OT: joining the EV revolution

[wildtexas]

Morning all and a happy new year.

Over the holidays I visited my brother in law who has a new model3. It was a bit of an eye opener frankly.

Chez Wild we have two oil burner daily wagons, Honda CR-V and Peugeot 3008. One or t’other mostly sits idle.

So I’m contemplating the Peugeot going as the Honda is good for longer family journeys and does duty as the trailer car.

Then an EV could do duty for local stuff up to 50 miles or so. I’m thinking smaller run around, 2nd hand as I’m not flush and also a tight Lancastrian. Son no.1 will be driving in 4 years time, so if a suitable motor could be found then it might become a car for him.

Other factors are that the missus needs an upright seating position due to a chronic back injury, so a Caterham with a Tesla transplant is out. Also we are rural and provincial so I don’t feel we have a great charging infrastructure yet.

Thoughts and recommendations?

[Cortina]

A used small EV vs a Tesla new model 3 (whatever that is exactly ??) is hardly an apples to apples comparision !!

I would still run a mile from EV's ! Depreciation ? How "green" was the actual making of the car ? What's going to happen to it and it's battery in 10 years time ? (again - I suspect hardly a "green" result). Our charging infrastructure here does leave some room for improvement ..............

I will keep running my oil burning tow vehicle for the next x years (10 + life in it probably) at 40mpg , and very very low depreciation and maint ........... why would I not ?

I had a spin on an electric motorcycle in USA a few years back - very impressive (apart from range) ..... but NOT for me , same goes for elect cars , very impressive performance , but ....................

Good luck with a small used EV if you decide to go that route .

[911hillclimber]

Find last week's' tv program, 5th Gear, on Quest last Thursday at 9.00pm.
Good article on the prog about various used ev's.

[wildtexas]

Thankyou. Had a run out in a new Kia yesterday. Very impressive but obviously not in budget.

[Nine One One]

Have a look at the ORA CAT yet to be launched in the UK but will probably be the cheapest EV around for the money and tech.

It is not to everyones taste, but then again neither are EV’s?

[Bootsy]

Have a look at the ORA CAT yet to be launched in the UK but will probably be the cheapest EV around for the money and tech.

It is not to everyones taste, but then again neither are EV’s?

And people are already backdating / rest modding them

[gridgway]

our Zoe at 4.5 years old is as good as it was when new. Can't see any degradation in the battery and has been pretty reliable. Had a couple of problems with the charging of the 12v battery early on, but that has been fixed. It's not mega miles at 24k, but it mostly charges at home and does a good job. My wife takes it to see her parents where it'll make the journey without charging one way and has to be charged there to get back. It seems ok at that. I've used it on a couple of work trips that were marginal on range and charging in journey as it were is not for me!

Prices for that car look to be about 10k. Ours still has a battery lease so would be lower. Doesn't feel like a bad deal to me.

[Nine One One]

Have a look at the ORA CAT yet to be launched in the UK but will probably be the cheapest EV around for the money and tech.

It is not to everyones taste, but then again neither are EV’s?

And people are already backdating / rest modding them

That is actually a China only model and not coming over here or elsewhere.

The model being released in the UK is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BvevMKcXmc

[Sam]

our Zoe at 4.5 years old is as good as it was when new. Can't see any degradation in the battery and has been pretty reliable. Had a couple of problems with the charging of the 12v battery early on, but that has been fixed. It's not mega miles at 24k, but it mostly charges at home and does a good job. My wife takes it to see her parents where it'll make the journey without charging one way and has to be charged there to get back. It seems ok at that. I've used it on a couple of work trips that were marginal on range and charging in journey as it were is not for me!

Prices for that car look to be about 10k. Ours still has a battery lease so would be lower. Doesn't feel like a bad deal to me.

We run 3 Zoes at work - 2014, 2015 and 2016 models - between 40 and 60k miles on them and none has ever needed more than consumables. Not a single fault. I’d say the batteries provide 10-15% less range than they did when new.

The only problem is people keep crashing them. 4 accidents in as many years in the electric cars, none is any of the petrol ones. 2 were our people rear-ending others, 2 were others rear-ending our cars. Hard to understand but apparently we’re not an anomaly according to our insurer.

I’d get a Citroen C0 if I was buying again. If you’re getting a noddy car it may as well look like one.

[gridgway]

Very strange, Mrs R had a crash, well a tiny biff in hers last year. The only car to car incident she's ever had in her driving career.

[tim69s]

My brother wrote off his Zoe too.

2nd hand options for EVs,
Zoe, Leaf, eGolf.
If you really only need 50 miles local range, and can charge at home overnight then there is also the Merc B250e, which I have been running for 2 years very successfully as our local runabout. It has Telsa motor and battery, but no fast charge capability, which rules it out for longer trips. Haven't looked at prices for a while but they were quite well priced a year or so ago. Costs peanuts to run.

I'll probably get another year out of ours before upgrading to something with more range and fast charge.


RE: the comment above about battery packs. Lithium batteries have been proven to have a very long lifespan if treated properly and even when they are no longer suitable for EV use they will have a 2nd life as Solar/Grid storage arrays. There is a huge amount of effort going into industrialising the recycling process, it will be figured out. No lithium packs will be going into landfill anytime soon, they are way too valuable.

Don't believe the anti-EV FUD!

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

[Gary71]

The bigger battery packs also have an amount of ‘spare’ capacity that you can’t access. As the pack ages it surrenders some of this to maintain the range.

It has to do this or it will change the result of the emissions/energy consumption test over time.

[Nine One One]

ONE put their battery in a Tesla model S and have managed to gain 720 miles before needing a charge running at 55mph.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/star ... 022-01-05/

Mercedes also claim 620 miles from their Vision EQXX model.

Technology is quickly improving the range of EV’s it is just the charging structure that needs to be implemented now.

[Gary71]

Yes that Merc is very interesting, the production reality of the battery tech is still some way off, but it’s good to push the boundaries a bit.

[Anta]

I am not in the slightest bit impartial here as I work for a lease co but at least our electric brand has a snazzy interface so you can see them all in one place

Www.Electric.auto

Or www.zen.auto if you fancy an engine!

In all seriousness we have a VW iD3 as a second car…. Hi capacity battery gets 300 miles plus and even in entry level trim you get radar cruise etc. I love driving it round town to be honest. Sure it is heavy but with 200bhp it goes well. Obvs never going to take it on a crisp Sunday morning over something with carbs but all our cars from work are now electric so have to embrace it I guess.

Talk at work is the Hyundais are pretty good.