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Should I buy an EV - real world advice needed.

Tesla lead the disposable car model, they want you to keep buying the new tech, and pretty much abandon the second user killing resale (if you need repairs). Renault did the leased battery so degradation is not a user issue, Nio did the swap out battery at a service station to make recharging under 5mins and again degradation a non issue. Despite this getting round many battery issues, people didnt want this in practice.

I personally don’t think Tesla really care about car sales, they are a tech company primarily, harvesting data to sell autonomous car tech to delivery and taxi companies. Getting their cars on the road is just a means to enable more big data gathering. And this is ‘leading the way’ which other manufacturers will follow.
 
firestorm said:
I did pay for a leak down test for an E46 M3 CS I was planning to buy and yes I paid for a boroscope check for another potential purchase.
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And you can do the EV equivalent with a plug in scanner and test drive. If the potential buyer wants to check… most won’t.

FWIW I’ve taken scanners and borescopes to my last 3 vehicles I’ve bought and a few I haven’t bought! A couple of the dervs were looking at fairly spendy repairs soon, turbo, dpf and egr valve replacements, but ran perfectly fine on a test drive, issues obvious on the data logs/ecu records.
 
I have an electric bicycle and two standard bicycles.
I’ve also got a small (1200c petrol ) car.
The bicycles are used whenever I can.
Whether it’s petrol/diesel cars or electric ones, we all need to use them less.
 
gingermrkettle said:
Presumably you also want dyno reports and compression readings for ICE cars to show how much the engine has deteriorated?
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I took a compression tester to buy my last MR2 lol. But not all do.

But you are only addressing half the point. A slightly lower compression does not necessarily mean you will not make your journey on a full tank. A 10% reduction in battery life after 3 years means 10% less distance on a full charge. Which could mean you were able to do 200 miles in a charge, now it's only 180 miles. Unacceptable with a nearly new car for me.

Also, I'd rather replace piston rings than the battery
 
Martyn Miles said:
I have an electric bicycle and two standard bicycles.
I’ve also got a small (1200c petrol ) car.
The bicycles are used whenever I can.
Whether it’s petrol/diesel cars or electric ones, we all need to use them less.
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Agree. I use my ebike for all local stuff when it is not raining. But I reckon I only get 80% of the battery at the moment, due to cold weather, which is annoying. Ok it's just a bike, so I don't really care. But it is another unacceptable inconvenience on a 30 grand car.
 
richardg said:
I dont recall my 12 year old BMW giving me any less per tank after 5 years ow ownership. The quoted f
I've said here several times that lithium battery cars will peak like CDs after less than 20 years. Then the next best will come along and the lithium battery cars will be worth bugger all without some really expensive new battery technology conversion. Has it already peaked in the UK market, or is it a blip? Well I am glad I do not have one on my drive, waiting to find out!
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So what if the technology does disappear after 20 years? Carburettors have gone. CB points have gone. VHS is dead CD and DVD are dead. But they did their time. Things move on. My car is 15 years old and 200k miles. It *might* get to 20 years and 250k+ miles, it may not. Not many get that far. How many 20 year old cars are left? I run cars until they die, very few get beyond 15 years. EVs will have a life, but they'll get worn out and replaced, just like my VCRs and cassette tapes.
 
richardg said:
But you are only addressing half the point. A slightly lower compression does not necessarily mean you will not make your journey on a full tank. A 10% reduction in battery life after 3 years means 10% less distance on a full charge. Which could mean you were able to do 200 miles in a charge, now it's only 180 miles. Unacceptable with a nearly new car for me.

Also, I'd rather replace piston rings than the battery
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I have driven a brand new EV for 34,000 miles over 3 years. I never over charged or discharged it and the range was as good as new after that time.
PS. It is nearer 240 miles, a journey I could have done just once in the 3 years we had it.
Why do we keep talking about the bloody batteries? It's just a distraction from the endless servicing that ICE/Hybrid cars still need.
 
stevec67 said:
So what if the technology does disappear after 20 years? Carburettors have gone. CB points have gone. VHS is dead CD and DVD are dead. But they did their time. Things move on. My car is 15 years old and 200k miles. It *might* get to 20 years and 250k+ miles, it may not. Not many get that far. How many 20 year old cars are left? I run cars until they die, very few get beyond 15 years. EVs will have a life, but they'll get worn out and replaced, just like my VCRs and cassette tapes.
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Ice cars had a fantastic innings, as did carburettors. I'm not buying an ev, partly through fear of buying one at the wrong end of the overall product life cycle.
 
