Is a second-hand i3 affordable? Very interested in an electric car, then I look at the price and soon lose focus – I’ll just stick with my oil burner for now.

But, there’s always a threshold when it makes economic sense to swap…

@siwhite

Why can’t anyone build one of these things with a decent boot? Estate version of the VW thing unlikely I’d imagine – a major barrier to anyone with children / dogs / hobbies…

You just have to hire an estate car any time you want to do anything remotely convenient with a car.

Why can’t anyone build one of these things with a decent boot? Estate version of the VW thing unlikely I’d imagine – a major barrier to anyone with children / dogs / hobbies…

2 kids and a dog, managed two UK hooidays with them in a Golf GTE.

I have to put the seats down in my 5 series to get the dog crate in.

Is a second-hand i3 affordable?

One just down the road from me for £15k on a 15 plate with 50k on the clock.

Peugeot e208. Estimated to sell for between £20,000 – £23,000. Due on sale later this year.

With an old-skool internal-combustion engine you have to keep changing gear to keep it in the band of revs the engine can cope with. There’s no gear change, no discernible change in torque, it just keeps accelerating.

My Mrs had a Merc 320CLK like that with a 7 speed auto box.

You’ve missed the boat for affordable i3’s i’m afraid to say!

I bought mine back in the middle of 2016, when no one wanted one, and my ex-demo i3, with just 368 miles on the clock cost £16k. Today, it’s worth…… £16k 😉

The ePug is a good looking car i think (subjective i know, but i think it is….)

romolyolly

Member
Well the Tesla has about the most environmentally friendly batteries going. Energy dense, reduced cobalt, etc. If you are going for and environmentally friendly vehicle, spend the extra and get a good one.

Tesla’s batteries are made by Panasonic as are a great many other EVs.

Oh and the Model 3 is lovely in the Metal. They were all over San Diego when I was there in January.

charging infrastructure in Sheffield is woefully bad

As a casual visitor I’ve actually found a few free ones.

There’s a scruffy car park near the city hall that has two chargers. Free.

As a casual visitor I’ve actually found a few free ones.

There’s a scruffy car park near the city hall that has two chargers. Free.

I think they might be the only two council provided chargers in the whole of the city centre though! The rest are either at hotels or in a Q-Park.

Tesla’s batteries are made by Panasonic as are a great many other EVs.

Yes but they aren’t the same. Teslas cost more to make for a start and have more range. And are more recyclable.

There’s no gear change, no discernible change in torque, it just keeps accelerating.

Twin clutch multi speed auto boxes like you find in mercs beemers and the like do that.
As do CVTs. Drove one and absolutely hated it.

Twin clutch multi speed auto boxes like you find in mercs beemers and the like do that.

They still vary in torque across the rev range even if there’s not a lurch when changing gear.

Some electric cars had gearboxes as they still offer just the same benefits as they do in a petrol engine, that is they multiply the torque to give acceleration. Means you can build the car with a much smaller motor, which then limits the top speed.

Tesla and other more modern electric cars do it differently, use a motor big enough that the limiting factor in acceleration is the grip and a gearbox becomes redundant, and as a by product gives more top speed.

They still vary in torque across the rev range

Well yeah. So do electrics, just less. It was a discussion about the feel though.

Some electric cars had gearboxes as they still offer just the same benefits as they do in a petrol engine, that is they multiply the torque to give acceleration.

Not exactly but I take your point. They still do make electric cars with gearboxes but you probably won’t see one on the street anytime soon.

Tesla’s batteries are made by Panasonic as are a great many other EVs.

Fanboi drinks the marketing cool-aid shocker!

Have I missed something happen8ng with the exchange rate recently….

$35000 how do we get that to £40000 in the uk?

Have I missed something happen8ng with the exchange rate recently….

$35000 how do we get that to £40000 in the uk?

Americans quote prices without sales tax as that’s done at a state level, so add 20% vat. Then import duty, a couple of grand to ship it, and a bit of R&D for right hand drive to recoup over smaller markets.

That and possibly pricing in for a post Brexit ‘fluctuation’ in the exchange rate.

I buy small city type cars for around £13K and I find them affordable. If an electric version of the same car was available for the same price I would have bought one but the electric versions of the same car seem to be around £10K more expensive which is why they are not taking off. I am convinced that if a £13K electric car was available a lot more people would buy one and one day I guess they will be available. We know they would be within a year if petrol and diesel cars were banned…

Tesla’s batteries do NOT have greater range. They have larger, heavier packs.

The model 3 has 50, 62 and 75kwh battery capacities, with each step adding 100kg to the weight.

The claimed range from the 50khw car is 220miles, but real world tests have it at 195-200. Pretty close. My i3 with a 33kwh pack under similar conditions will do about 150miles and that’s carrying the REX which is 120kg or the equivalent of my family. A pure BEV i3 would do better.

Also remember that unless you can find and use a Supercharger station. The rate at which you can fill the pack is the same as both the Leaf and the i3. So in a 45m rapid charge window an i3 will completely replenish its pack. The Tesla will only get to about 60-70%. So in essence, Range is the same.

