The Electric Car Thread

any experience of insuring new young drivers as main driver on EV’s ?

Our youngest, who turns 18 in July, should pass his test in the next month.  He starts a well paid apprenticeship mid August and will have a daily commute of 20 miles each way.  He will be staying at home with us and is keen to buy a new car, which we fully support. His elder brother got a new Corsa when he passed his test, 3 years ago and that is his daily driver, he does about 15k miles per annum, with annual insurance with him as main driver of about £1800 (on a family Admiral fleet deal).  Car is fully funded by him.

So for youngest, current options we are looking at are, either another new Corsa, petrol, which can be has preregistered for about 16k (we’d do it on a HP over a few yrs), or for similar money on a PCP, a 2-3 yr old eNiro or similar.  He would be main driver.

Advantages of Corsa – conventional car with manual gearbox – seems the ‘right thing’ for a new driver, cheapish to buy, 3 yr warranty, we know roughly what insurance would be.

Advantages of EV – probs more ‘fun’, though is that a good thing…  Very cheap to run – we have an Easee charger for my i4, and are on IO.   Disadvantages being insurance costs (no idea), and setting him on a route of not having experience with a conventional gearbox etc ??

keen for thoughts.

Manual gearboxes will likely disappear with ICE cars, not immediately, but probably not that big a worry for today’s youngster

See also pens, phone boxes, standing up to change the channel, all sorts of iother stuff that was dead important when I were a lad

Curious to know if the quick acceleration of an EV brings  higher insurance  costs with it. Differences in repairability too, and the type of damage they are likely to sustain – not sure if those are worse or better, guessing worse

You’ll save half the cost of an Ioniq or similar in fuel alone. I cannot see a reason to buy an ICE.  Every time I fill up my diesel, I just think of the fact that that entire tank of hydrocarbons is going to be converted into pollution and sprayed all over the city and countryside everywhere I go.

Re insurance, we were on £800 last year, now it’s going down to £500 which is about the same as our diesel.  Ioniqs are slow by EV standards, the 0-62 is about 10s.  This may help.  Go on Money Supermarket and set up your details – you don’t have to have the car to get a quote.

Thanks, yes, certainly appeals on paper, plus the eNiro option has a transferable 7 yr warranty, so buying from a dealer at 3 yrs old on a 4 yr pcp is attractive and low in risk.

Still loving the eNiro again on day 2….so nice around town. Need to sort the app out, it seems to still be registered to previous owner FFS. Not sure if anyone has any ideas on that.

Insurance wise, I was actually quite surprised. Feel free to flame away; I have 9 points on my license. Only cost £600 to insure, I was expecting a LOT more than that. I think that I’m now lower risk due to job change (I was a musician, which is very high risk apparently)

Need to sort the app out, it seems to still be registered to previous owner FFS. Not sure if anyone has any ideas on that.

There’s a reset button on the headunit that you need to press with a pin or something similar. This resets everything including the link to the previous owner. After setting it up again it should work with the App.

I don’t see that a 200bhp eNiro is going cheap to insure for an 18 year old.

We switched from an old Volvo 1.8 S40 to an eNiro4. Insurance went from 260 to 500 (Glasgow).

^^^ also Glasgow area, good to know, and kinda what I was maybe expecting !

Seen a couple of videos on the Kia EV3. Looks great. Decent efficiency too despite the boxy shape. . By the time my car goes back, I won’t still need the space, so I’d happily end up in one of these.

Big battery and 350 mile range from what is meant to be a budget model.  Could be good.

had a google at Insurance for my son, not gonna work, base petrol Corsa group 12, eNiro group 29…

Did you get quotes?

Ioniq Electric is group 16 according to Parkers.

^^ no, that was as far as I got tbh, plus some anecdotal search results.  Will probs try some quote search engines this evening tho.

Just browsing on Speak EV and someone with an AWD Ioniq 6 went from 20″ rims to 18″ rims and gained 22% efficiency!  That’s a remarkable figure and a pretty useful extra chunk of range – the difference between a 250 mile car and a 300 mile car.

i’m rolling on 19s… the newest P2s can come with 21″ wheels..

