Which electric car to buy?

[Borris]

7 miles a day…?
It’s no wonder the environment is in the state it is. I wish the government would introduce pay per mile charging to help cut congestion, pollution and unnecessary journeys via car usage.

Unless you live in an inner city area where Electric Vehicles are permitted and the combustion engine are either banned or being heavily discouraged, I still question why the average person would want to buy an electric vehicle at the moment.

Leaving the Renault Twizzy aside due to it not being a proper four seater car, the cheapest electric vehicle on sale in the UK currently appears to be the Seat Mii Electric + around £20,500. It has a theoretical range of up to 160 miles. Not a bad little car with a usable range to meet most user's dailly needs. However, I'd suggest that even at £20,500 they still aren't cheap enough for the average punter to consider. That's because there are millions of very much cheaper combustion engined cars both new and second hand that do the same job but don't have a restricted range or hastle finding a suitable available working charger.

Yes, I know offerings from the likes of Tesla are apparently brilliant and according to some, are the way forward but they are still very expensive so not likely to be on the average punter's short list.

Of course, my perspective is from the view point of being a cash buyer or someone who has borrowed the money to buy outright. However, I accept that we now live in the age of the PCP where many people think they can afford cars that they wouldn't otherwise be able to consider. So perhaps I'm wrong and there will be a big EV take up.

​

 

[davesnell]

I think I have decided that the perfect complement to our Cali ocean is to have an electric car for the everyday journeys we make. I wondered if I might pick you collective brains on the following questions that I am pondering.

1. Should I go for the VW ID3, Hyundai Kona or Kia E Niro? Any thoughts or experiences of these cars?

2. What's the best way of going about buying a new car? is it best to go with the cheapest Carwow/drive the deal quotes or are there advantages of going direct through dealers? How do you go about getting a good price?

3. Any other tips you have?

Thank you in anticipation.

Depends what you need your e car for. We have a smart electric as well as our Cali. The smart has a range of about 70 miles so we use if for all our local journeys and we use the Cali for anything longer. This works well for us although if we were to change wed go for a larger e car with longer range. Having said that in a recent survey of the top 20 least depreciating cars, the Smart was at 11 and the Cali at 1. The new Skoda is worth a look.

 

[reserves]

Unless you live in an inner city area where Electric Vehicles are permitted and the combustion engine are either banned or being heavily discouraged, I still question why the aveage person would want to buy an electric vehicle at the moment.

Leaving the Renault Twizzy aside due to it not being a proper four seater car, the cheapest electric vehicle on sale in the UK currently appears to be the Seat Mii Electric + around £20,500. It has a theoretical range of up to 160 miles. Not a bad little car with a usable range to meet most user's dailly needs. However, I'd suggest that even at £20,500 they still aren't cheap enough for the average punter to consider. That's because there are millions of very much cheaper combustion engined cars both new and second hand that do the same job but don't have a restricted range or hastle finding a suitable available working charger.

Yes, I know offerings from the likes of Tesla are apparently brilliant and according to some, are the way forward but they are still very expensive so not likely to be on the average punter's short list.

Of course, my perspective is from the view point of being a cash buyer or someone who has borrowed the money to buy outright. However, I accept that we now live in the age of the PCP where many people think they can afford cars that they wouldn't otherwise be able to consider. So perhaps I'm wrong and there will be a big EV take up.

Maybe because the buyer prefers to drive an electric car, not everything is about monetary cost.

 

[willwander]

Unless you live in an inner city area where Electric Vehicles are permitted and the combustion engine are either banned or being heavily discouraged, I still question why the aveage person would want to buy an electric vehicle at the moment.

Leaving the Renault Twizzy aside due to it not being a proper four seater car, the cheapest electric vehicle on sale in the UK currently appears to be the Seat Mii Electric + around £20,500. It has a theoretical range of up to 160 miles. Not a bad little car with a usable range to meet most user's dailly needs. However, I'd suggest that even at £20,500 they still aren't cheap enough for the average punter to consider. That's because there are millions of very much cheaper combustion engined cars both new and second hand that do the same job but don't have a restricted range or hastle finding a suitable available working charger.

Yes, I know offerings from the likes of Tesla are apparently brilliant and according to some, are the way forward but they are still very expensive so not likely to be on the average punter's short list.

Of course, my perspective is from the view point of being a cash buyer or someone who has borrowed the money to buy outright. However, I accept that we now live in the age of the PCP where many people think they can afford cars that they wouldn't otherwise be able to consider. So perhaps I'm wrong and there will be a big EV take up.

