Electric Cars:what's available?

[Skull]

they told him it would get him there but not back.

You'd have been tempted to leave it there if they didn't have your car as hostage

[NewcastleFalcon]

I think that story is revealing of the current state of play of electric vehicle awareness.

Gloucester to Birmingham 60 odd miles, 120 miles round trip for arguments sake, probably awful traffic or potentially awful traffic. VW e-Golf lets assume 120 miles range.

Presumably the Dealer wants to sell VW E-Golfs, and a good courtesy car experience would be an excellent way of promoting sales. However that particular dealer couldn't have done a worse job. Presumably your pal's neighbour was taking an electric car out for the first time. Wouldn't you want to make the experience as positive as possible?

So for their first trip in an electric car why not send them from Gloucester to Birmingham, where they know a recharge will be required, for someone who has never recharged an electric car before, probably is unaware of where the charging points are even if the car might tell them, whether they are rapid/fast or slow chargers, and which network or charging points they could actually use without the faf of registering/downloading apps/having a RFID card etc etc. If it took hime 2.5 hours to recharge it he wasnt on a rapid charger, and he could have stopped the charge when there was enough to get back to Glos.

It was a disaster waiting to happen. How not to promote electric cars in one easy lesson.

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

Robert Llewellyn's (Fully Charged) round up of EV's either available now or in the next 18 months - quite a few I haven't heard of before...

[NewcastleFalcon]

It will be a few years before the new crop of EV's filter down into the second hand market, and bolster the choice. One which has been around for a while is the BMW I3 but it still commands a fairly hefty used car price, and a bit out of reach for the bargain basement thread as yet.

Charging buddy today was a lady driving a BMWI3 Rex. As Robert LLewylln says at the end of this piece, in spite of its little motorcycle range extender/preserver engine, many I3 Rex users harldy ever use the petrol engine. The lady I was talking to today said in 3 years she had never put any petrol in at all and ran it on electric all the time. First time for me, close up to an I3 and was surprised at the rear door opening.

screenshot

Here's a brief outline of the BMW I3 Rex from Robert LLewylln done in 2016 on a 65 Reg Car..the sort of thing coming up on the second hand market now.



REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

From the archives on POTD. a nice observation from Alasdair. I wondered whether the E-UP! would offer an affordable second-hand choice...but is there a single one for sale second hand in the United Kingdom .....see if you can find one. Only 213 registered so quite a rarity.

e-up

will go down well in Yorkshire

REgards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

I note that he has nothing bad to say about any of the cars he's talked about, they're all wonderful.

[NewcastleFalcon]

I note that he has nothing bad to say about any of the cars he's talked about, they're all wonderful.

For a bit of realism Gibbo you need to read Simon's "review" of why he wont buy a Renault Zoe on his blog

https://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/ ... 13#p636713

REgards Neil

[Mandrake]

Robert is a full on EV and renewable energy evangalist and hardly ever knocks anything EV related or points out its weaknesses, it's fair to say.

If you want more down to earth reviews that will fairly pick apart the good and bad points of different models of EV's a couple of channels spring to mind, one is James & Kate who are UK based (nearly hinkley I think)

https://www.youtube.com/user/James0852/videos

Another is Bjorn Nyland who is based in Norway: (Videos in English)

https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland/videos

It was actually James & Kate's review of the Peugeot Ion 3+ years ago that moved me from being interested in EV's to thinking "hey, here is a cheap EV I can actually afford". Three years later I'm on the verge of upgrading to my 2nd EV.

[mickthemaverick]

Am I missing something or does this look a bargain?:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2012-Nissan- ... Swg0deW0jv

[Mandrake]

Am I missing something or does this look a bargain?:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2012-Nissan- ... Swg0deW0jv

High mileage Gen1 (2010-2013) Leaf - I wouldn't touch it. Likely to be a lot of battery degradation as the Gen 1 battery had high degradation rates. Expect State of Health to be down around 70% at that age and mileage on a Gen 1 battery, so it can probbly only manage 40-50 miles in summer vs 70 when new.

The dashboard shows only 10 out of 12 battery health bars (on the far right) according to this page that means a state of health between 72% and 76.5%:

https://flipthefleet.org/2017/nissan-le ... re-buying/

Gen1 cars also lack a heat pump, so will suffer big range loss in winter (as does my Ion also lacking a heat pump) and were Japanese made - Gen 2 cars all have heat pumps except for the bottom spec Visia, (which isn't very common) and are built in Sunderland. (Better build quality)

A Gen 1 car can be spotted by the cream coloured dashboard and seats. All Gen2 and later cars have normal dark grey dashboards and dark seats.

[mickthemaverick]

Thanks Simon, I'll take that as I was missing something

[myglaren]

[NewcastleFalcon]

DOT....Update on plug-in vehicle grants following today’s budget

Do grants just have the effect of making a product or service perversely more expensive than it would have been otherwise "City" small electric cars at around the £20,000 mark, after deduction of the Plug In Grant, really are at a ridculously high base price. Even worse is the small white commercial van which enjoys an even larger plug in grant.

In summary and applicable from Thursday 12th March 2020

Cars....down from up to £3,500 to up to £3,000 (no plug in grant for cars over £50,000)
Vans... No change Still up to £8,000
Large Vans and Trucks..No Change Still up to £20,000
Taxis...No Change Still up to £7,500
Motorbikes No change still up to £1,500

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Apparently with an app you can order a Tesla Model 3 in about a minute....

If you want to build your virtual model 3 with out pressing the "place order" button you could try this..

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/model3/desi ... no#battery

I spotted this TESLA model 3 the other day, it had "dual motor" in a badge on the back. They opted for the red paint which as Richard W pointed out here is a £2,000 extra, but inexplicably they skimped by choosing probably the worlds ugliest standard wheels



Regards Neil

[white exec]

Do those wheels slice vegetables as they rotate?
And two grand for that rather cheap and unsubtle red??