My OHs father has an ioniq 5 on 22s!!

I think 17-19″ is a sweetspot size; would be interesting to see if my efficiency changed if i trialled different wheels.

Getting a wheel alignment tomorrow (should have done it soon after lowering, but have been busy). will see if it was out at all.

DrP

I just can’t understand the massive wheel fetish. More expensive tyres, more noise, less comfort, less efficiency, and why does everyone think they look cool? Just fashion, where people are conditioned to think it looks good because they think everyone else thinks that.  At the same time, people also like the balloon tyres on classic sports cars so..??

I’m pretty sure the 19s on my Merc were the reason the bushes were shredded after 95k miles.  I bought my spare set of 18s from a bloke upgrading to 20s – what a great way to ruin a nice car!

Just browsing on Speak EV and someone with an AWD Ioniq 6 went from 20″ rims to 18″ rims and gained 22% efficiency!  That’s a remarkable figure and a pretty useful extra chunk of range – the difference between a 250 mile car and a 300 mile car.

22%?

More likely a typo… Or there are a shed load of other factors at play. Like all the factors.

Other factors yeah possibly. I saw 13% improvement on my diesel when I downsized.

The replacement wheels in question on the thread were also narrower enabling the fitting of much more sensible tyres. Also it was not clear if the resultant wheel was the same size so that could have affected the efficiency calculation.

molgrips

Free Member

I just can’t understand the massive wheel fetish. More expensive tyres, more noise, less comfort, less efficiency, and why does everyone think they look cool? Just fashion, where people are conditioned to think it looks good because they think everyone else thinks that. At the same time, people also like the balloon tyres on classic sports cars so..??

All to do with looks and bling! Which, in fairness, is a justifiable reason of you’re willing to tolerate the downsides…

DrP

Day 3 of Kia eNiro….just loving it more and more.  I popped in to uni today to charge (I’m a masters student going into a PhD, so 4.5 more years there) as it’s free charging.  Only went in for the afternoon as I’d just got a short meeting.  When I got there, there was only 1 7kWh charger available, all of the 22kWh ones were taken. Slightly worried at this point, but all panned out well.

I was down to about 50% charge, so obviously 7kWh takes a bit of time to charge up…..4 hours later it was at full charge.  Apparently the drive home is predominantly downhill! After 2 miles I’d averaged 26 m/kWh! In all, I did the 17.6 miles at 5.7kwh so it only took 8 miles off the range.  Really can’t argue with that at all. Sound system is absolutely mega in the eNiro too. Hoping to get the app sorted next week.

Can anyone recommend me an electric car. Budget 12k max. Recently retired and pootle about the SW -Dorset, Wilts, Somerset but would like to explore more of the UK car camping with a bike in the car. In the past 3 months my longest journey has been a 150 mile roundtrip.

Better off with an ICE at that budget and requirements.

MG5 estate will do what you need for that budget. It’s not the fastest charging car in the world, but my dad has no issues trundling from Devon to North Yorkshire in his. Make sure you pick the version with the 61kWh battery. Loads of them on Autotrader for your budget.

When I got there, there was only 1 7kWh charger available, all of the 22kWh ones were taken. Slightly worried at this point, but all panned out well.

I think it only charges at 7 kWh max on AC anyway so no loss there

@artichokes would recommend a trip here if it’s not too far away. They’ve got plenty of ev’s in stock so you could have a good look

https://drive-green.co.uk/

Currently, would say your budget gets you into these:

Hyundai Ioniq
MG5
MG ZS
Peugeot e-2008

Bit more and you could get a Kona with the bigger battery.

^^^ wot he said ^^^^

The niro tops out at 7kWh AC charging (which is pretty common) so no benefit of being on a 22kWh charger.

Ah right, really interesting that.  Most days that I’m there it’ll be plugged in all day so no biggie.  It’s really cool actually, we’ve got a smart energy network at uni, including two wind turbines and 12000 solar panels.  Via an app you can tell the chargers what time you plan to leave, and what charge level you want.  It will then vary the charge rate according to the other power needs of the university etc, also taking into account how CO2 intensive the national grid is, how much of our own energy we’re generating etc. It can be used to avoid curtailment etc.

