get a charger installed in case I ever actually make a decision about my own EV. So it seems that an old EV might suit her well. Free charging at home and theoretically more reliable than an old ICE car.

I had a quick look at the budget end of the market on autotrader (~£3.5k) and it seems to just be a choice between Leafs (poor battery management) and higher mileage (or battery lease) Zoes (motors made of cheese). Anything I'm missing?

£7995 gets you a 20 plate Hyundai ionic near me. (Independent garage north Manchester.) Not sure of the mileage but it looks like the premium se version. Low insurance category. 

Above the budget but might last several more years? 

for young drivers the insurance can be exorbitant.  Our boys are 18 and 22, and have a Polo and a Corsa ICE respectively.  We looked recently at trading in the 71 plate Corsa for a new electric one, and the deals were quite good, but for a 22yr old in South Lanarkshire, with 3 points and 4 yrs of driving, his insurance went from £1000 to over £2500...

Thanks. Insurance is definitely something we'll have to look into more closely and does seem to be a negative of EVs.

To complicate matters she is looking at jobs all over the place (maybe not even in the UK) so it might only be needed for a few months (although could keep depending on where she goes). So, something cheap that she wont lose much on if she has to sell it on is probably best. 

Actually the best option would be some sort of short-term or pay-as-you-go insurance on one of our existing cars, but those sort of policies (for brand new drivers) don't seem to exist anymore.   

£5k might start to get you into a BMW i3.  

Leafs and Zoes do work well enough.  Very early Leafs had poor battery management software, but from I think 2014 on they have used software to limit the damage.  This lead to 'Leafgate' where when the battery gets to hot you go into limp mode, but this requires lots of driving and I think three rapid charges in a row.  The battery doesn't get hot driving unless you're in Arizona or something, but it gets hot when rapid charging and it doesn't cool down very quickly at all, even in the UK. So the cumulative effects of two or three rapid charges push it over the edge.  Also the software on the 30kWh is worse than the 24kWh, and the 40/62kWh models.

As above though, the Ioniq 28/38kWh are much much better cars, and are likely to last decades. They're also perfectly usable and comfortable for long trips should the need arise.

@roverpig, I think the early leafs use a chademo charging plug so keep that in mind if you do get one and install a home charger. All EVs nowadays use the CCS charging plug which has helped standardise things.

It's Chademo for rapid charging, but they all use the same plug for slow charging on AC.

Posted by: molgrips

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It's Chademo for rapid charging, but they all use the same plug for slow charging on AC.

I never knew that, good to know. Every day is a school day.

Posted by: andy4d

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All EVs nowadays use the CCS charging plug

…for rapid DC charging. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System

^ that is one big plug

took two more EV’s out for demo drives, Škoda enyak and BYD’s sea lion 7. I think they’re similar size.

the Enyak is a good car, not as quiet on the road as the id4, bit hard plasticy inside, but not a bad place to be in, acceleration is good, really good to be fair. And the screen console thing that gets so lamented was actually easy to use, boots cavernous which would great to transport bikes. The ride is harsh though, some unwelcome noise from the front, that we didn’t hear when driving the id4, both use the same platform, so I believe. 

but the sea lion 7. Tested the dual motor option and in a word it is fast, really bloody fast when you ask it to go. Smooth round town, easy to drive, quite different to the Škoda, but really good. Interior finish level is also fantastic. Made the VAG offerings we’ve tested look budget. Boots not as big as the enyak, but it does have a frunk. And the amount of standard kit it comes with means there are no extra options to pay for or play around with on an online configurator. We were super surprised at how good the byd car was. the rotating screen is a bit gimmicky & the sunroof doesn’t open, if I’m being picky. Warranty is good on these, like Kia I suppose.
Actually liked the shape and styling of the sealion. 

what I don’t know is how good byd are as a long term car, or for reliability. Anyone got one ? 

I’ve yet to look at the Sea lion 7. Earlier in the year I looked at the BYD offerings after seeing a Seal down a nearby road. The Seal looked pretty good (albeit it is a saloon and therefore not on my list). The BYDs I poked around seemed good. BYD and Geely and Xpeng etc are established manufacturers, just not well known here…yet. 

