Electric car vs reliable old diesel?

[DeusInAbsentia]

This might be long but I'm working through this in my head and need help.

Currently have a Land Rover Freelander 2. Now I love this car, it's reasonably low mileage for it's age, it has never let me down, but, I'm getting more and more aware of the costs to run the thing. As well as a very high road tax it's now costing me around £120 a tank to fill, and whilst it's usually only fuelled once a month it's still eye watering.

Dh has a 2 seater sports car which we don't intend on selling at any point soon. We need to keep a more 'sensible' car for visiting adult kids who live 120 miles away and ferrying the mother in law round. It usually works that we use the sports car in the week and the more sensible car for shopping trips, weekends etc.

Test drove an electric mini at the weekend, or rather DH did for me as I've never actually driven an automatic and was painfully aware of bunny hopping off the car park. He said it was fabulous to drive, a bit like a go kart and was up to me if I wanted to swap. I really really liked it.

Now, with his work scheme I can have the mini at £290 a month. This includes everything from insurance and road tax to maintenance for 3 years. Car will be in his name, but my car. This isn't an issue.

Current car probably worth around £5/£6k

Pros are fuel costs gone, already have an EV charger at home from a previous hybrid, everything paid with no additional surprises, newer car with better kit, cheaper to run and probably the biggest is it's automatic. I have joint issues which are worsening with age, automatic would be much easier going forward.

Cons, would need to stop and motorway charge if we visit DD in it (though could use sports car instead anyway), at the end of 3 years it goes back and I have nothing, current car is (at the moment) reliable with no expected costs coming up.

Need to decide soon ish as lead time is December/January now.

HELP!?

Deffo go for it. We’re getting our EV next June, basically as soon as our current lease runs out, and we can’t wait. We’ve even got solar panels and they were all part of the plan re charging it! Can’t wait to have no fuel bills!

I think the dilemma is I could run the Landy for 3 years, have no issues at all and still have the asset at the end if that makes sense.
Or it could drop it's diff next month and cost me £2k to fix.

Oh for a crystal ball 😂

So you'd probably save about £90-£100 a month on fuel (assuming £20 for the equivalent electricity) + whatever the monthly portion of the road tax would be, and the monthly portion of the next 3 services + a little bit for depreciation, Vs the £290 for the Mini + £10 extra for occasional long distance charging). Whatever the remaining difference is up to.you to decide how much you like the mini over the land rover.

Hmmm...how much is the sports car worth? you could sell both cars and get a Tesla Model 3 which will have enough range to get there and back to adult kids house on one charge, and will be out-perform your petrol sports car in every way. Can you go down to one car?

We have always run cars down until they were too expensive to repair and I would find it difficult to give up a reliable car that I liked for one that was going to cost me money. As far as I am aware that would not be the best eco choice either ( happy to be proved wrong on that).Having said that my 'new' car, one year old, is an EV and I love it .Not standing around in the freezing cold in diesel filled garage forecourt's being only one of its many advantages.

If I’m reading it right, the offer is a 3 year lease of an electric mini for £290/mo
That’s not that great of an offer as any member of the public can get the same for £305/mo.

Id be looking around at other EVs and considering options like buying a near new EV other than a car lease imho.

Thats with a maintenance contract, road tax and fully comp insurance, 10k a year and 3 year lease. Do you have a link to the £305 offer?

Here is the £305 offer link
www.electriccarlease.co.uk/electric-car-leasing/mini

I just bought another old diesel so I’m a bit biased but EV are good for the planet! What I can say is you are missing a treat - automatics are bloody brilliant and you definitely will not (you literally cannot) bunny hop in one!!! It’s very simple- go and stop! Like driving a go kart. I’ve always had one and I think they are safer as you literally have nothing to think about other than the road infront of you. Give one a go! You’ll be a convert xxx

Yeah the sports car isn't going. We did have the conversation, but replacing the Tesla with the Mustang, but the existing car is a bit of an anomaly in the car world given it's appreciated year on year since 2018 and there are roughly only 1500 in the UK, and even less of the type we have (without being too outing).
It's a fun car, and one we'd almost certainly regret selling.