​

I agree they are still too expensive, but progress of sorts, that the main barrier to going electric is now not the practicality of the car but the cost. I’d love a Tesla, but can’t afford one right now, I run a £500 Banger as our second car.

However, If I were buying/leasing new, it would be daft not to consider electric.

 

[Borris]

Maybe because the buyer prefers to drive an electric car, not everything is about monetary cost.

I don't disagree with that. If someone has purchased an electric car then I would expect them to be sold on the EV concept and therefore prefer that experience.

However, for average bods, receiving average salaries I suspect that monetary cost is still a significant factor when deciding what type of vehicle to spend their hard earned on.

 

[blondebier]

However, for average bods, receiving average salaries I suspect that monetary cost is still a significant factor when deciding what type of vehicle to spend their hard earned on.

I think you're spot on there Borris.

The only reason I've got one was because it was provided as a perk as a company benefit. The BIK cost to me is peanuts and free charging at the office means that it won't cost me anything to run either.

There is no way I would buy/lease one if it was paid for after tax. No amount of man maths could make that work.

 

[soulstyledevon]

Maybe because the buyer prefers to drive an electric car, not everything is about monetary cost.

Really…?
Who are these weirdos…???

 

[andyinluton]

You calling me a weirdo?

In the right place, at the right time they are great fun.

 

[GrumpyGranddad]

You calling me a weirdo?

In the right place, at the right time they are great fun.

View attachment 81464

@andyinluton I think you’ve just solved the range problem for EV’s. We just need a network of overhead cables and a pantograph on the roof of the vehicle, just like the old trolley buses

 

[andyinluton]

@andyinluton I think you’ve just solved the range problem for EV’s. We just need a network of overhead cables and a pantograph on the roof of the vehicle, just like the old trolley buses

I think you are right - do that on the motorways / major routes & you could solve a lot of the range problems.

 

[Borris]

@andyinluton I think you’ve just solved the range problem for EV’s. We just need a network of overhead cables and a pantograph on the roof of the vehicle, just like the old trolley buses

Yes but you'll also get a smarmy teddy boy type with greased back hair standing on your back bumper chatting up anyone with a skirt.

 

[GrumpyGranddad]

Yes but you'll also get a smarmy teddy boy type with greased back hair standing on your back bumper chatting up anyone with a skirt.

 

[Joker 1299]

Yes but you'll also get a smarmy teddy boy type with greased back hair standing on your back bumper chatting up anyone with a skirt.

We used to call them ‘Feasties’, mainly because the travelling fair was always called the Feast, I guess because it came to town during Pudsey Feast week (whatever that was). Calling them ‘Fairies’ would have different connotations (and consequences!). The same guys would also jump in and out of the Waltzers and ride no-hands on the barriers on the Speedway. No Health & Safety in those days. Meanwhile I could be found lurking around the diesel generators scavenged from obsolete trucks. Heaven!

 

[philipcon]

A key reason for moving to electric for me is the localised air pollution where I live, global warming plus the fact that hopefully our solar panels, octopus agile tarriff and Tesco's will give us cheap motoring.. https://www.iqair.com/world-air-quality-ranking

 

[WelshGas]

A key reason for moving to electric for me is the localised air pollution where I live, global warming plus the fact that hopefully our solar panels, octopus agile tarriff and Tesco's will give us cheap motoring.. https://www.iqair.com/world-air-quality-rankingView attachment 81488

Mmmm, clean up your Air Pollution at the expense of 3rd World environmental pollution due to mining etc for the rare minerals for solar panels and lithium batteries.

 

[Doorbundle]

I'm concerned about limited range & battery life so for now sticking with this sound advice ...."Never buy the Mk1 of anything". ......Frederick Neville Webb. - A Corporal and a Gentleman, My Father in Law.

 

[clarinetbcn]

Mmmm, clean up your Air Pollution at the expense of 3rd World environmental pollution due to mining etc for the rare minerals for solar panels and lithium batteries.

Mmmm, written on a device made in China with child labor and forced labor from thousands of Uighur workers. Virtue signaling is not a solution, we all bear responsiblity for what is happening.

 

[WelshGas]

Mmmm, written on a device made in China with child labor and forced labor from thousands of Uighur workers. Virtue signaling is not a solution, we all bear responsiblity for what is happening.