Friend of mine has his name down for a Tesla 3. He’s always leaving the house with a flat battery in his phone, all his friends think the same thing is going to happen with the car.

darthpunk

Member
Once they get the range sorted out, i’d happily switch to electric, but not at 35k I wouldn’t

I think they have range pretty much there now with the latest cars, the big barrier for me right now is choice/availability and, like you, purchase price.
Also, even though visiting public charging would hopefully be fairly rare for me, from what I’ve read the infrastructure is a bit woeful. I’m fine with planning a longer journey with a 30 min break, but not if there is loads of potential for it all to go wrong. People blocking charging bays to use as parking spots, all the bays occupied, charger breakdowns not sorted quickly, you need a multitude of cards and phone apps to access the network, so with a phone app you are adding another layer of potential issue. Daft stuff like Ikea Leeds chargers are underground with no phone signal, but you need to use a phone app to use them. A minor point is hardly any of them are under cover, so you are likely to get soaked if any faffage is required.
At the end of the day, when there is purchase price parity with ICE cars, it’ll be a no brainer for most and quality charging infrastructure will quickly follow (it’s not like you are building infrastructure to handle highly toxic explosive liquids).

I buy small city type cars for around £13K and I find them affordable. If an electric version of the same car was available for the same price I would have bought one but the electric versions of the same car seem to be around £10K more expensive which is why they are not taking off. I am convinced that if a £13K electric car was available a lot more people would buy one and one day I guess they will be available. We know they would be within a year if petrol and diesel cars were banned…

Zoe is just over £13k via a broker and after grant etc. Very well specced for a car of that class too. Battery lease is on top of that (from £59pm) but unless you’re comparing to a diesel doing long eco runs it should be cheaper than fuel. Or buy with battery included for about £19k and have minimal ongoing costs.

I am quite seriously thinking about getting an electric scooter…nothing to really fail on a MOT

Except for tyres, brakes, lights, bodywork, mirrors, instruments, damping and number plates etc :). You’ve just dropped the emissions and exhaust and perhaps the odd oil leak/leaky fuel tank 🙂

Or buy with battery included for about £19k and have minimal ongoing costs.

Not bad but still not really £13K is it (and £13k is a top end city car). The thing with small city cars is that the MPG is so good these days that the fuel cost won’t be that much more than electricity cost each year.

Like I said, if petrol/diesel vehicles were banned from sale we would soon see an influx of £10K electric vehicles from all the current manufacturers of cheap cars.

Sat in a model 3 in the King of Prussia shopping mall in Philadelphia this week. It’s a nice car. But not a hatchback. More like a mondeo size. It’s small but not EU small! I’d like something a little more euro practical to be honest.

But things are changing and that’s a great sign. At £25k I’d seriously consider buying a new electric car next time, as opposed to my usual buy used for £10-12k.

In the US the 3 requires no service (including brake pads) for 100k miles. So factor service costs into the overall cost equation.

[ that VW looks ace ]

Twin clutch multi speed auto boxes like you find in mercs beemers

Don’t think those cars have dual clutch boxes do they? Though it was just Ford and VW?

the King of Prussia shopping mall in Philadelphia

I’ve been there.

I am quite seriously thinking about getting an electric scooter thins summer – £1,200 to buy, 30mph top speed, 70km to a charge, no “road tax”, nothing to really fail on a MOT and supposedly around 1p/mile motoring

mopedy fun

That does seem cheap, not sure I’d be happy with a 30mph limit though. The 75mph one that can be ridden on a CBT would be tempting if only it had bigger wheels (like a PCX) and didn’t cost so much.

The Super Soco electric motorbikes look pretty good. Latest version can do 60mph, 60 miles range, £4000.
https://www.green-mopeds.com/super-soco-tc-max-174-p.asp

The BMW scooter looks ace but not cheap. I looked at other eScooters and nothing ticks the right boxes at the moment. The little Yamaha had a range of 14 miles. Range not speed is what a scooter needs.

That’s an affordable car?

price parity

But what is that?

Once you factor in reduced

– Fuel costs
– Various tax effects
– Servicing costs
– Whatever other differences there are between ICE and EV in either direction

then price parity is not an ICE vs an EV at the same purchase cost.

Then on top of that there is the extra you would be willing pay to achieve a reduction in your contribution to emissions etc. That’s not zero. Unless you’re Donald Trump.

price parity

But what is that?

Well, if you hadn’t conveniently missed out the word before “purchase” as in purchase price parity then it should be a bit clearer. Believe it or not I actually chose that wording in the expectation that it would be obvious that I meant initial purchase price, not cost of vehicle over it’s life. Hey Ho,. 😉

The BMW scooter looks ace but not cheap. I looked at other eScooters and nothing ticks the right boxes at the moment. The little Yamaha had a range of 14 miles. Range not speed is what a scooter needs.

That depends how far your want to go (not being flippant btw). Agree that a 14 mile range is extremely low, maybe it would be ok for a 10 miles/day commute assuming it was garaged/charged each night (I wouldn’t though). My 5 mile each way cycle commute has a section of 40mph road in it, no way I’d want to ride something with an engine/motor that couldn’t do the speed limit of the roads of want to use it on (I’ve seen a few near misses with people overtaking mopeds – probably no worse than cycling but…)

Mate has a scooter for getting about town.
Cost him 800€ second hand and costs about 6€ a week in fuel.

You’d have to be doing a lot of miles and keep the thing for years and years for an e-scooter to make sense.

It’s not really a relevant comparison to compare a second hand petrol scooter to a brand new electric one though. You could say that about a Tesla and a 15 year old Focus… A better comparison would be say a new PCX 125 @£3kish Vs that electric one @£4k. Servicing and other running costs should be far cheaper on the electric one. No idea on insurance/residuals/reliability though. Just saying…

Servicing and other running costs should be far cheaper on the electric one.

I think the point being made that the cost of running a <125cc scooter is absolutely tiny. 150mpg and half a bottle of oil every 12 months, it would take months just to buy the extension lead!

Also you’re not comparing like for like, a £3k Honda is competing against that £12k BMW. A £4k electric bike is going to be more like the <£1k unknown brand mopeds from China.