Like BYD, one of the real appeals of Teslas was there was none of the this option, that option, this package stuff and haggling that is still weirdly common among ‘German’ manufacturers and dealers that takes you from an OK starting price to ‘what!?!’  That BYD, and Polestar to some extent, are providing lots of kit as ‘standard’ seems good to me. 

I think it was Volkswagen where I saw that things like a heat pump were a £1,000 ‘extra’. 🤷🏻‍♂️ in an EV in 2025 I’d expect that to be standard. 

It's Chademo for rapid charging, but they all use the same plug for slow charging on AC.

I think early Leafs had a type1 AC connection, later Leafs had/have a type2 AC connection. I might be mistaken but would recommend you check if buying. I also think the early Kia Soul was type1 AC

think it was Volkswagen where I saw that things like a heat pump were a £1,000 ‘extra’. 🤷🏻‍♂️ in an EV in 2025 I’d expect that to be standard. 

Putting a heat pump on everything makes as little sense as putting AWD on everything.  It only really makes difference on long range once the car is up to temperature.  For short journeys it makes about 1-3% difference to the  m/kWh.  

Just put my order in for my yellow Renault 5 to replace the ID3 🙂

 Have to wait until October though ☹️

We have a Leaf - the 'slow' charger is type2, 'fast' is Chademo. Whilst it is becoming a problem that Chademo is basically the Betamax of chargers, it comes with a strange hidden benefit.

New 'superfast' charging infrastructure is now exclusively CCS, but the pre-existing chargers that are fast but not 'superfast' tend to have both CCS and Chademo. Which means they tend to be more available. And it's not like they're 'super' slow.

That said, just like VHS, you'd be foolish to go against the direction of travel.

Of course the downside is when you have an overnight power cut that won't be back on until lunch and wife needed car charged because she's out tonight. 

I'll have to get it charged after power comes on, at extra expense.....buggers up plans!!

Posted by: phil5556

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Just put my order in for my yellow Renault 5 to replace the ID3 🙂

 

 Have to wait until October though ☹️

I've gone for a blue one - seems a fun little runabout for the short journeys 🙂

Given that you can buy a Scenic that is 4 months old with only 2K on the clock for nearly £10K less than the new price and that there are similar deals on the Megane, what is the advantage of ordering a car now for delivery in October over just buying a nearly-new one in October with a big discount?

For me I can answer this easily - it's a company car.

Otherwise I'd be looking to make those savings. 🙂

Posted by: Zedsdead

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I've gone for a blue one - seems a fun little runabout for the short journeys

We're pretty tempted.  No rush for us though so might wait and see what the nearly new prices are like.

Posted by: Andy Welch

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Given that you can buy a Scenic that is 4 months old with only 2K on the clock for nearly £10K less than the new price and that there are similar deals on the Megane, what is the advantage of ordering a car now for delivery in October over just buying a nearly-new one in October with a big discount?

Because it’s through work salary sacrifice, my current car is due to go back in October and there lead time on the R5 works out about right timing wise.

I wouldn’t buy a new EV, like you say buying nearly new will be a big saving.

If I like it I might try to buy it at the end.

Posted by: Andy Welch

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there are similar deals on the Megane

The cost of a Megane is also the same through the company as the 5 so arguably that’s the more sensible choice. But sometimes it’s nice to not be sensible.

Is anyone considering the Alpine A290? 

A quick question to the EV geeks out there....

What sanely priced EVs have roof rails? I'm going to need to move kayaks about some of the time - and I reckon having a roof rail makes taking on and off roof bars a manageable faff. The ones that slot into grooves or even clamp around the edge of the door is just not somewhere you'd go once or twice a week plus the paint wear.

Also - just to make options limited, it needs to be a vegan interior.

I think it might be a shortlist of the facelift eNiro.... Which is a bit bigger than I'd like.

@Daffy I had a test drive booked but was ill so  had to cancel it. I’ve sat in one and had a look around it and was impressed.

I was holding out waiting for it to be added to the list so I could order one but it’s still not appeared on there.

So yes I was considering one… but tbh I’ve kind of gone off the styling of it. The more I look at it the more I think it looks a bit garish. I’ve got a Golf GTI and I’ve always liked the Golfs because they’re subtle, the Alpine isn’t really.