Can anyone recommend me an electric car. Budget 12k max

Hyundai Ioniq 38kWh got my vote. Slow rapid charging the only downside but it’s not unusual at that end of the market.

F***ing Project EV, useless *****.

Over again my ProjectEV charger has shit itself to death leaving me no way of charging – not ideal in a fully EV household!

It’s bad enough dealing with the vagaries of public charging but when you can’t even rely on domestic charging it all becomes way too much hassle.

Last time it took roughly three weeks for them to sort their shit out and fix the problem, hopefully this time it will be a bit quicker.

Oof, that’s crap.

I’d be right annoyed if I’d paid a grand for a glorified plug for it to fail.

Twice Molgrips, the useless piece of shit thing has failed twice in under a year. How hard is it to make something not shit!?

So for youngest, current options we are looking at are, either another new Corsa, petrol, which can be has preregistered for about 16k (we’d do it on a HP over a few yrs), or for similar money on a PCP, a 2-3 yr old eNiro or similar. He would be main driver.

The e Corsa is available pre reg for 16k, best of both worlds?

A truly miserable 4.0 miles per kWh on the first leg of the trip. It’s only 12C and pretty wet, but even so that’s rubbish. The satnav made a reasonable call having had us stop at Hilton Park, but its next planned stop is 120 miles up the road and if we charge to 80% we may not make it. Let’s see if it adjusts itself.

A truly miserable 4.0 miles per kWh on the first leg of the trip. It’s only 12C and pretty wet, but even so that’s rubbish.

I dunno, I think that’s actually pretty good for any EV on the motorway. The Skoda Enyaq, Mach-E, and awful IONIQ5 that I took for test drives used more than 300Wh/m on the motorway with the cruise pegged at 70mph.

My Musk-mobile, on the other hand, will trundle along at 220Wh/m with winter tyres on and the cruise set to 72. A-roads will see more like 180Wh/m.

A truly miserable 4.0 miles per kWh on the first leg of the trip.

Remember you are traveling north and everything is uphill from your southern start location 😉😂. It’s down hill from Shap summit on the M6 all the way to the border so the numbers should increase along that stretch.

I’d just pin charging stops as close to every 100 miles near to the route you are driving and charge at them.

I’m at Carlisle Starbucks which is a great location with 12 350kW Ionities and it’s on Electroverse too. Previous stop was at Burton in Kendal. There are 6 chargers there and it’s the only time I’ve seen a bank of rapids fill up, but only for about 10 mins. The 50kWs were still free though. I should have charged at those.

Now the rain has stopped were at 4.5m/kWh which means the second leg we were doing about 4.8, which is more like what I’d expect. We’ll aim for Queen of the Loch next, although we could probably get there without another stop I think we’ll stop at Fort William, we don’t want to arrive in a remote single-charger town with nothing.

The satnav is working surprisingly well and it’s a lot easier than following a pre-made plan because it responds to events and your actions. I’ve realised that favouriting a station that has the facilities you want on a long route is a nice idea.

I was at Gretna Services Ionity 5 mins ago. Just at the Gretna Outlet centre looking at the Tesla Supercharging station they’re currently building.

SE London to Staffs/Cheshire border yesterday, 19% to 81% at Keele services superchargers in 20mins got us to my folks place at 75%. 4 adult sized peeps plus luggage, cruise at 73mph… (55p/KWh at the supercharger).

Tried the beta self steering cruise control, not a fan as it is a faff to change lanes which is self defeating…

9 hours on granny charger overnight back to 100%. Heading on to North Yorks this afternoon.

First long trip has been straightforward so far, if only the weather forecast was as good….

I was at Gretna Services Ionity 5 mins ago.

Going north or south? I’ll wave if I see a Genesis.

It’s remarkable how little bother the charging is even in this slow car. Plug in, pee, get snack, stretch legs and 20..mins have gone by and you’ve added 40-50% already. I’ve done precisely zero waiting around that wasn’t welcome.

Going north or south?

Neither, just a quick top up while the family were going round the Outlet Village.
Im at my caravan for the weekend and that’s the nearest rapid charger.