Likewise.
The little man is made to feel guilty while big business and governments do nothing to address the real problems.
We have 2 options.
Science to make the best of what we have while researching for new ways of doing things. That costs in many ways.
Cut our standard of living significantly together with the population.

Oh and by the way, I wasn't the one
" virtue signalling". My phone is 6yrs old, the California is coming upto 7 and many items round the house are older still. Changing for the sake of change or fashion is also not helpful to the environment.

 

[starbug]

7 miles a day…?
It’s no wonder the environment is in the state it is. I wish the government would introduce pay per mile charging to help cut congestion, pollution and unnecessary journeys via car usage.

i have a diesel mini . 0 tax . and i do 2 miles to work . 1 country lane. too dangerous to cycle. a full tank of fuel lasts me 3 months. i also have a honda monkey which does 200 mpg. which i use on nice days . an electric car would be ok for me as we have a large drive. but would i cause more damage to the planet by going electric. my car is already made and £200 pounds of fuel a year must be better than the making a new car and making batteries and charging up every few weeks. its not the short journeys doing the damage .

 

[starbug]

Mmmm, clean up your Air Pollution at the expense of 3rd World environmental pollution due to mining etc for the rare minerals for solar panels and lithium batteries.

the battery dumps are getting a real problem for our planet. we are getting threw batteries like wildfire.

 

[clarinetbcn]

the battery dumps are getting a real problem for our planet. we are getting threw batteries like wildfire.

I have never understood why people make comments like this. The view that it presents is bleak, so no one could enjoy saying these things, but the mystery is even weirder because it's not accurate.

Some electric car batteries which have reached the end of their useful lives in cars are recycled using new technologies, and that will increase, but most are currently having their still impressive capabilities repurposed as storage for individual domestic and small business net zero solar systems. These batteries are turning out to be a god send for medical clinics in third world countries who use solar to power their medical equipment because there is no local electric network in their remote zones. That's just one of the uses that is currently booming. Imaginative people are finding uses for well beyond the amount of second hand batteries currently available.

Why do people feel driven to say this technology will fail, when there is real time evidence that it is already succeeding in ways that weren't even imagined a few years ago? It seems clear to me that it is a sort of psychological trauma some people experience because of the rate of change of almost everything, as was written about years ago in the game changing book "Future Shock." This book was a study of why many people can't assimilate improvements from which they objectively benefit.

Where Electric Car Batteries Go When They Die

More companies and carmakers are getting in on recycling to save costs.

www.autoweek.com

Future Shock - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Edit: When I was a conservatory student in the 1970s, I rented a room in the home of a 91 year old retired concert pianist. She was not disabled in any way, and once a week she drove her Buick over the Northern California coastal mountains from the rural village of 800 people where we lived to visit her friends in San Francisco. I asked her once what it was like to have lived a life which spanned such profound change. In answer, she said that, for context, she had come to this same village as a young girl with her father in a stage coach.

If she could deal with the future without rejecting it from future shock, so can we.

 

[Amarillo]

Not so different from this:

 

[clarinetbcn]

its not the short journeys doing the damage .

It is exactly the short journeys which are doing the damage, which any one of us can prove by setting the multi function display to show fuel consumption on around town trips compared to long highway speed trips. Set it to instantaneous consumption and see what you burn up every time you move off from a full stop, and what you then use around town. When it comes to fuel consumption on short trips, inertia is king, These are not the figures that VW chooses to advertise.

 

[starbug]

It is exactly the short journeys which are doing the damage, which any one of us can prove by setting the multi function display to show fuel consumption on around town trips compared to long highway speed trips. Set it to instantaneous consumption and see what you burn up every time you move off from a full stop, and what you then use around town. When it comes to fuel consumption on short trips, inertia is king, These are not the figures that VW chooses to advertise.

so im doing more damage doing 2 miles a day than some one who drives from liverpool to london every day . if you want to save the planet . stop buying stuff. air was cleaner when the world stopped. if we all went on a cycle ride tomorrow it would be a global disaster. all that breathing and farting . too many people buying to much stuff . and buying an electric car is one more thing to get rid of in 10 years time. they will end up like i phones. I've still got my nokia 3310. how many phones and tvs have you had in the last 30 years. stop buying sing. put a tree in your garden instead of a charging point.

 

[Legin]

I think this is more realistic to the future direction. My only concern is the safety aspect having dealt with high pressure hydrogen.