Electric cars: Five big questions answered
The electric car revolution is speeding up but what do buyers really want to know?
www.bbc.co.uk
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Finally a mostly correct and unbiased EV article
- Thread starter Mr H
- Start date
Can’t disagree with any of that. The costs mirror my own experience entirely.Electric cars: Five big questions answered
The electric car revolution is speeding up but what do buyers really want to know?www.bbc.co.uk
I don’t use public chargers that often so not a huge concern to me but, there is already vandalism and cable theft that just cannot seem to be defeated.
Perhaps as use expands, the opportunity for both will diminish.
Decent article, but this part is a very common misconception and is not at all correct for some manufacturers:
Electric cars look more expensive at first glance because the base list price seems high, but when you properly look at the specification of the car and what comes as standard equipment on the EV vs what you have to pay extra for on the approximately-equivalent ICE car the prices come out very similar indeed.
Take the ID.3 vs the Golf 8 as an example. The base ID.3 with no additional options is £35,835. To get roughly the same trim level and road performance as the ID.3 you need to look at the Golf GTD (closest petrol cars are more expensive). Once you've added the Winter Pack for the heated seats & steering wheel, the Discover Pro navigation and the reversing camera to bring the spec to similar to the ID.3, you're looking at £36,025 OTR. There's wiggle room in the prices of both cars by negotiating of course, but in my experience I was able to get a much greater discount from the dealer on the ID.3 than the Golf.
There's obviously very little to compare directly to the Teslas, but you can be quite certain that an ICE car with anything close to the same performance and specification is going to be more expensive once you add all the optional extras to bring up the spec.
I'd agree that there do need to be more options on the EV market for those who are not fortunate enough to be able to afford >£35k++ for a car, but a blanket statement that "EVs are more expensive than ICE cars" is not correct in a lot of cases.
Electric cars look more expensive at first glance because the base list price seems high, but when you properly look at the specification of the car and what comes as standard equipment on the EV vs what you have to pay extra for on the approximately-equivalent ICE car the prices come out very similar indeed.
Take the ID.3 vs the Golf 8 as an example. The base ID.3 with no additional options is £35,835. To get roughly the same trim level and road performance as the ID.3 you need to look at the Golf GTD (closest petrol cars are more expensive). Once you've added the Winter Pack for the heated seats & steering wheel, the Discover Pro navigation and the reversing camera to bring the spec to similar to the ID.3, you're looking at £36,025 OTR. There's wiggle room in the prices of both cars by negotiating of course, but in my experience I was able to get a much greater discount from the dealer on the ID.3 than the Golf.
There's obviously very little to compare directly to the Teslas, but you can be quite certain that an ICE car with anything close to the same performance and specification is going to be more expensive once you add all the optional extras to bring up the spec.
I'd agree that there do need to be more options on the EV market for those who are not fortunate enough to be able to afford >£35k++ for a car, but a blanket statement that "EVs are more expensive than ICE cars" is not correct in a lot of cases.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Knocking half a second off the 0-60 of an ICE that will do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds is going to be a tad more than £1,500
"if an EV is charged at home "the average price people are paying is roughly 5p per mile". This compares she says, to a cost of between 15-25 pence per mile for petrol or diesel cars"
I think this figure always looks better if bulked-up
For 10,000 miles p.a. this is a fossil cost of £1,500 - £2,500 vs. EV of £500. So saving £1000-£2000 p.a., £83 - £166 a month.
I tell people it will save them £100 a month for each 10,000 miles they drive a year. The folk doing 30K miles a year wake up at that point!
£300 a month added to the finance buys a lot more car ...
My figures are even more stark than that. My cost per mile according to TeslaMate for the past 30 days has been 1.8p, compared to 20.43p in my my last ICE car (Octavia vRS) at today's diesel prices. That's £180 per year in electricity for 10k miles, vs £2,043 in diesel.
In the past 12 months I've paid for away-from-home charging 3 times, so my figures are pretty accurate over the course of a year. I also sometimes get free charges at work or other places, which you obviously can't do with an ICE car. So yes, a saving of at least £155 per month on fuel is not insignificant. As you say, the "savings" grow the more mileage you do.