And the more I look at the 5 the more impressed I am, it just makes me smile 🙂

I’ll be gutted if the Alpine appears on the list cheaper than the 5 though 🤣

I posted these further up the thread, but here they are again.

And this is what I’ve ordered 😎

The dash/display looks blummin huge in that little car.  

Posted by: phil5556

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@Daffy I had a test drive booked but was ill so  had to cancel it. I’ve sat in one and had a look around it and was impressed.

I was holding out waiting for it to be added to the list so I could order one but it’s still not appeared on there.

So yes I was considering one… but tbh I’ve kind of gone off the styling of it. The more I look at it the more I think it looks a bit garish. I’ve got a Golf GTI and I’ve always liked the Golfs because they’re subtle, the Alpine isn’t really.

And the more I look at the 5 the more impressed I am, it just makes me smile 🙂

I’ll be gutted if the Alpine appears on the list cheaper than the 5 though 🤣

I was the same Phil. I looked at teh Alpine and I'm sure it will be a lot of fun too but the looks are not for me. I must be getting old because I thought it looked too over the top, but that is just my opinion.
Ended up choosing the 110kW Iconic. It was a coin flip for the yellow or the blue, I think they both look awesome!

Posted by: Zedsdead

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It was a coin flip for the yellow or the blue, I think they both look awesome!

Good choice, the blue looks great 🙂

I think it would work well with some gold wheels like the Clio Williams had 😉

Posted by: Daffy

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The dash/display looks blummin huge in that little car.  

I think it's just that photo, when I had my test drive of the 5 I thought it was nicely laid out and looks great. I didn't have much of a play about with the infotainment tbh, so I'll have to wait to find out how it actually all works.

Posted by: phil5556

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And this is what I’ve ordered 😎

   

 

 

hope you ordered the baguette holder as well

Having owned two Renaults and two Peugeots - the idea of a FULLY electric French car terrifies me.

Posted by: bruneep

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hope you ordered the baguette holder as well

Unfortunately not an option with the lease company 😢 I’ll have to get one from somewhere else 🥖 😆

Having owned nothing but Renault, Dacia, Peugeot and a French built Fiat for 30 years, and fully Electric Renaults for 8 years I have a great deal of faith in the cars. 30 years of paying for home/roadside assistance and recovery, and never ever called them out.

Would somebody who has access to a salary sacrifice scheme mind sharing the "true costs" ?

Not your own of course, but let's take the Renault 5/Megane mentioned above. What would the total cost to you (i.e. after tax) be for say a two year lease at 20k miles/year?

I'm trying to work out whether to hang on to see the details of an NHS salary sacrifice scheme that my wife will have access to soon(ish) or just pull the plug on one of the nearly new cars on sale with big savings over the list price.

By the way, I totally get the head/heart thing. The 5 looks amazing in the metal and I've always had a soft spot for a dual-motor Volvo EX30 in yellow, despite it being a pretty awful combination of scandi minimalism and dreadful software 🙂  

Surely depends on what tax bracket you are in to get figures...does it not?

It does

Posted by: Edukator

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Having owned nothing but Renault, Dacia, Peugeot and a French built Fiat for 30 years, and fully Electric Renaults for 8 years I have a great deal of faith in the cars. 30 years of paying for home/roadside assistance and recovery, and never ever called them out.

and for balance, two low mileage scenic owned, different models, both with too many issues to list out, the most noteworthy was a design issue in the auto gearbox that meant it would always fail after n years / miles, which it did, 3-4 weeks and about a grand direct to a gearbox place to rebuild and fix, with the clear message that in their vast experience “it will definitely go again, it’s a known design fault”. The later model also had a similar expensive design issue with the auto box. the gearbox specialists told me - Renault knew about the fault, and it’s this that really pissed me off.

renault won’t get my money again. YMMD

Are Renault unique in this ? I highly doubt it - I suspect plenty of manufacturers know of issues but still let the cars roll out, taking the risk vs cost assessment route.

OK, fair enough. Does this work as a rough calculation though ?

LeaseLoco seem to think the best deal for a top spec Renault Megane for 40,000 miles over 2 years is around £13,700

Assume a 40% tax rate then that would actually cost you £8,220 over those 2 years right?

A 9 month old top spec Megane with 5k on the clock is currently around £25k on autotrader. That's lost £15k in less than a year by the way. Ouch!