MJS said:
I have driven a brand new EV for 34,000 miles over 3 years. I never over charged or discharged it and the range was as good as new after that time.
PS. It is nearer 240 miles, a journey I could have done just once in the 3 years we had it.
Why do we keep talking about the bloody batteries? It's just a distraction from the endless servicing that ICE/Hybrid cars still need.
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There are enough other personal experiences that say different, some from proponents of advancing car technology. As I said, Harry Savage just traded his in for a diesel, partly because after two years he noticed he was getting less range.

Id rather pay for the servicing of an ice car than upfront huge costs of an eV followed by awful residuals. Its not just me, the UK is voting with its feet.

Well done for having chosen one of the good ones.
 
richardg said:
Ice cars had a fantastic innings, as did carburettors. I'm not buying an ev, partly through fear of buying one at the wrong end of the overall product life cycle.
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Same reason as I'm not investing much in diesel vehicles, I'm concerned that Bradford will extend the current emissions taxing scheme to private cars and that Leeds will follow suit. Diesels have been taxed off the road in London, after all.
 
stevec67 said:
Same reason as I'm not investing much in diesel vehicles, I'm concerned that Bradford will extend the current emissions taxing scheme to private cars and that Leeds will follow suit. Diesels have been taxed off the road in London, after all.
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Also not advocating diesels due to turbos, dpfs, getting banned everywhere. i just got rid of my last one with a blown turbo, dpf light flashing, exhaust problem....theyre dirty, expensive to maintain and in france and germany the fuel is about 10% more expensive. france offers e85 'bio' fuel for normal cars at about 95 cents a litre. conversion cost is about 300 euros. you use about 25% more fuel, local users i know say.
 
My wife drove an i3 for 5 years and there was no noticeable deterioration in range. Remains to be seen on our ipace.
 
Rodrat said:
My wife drove an i3 for 5 years and there was no noticeable deterioration in range. Remains to be seen on our ipace.
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Concurs with this geek here:

Fast forward to 5 mins to see this i3 lost 14.4% over 7 years and 110000 miles.

But look at his excel sheet. You need to choose your car carefully, if his research is all true
 
Rodrat said:
My wife drove an i3 for 5 years and there was no noticeable deterioration in range. Remains to be seen on our ipace.
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the iPace battery management is very good, battery degradation isn’t really a thing with the iPace. You won’t have any issues in this regard.
 
richardg said:
There are enough other personal experiences that say different, some from proponents of advancing car technology. As I said, Harry Savage just traded his in for a diesel, partly because after two years he noticed he was getting less range.

Id rather pay for the servicing of an ice car than upfront huge costs of an eV followed by awful residuals. Its not just me, the UK is voting with its feet.

Well done for having chosen one of the good ones.
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To be fair to Harry Metcalfe, that RR was a hybrid with a tiny battery and range to begin with, which lose capacity quicker than a full sized EV battery.

Interesting i3 comparison here, the old one seemed to do pretty good all things considered

 
Matt at High Peak has given an EV a shot for a week. In summary, it’s the same answer as always, there’s good and bad, it’s horses for courses.

 
Ponty said:
Matt at High Peak has given an EV a shot for a week. In summary, it’s the same answer as always, there’s good and bad, it’s horses for courses.

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Sadly and very predictably (from you as well as him), picks a low range version and spends his time complaining about the range FFS. What a ball and bat! Then he complains about a small city car when he is used to a Range Rover.

Waste of time.
 
I guess some of the older EVs must be pretty cheap now? If you only do around <100 miles a week they would be the perfect trolly for the boozer.
 
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