How much do you need the 5k/6k and how much is the landrover depreciating? What we did was got an EV and retained the old diesel (though in our case an easier choice as it wasn't worth nearly as much) for the odd occasion when it isn't that convenient to use the EV. That said, having had it for a year now, there have been very few times when it hasn't been convenient to use the EV and charging when out and about isn't too bad (and is improving all the time). I think now I'd probably get rid of the old diesel with confidence.

That doesn't include any maintenance, tax or insurance that I can see?

I imagine it will depreciate rapidly now, and I cant get rid of it until at least January when the delivery for the mini is predicted anyway.
I'd keep it, but at the moment we have 4 cars between 2 of us (modern car each and 2 classics, though one is for sale currently) so room is more of a premium.

Will the electric mini have the range you need for visiting the DC- they look like great cars but they don't have a big battery so they are more of a run around than a long distance trip kind of car.

Not fully no.
Plan would be to use the sports car in summer and if the weather is bad in winter use the mini. We usually stop for a coffee so could charge whilst drinking it and then charge again at DC's house.
Realistically we go down probably every 6/8 weeks depending, sometimes longer if they come up.

The majority of the time it will be a run around with the occasional longer journey.

The link I posted says an electric mini has a range of 115miles. That’s very low. It doesn’t say how long to charge either which is a consideration too.

Mini UK state 145 miles, which will be inflated slightly, but real world figures suggest around 120-130. I have spoken to an owner who can get 120 out of it running on the top eco setting.

Your link is for a basic lease, 5,000 miles with no insurance, maintenance or road tax added. It also wants 9 months rental up front. That will bring it to £400ish if not more, plus my costs for insurance.

Most lease deals don't come with insurance, this tends to be specific to salary sacrifice schemes.

I think in your circumstances an electric car would make sense but a Mini to replace a Freelander doesn’t stack up in practicality terms. Surely a bigger EV, with a longer range — it wouldn’t have to be much — would be a better fit? A Hyundai Ioniq 5 or a VW ID4, for example. Or even a plug-in hybrid like a DS 7 Crossback (these are lovely inside, real works of art IMO).

There’s a new Mini on the way imminently anyway, which will be ground-up designed to be an EV, and will therefore have way, way better range and charging equipment than the current one, which in lifecycle terms is now a pretty old car.

Ok, so £290/mo is looking a decent deal for a mini EV lease. Question is whether a mini EV is the right car for you and whether a car lease is the best use of £10k over 3yrs.

I went a bit OTT. My car prior to the Freely was a Fiat 500. I wanted something bigger, and I needed something a little bigger, but not THAT big 😂 I just loved the Freelander and didn't really think about it much further than that.

There are 2 of us, adult kids who have left home and have their own cars and a small dog. The only time it's ever come in useful was tip runs when we demolished the old kitchen. Mini is about the perfect size really.

This is the thing.
It would be nice to not have to think about additional costs coming out of the blue, and at the moment I'm in a 'you only live once' headspace.

The more I think about it the more I feel it's a good move for me.

In pure maths I'd be very surprised if a new EV would be cheaper than an older diesel over 3 years.

You'd have to set out all the costs and do a quick spreadsheet to get an answer.

Presumably you don't need to go into any ULEZ zones. If you do need to it's getting to be an expensive pain with older diesels and they're getting more common. The major reason we're hoping to shift our Euro5 Mondeo is the advent of ULEZs locally - non euro 6 diesel values are likely to drop a lot once they kick in and the hassle becomes more widespread.

Also bear in mind that batteries are less efficient in cold weather so you'd be better using the mini in the summer than the winter. Maybe consider an EV but one with a larger range (I have an older Leaf and am considering changing it for a newer one for that reason)

EV tech and batteries are improving really quickly. I would be tempted to hold out for another year or two and get the next generation with more range, while you have a solid, cheap to run car. £120pm is excruciating for fuel, but it's not a lot as the main cost of owning and running a reliable car. We are getting an electric too on a similar scheme but that's because my car has done well over 200k miles and it's cheaper to switch than buy in a hurry when it suddenly dies completely.

However it's your money and if £4k-ish pa feels ok to you then that's your prerogative.

@alwaysmovingforwards there's really not much in it either way. Difference is small beer whichever route Op goes down. The focus should be does it serve all their needs and does it make them happier.