So that car at three years old with 45k on the clock would need to be worth less than £17k for it to work out more expensive than leasing with salary sacrifice. And that's ignoring the fact that, if I buy it I'll probably end up keeping it for more like 7 years (based on previous experience) whereas if I lease it I'm more likely to go for another lease after those two years. 

If you want to keep a car for a long time then owning is always better, I think.  Because you pay the finance, but then after a while you don't.  But you still have the car.

I am not sure I'd buy an 8 month old car though unless I were feeling rich.

Sometimes I buy new, sometimes second hand. I work out roughly what the depreciation, maintenance, failures etc. are likely to cost over the period I intend to own it and choose. A lease has never worked out worth while, there's always been a catch that's made it more expensive than it first appeared. Looking at the current market then in this part of the world a two-year-old Megane is the bargain of the moment especially if it has the 5-year guarantee.

there's always been a catch that's made it more expensive than it first appeared.

Yes.  In a shocking turn of events I agree with Ed.  You're paying the depreciation either way (for the new car) but you're also paying the lease company's costs and giving them some profit at the same time, along with insuring their risk.  And you have a hard stop on the number of miles - if your circumstances change and you need to drive more you could be screwed.

Re the lease vs pcp vs buy on finance 

the salary sacrifice has blurred the lines a little as it’s not quite the same, as it’s an all in one, car + insurance + road tax + (on the one here) breakdown + (tusker’s profit margin)

Leasing has to be overall more costly, as you don’t get the car (usually) at the end of a lease.

Does that mean you end up effectively getting a tax break on your car insurance? Not sure what I think about that.

Presumably these schemes will be designed so that the gross price of everything is a bit more than you could get yourself by shopping around, but you get the tax break. So you pay a bit less, the company running the scheme make a nice big profit and the taxpayer foots the bill. Hmmm. 

Would somebody who has access to a salary sacrifice scheme mind sharing the "true costs" ?

Not your own of course, but let's take the Renault 5/Megane mentioned above. What would the total cost to you (i.e. after tax) be for say a two year lease at 20k miles/year?

On our salary sacrifice scheme for 24m with 0 down and 20k per year on a Megane EV60 Techno/Comfort/Range 60kWh the total price with all insurance and maintenance is £12.25k  or around £510/m nett at a 40% tax payer.  

My comparison is a BMW i4 which with the spec I want is around £700/m for 2 years s £17k.  In contrast I can buy a 3y old I4 for £26k.  Yes, I'd need £1500/y to make it equivalent, so £29k.  but if I pay for that over 3y, assuming a £3k deposit for my old car, That's around the same amount as above, but in 3y, I have a 6y old car which I own....

Thanks @Daffy. That's a fair bit more than I was assuming (see above). Best deal I can see for the Techno spec Megane at 20k miles/year was £12,700 over the two years. So paying £12,250 after tax doesn't sound like such a good deal 😀 OK, add in insurance and maintenance for two years, so that's another £2k, but that's still only saving around £3k over what you could get by shopping around for the best lease+insurance deals and still more than it would cost to just buy a second hand model and run that for a few years I think. Plus there is presumably a small hit to your pension to consider.

OK, not comparing like with like and some people are happy to pay more to drive a new car, which is fair enough. But I was expecting salary sacrifice to be a bit more of a no-brainer to be honest.   

Presumably that also means the lease company is pocketing something like £20k over those two years.

As I said, I just can’t make it work through the work (Zenith) scheme at a price I’m happy with and for a car I want.  

I can however see that when some lease deals for the public come up, they can be cost effective if you want a new car or are happy to pay a premium to have less worry, but it’s not for me.   I think I’m too Scottish/Northern.

Salary sacrifice for company cars used to be a clear tax dodge so they brought in BIK tax (a long time ago) to make it comparable with leasing your own.  The tax break for EVs is there to promote cleaner motoring (from which we all benefit).  I think the lease companies are helping themselves to a good chunk of that though.

It does work out well if you want to lease a new car; however I don't think it stacks up well against buying used.  It does against buying new though (if you're keeping) because whilst you end up paying for the car (probably more) anyway you are getting part of it tax free and it's also spread over a longer term, assuming you finance the purchase after the lease term.