I agree that you need to look at the total cost rather than the upfront cost. Fifth Gear Recharged actually compared the cost of a petrol Vauxhall Corsa against the Corsa-e. They picked the Corsa on the basis it often tops the UK sales charts and worked out figures based on 7,500 miles, the average UK mileage, and assuming a 4 year PCP. While RGA Corsa-e cost more to buy, the PCP cost wasn’t that much higher than the petrol Corsa. Once file/recharging and servicing was factored in, the Corsa-e was about £50 a month cheaper. As this was filmed some time around October last year I guess the difference would be higher. If you weren’t able to catch Fifth Gear Recharge, you can catch the comparison here Fifth Gear Recharged
EVer Hopeful
Active Member
I know it's wrong, but I just can't get past someone being called Melanie Shufflebotham
I want to know if she married into the name
I want to know if she married into the name
There are those unfortunate enough to have no option but to pay for "away-from-home" charging all the time and in my experience it costs me more to charge my car than it did to fuel my previous rather thirst petrol doing the same weekly commutes. When I first bought the car, I enjoyed free public charging but that has all come to an end, so now I'm feeling no financial benefit at all to owning an EV and I'm sure I can't be the only one.
That much is certainly true.Knocking half a second off the 0-60 of an ICE that will do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds is going to be a tad more than £1,500
.....
However, for folks who concern themselves with 0-60 times, it suggests that performance is a factor in buying a Tesla, which also implies to me that driving the thing for the joy of driving is important. This is where I have a problem. Getting a Tesla to handle with delicacy and finesse is going to cost a tad more than £1500!!!
To me my Tesla M3LR is a comfortable and financially efficient way of getting from A-B, but never a car I will take out to drive just for the hell of it.
Jason71
Well-Known Member
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Indeed. maybe I'm just old, but I've changed my driving style to match ...
For "fun" I had a Lotus-7 / Caterham style thingie, with a V8 - 300 BHP and 750kg. Scratched the itch for noise, umph, and going round a corner on rails (or tail-out if preferred ...)
It was a fine weather car anyway, but I didn't drive it once after I got the MSP in 2015. Not once.
The MS wallows horribly if cornered hard - it aint going to fall over though, given all the weight of the battery low down. The M3 was a lot of fun to drive - more like tight hot hatch (replaced with MY for practicality, but its nothing like as much fun to drive as M3). But the traction control of the MSP was astonishing (actually, I never found that in the cooking-versions, several loaners that I had over the years all scrabbled under load). Whereas the MSP was rock solid - just floor it. Including at a roundabout, taking the first 90 degree exit up a ramp onto dual carriageway ... in the wet ... "just floor it". Amazing. (Maybe the M3P is that rock solid too? I've only driven standard M3)
So I adapted my driving to not going round blind bends flat out on two wheels! Couple that with the fact that I'm now of an age where the appeal of that has worn off. I'm happy with slow into a corner and then just floor it. Follow a car into a bend, before a straight, and just floor-it if coast is clear. None of that get-ready before the bend, change-down, noise, vibration ... and then there is something coming so change back up. Puts a smile on my face everytime .. so I'm happy with "I will take out to drive just for the hell of it". Quiet, incredibly fast under load, acres of luggage space, a couple of pence per mile ... caveat being "corners safely"
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WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Jason71
Well-Known Member
pretty sure the median EV owner right now in the UK has a drive so from that point of view I am happily average.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I agree, but I think the majority of car owners don't? - if so its a coming problem.
Over the years we've dug up the streets for running water, sewage, phones, gas, cable, fibre ... power for EV chargers seems a reasonable addition. Or emerging inventive ideas for Street Light chargers etc.
The key number in that equation for fun being 750kg.
There is no way around the M3's mass.
If you haven't driven a Cater-field / Lotus, you probably don't properly appreciate just how beautifully a road car can handle and it is here that enjoyment prevails, not in brief neck-snapping bursts of straight-line acceleration.
My go-to car for involvement / fun / driving for the hell of it is a little heavier than yours, but a whole lot less than the M3.
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rincewind
Member
It is. Staggeringly good traction control. I test drove a BMW i4 M50 and it's traction was nowhere near as good.
I can't agree with that, as they are different cars on different platforms
Golf interior and infotainment presentation is much nicer than the ID3. If you want to compare battery/non battery then check out MG cars, which are basically budget cars in their respective segment.
EV's are still more expensive by a fair bit, and it can't really be denied.
MG ZS EV - base model £29.5k to £35.5k top model
MG ZS petrol - base model £17.3k to £22.3k top model
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I haven't checked recently, but last time I did:
EV was £10K more than ICE equivalent ... but so was the 2nd price (give or take).
So have to finance £10K more for EV ... but also have cheaper running costs.
Moot for someone doing very few miles, but significant for high mileage drivers.
I am always surprised to see in car cost-to-run comparisons how often the second biggest cost (after purchase) is frequently ignored - depreciation.
On a look-forward basis it's always going to be a guesstimate, but surely this is better than just ignoring it?!
On a look-forward basis it's always going to be a guesstimate, but surely this is better than just ignoring it?!
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