Electric cars

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With the price of petrol going up I've been looking at upgrading to an electric car I only have a 1 litre engine so very cheap to run compared to some. I can't get over the cost !! Even basic ones with an ok range are very very expensive. I'm now looking at hybrid cars which seem to be a bit cheaper than EVs I'm wondering what will happen when production of petrol/diesel cars are banned will everyone eventually have to lease a car ? Many lower paid jobs rely on having access to transport, nurses for example.

New technology is always expensive when it first comes out as the market becomes larger and more second hand options come out prices tend to become more reasonable. It's still fairly early days.
It's also worth bearing in mind the whole car market new and second hand has been struggling with supply/demand issues making it more expensive.

It's the cost of new tech and will drop but only when production of EV's is greater than ICE powered cars.

You're already seeing cheaper EV's on the used market but covid is causing a bit of a bubble unfortunately.

It's also worth comparing the total cost of ownership as EV's generally cost less over 5 years +. I own an i3s and it costs me about £5 to travel 350 miles. My old petrol 1 series cost £60 a tank in comparison and would do 350 miles on a good day!

I should add that I used to do 15-18k miles pa so saved a small fortune. If you don't do many miles then the maths will naturally be different.

With the price of petrol going up I've been looking at upgrading to an electric car
But there are massive price rises due for electricity too.

Electricity is going up too

The price of electric cars is ridiculous. Even the really small ones.
I was totally put off second hand electric when I read an article about a guy who had paid £27k for a second hand 4 year old Merc. He’s had it 4 years himself now and the battery has gone. The car is worth £12k and the battery is £15k to replace. Ridiculous.

I wouldn't buy electric. We live rurally and during the recent storms and subsequent power cuts our neighbours couldn't use their electric car as it wasn't charged up after the previous journey

Hybrid VW golf is great- not too expensive and works well.

@PinkiOcelot

The price of electric cars is ridiculous. Even the really small ones. I was totally put off second hand electric when I read an article about a guy who had paid £27k for a second hand 4 year old Merc. He’s had it 4 years himself now and the battery has gone. The car is worth £12k and the battery is £15k to replace. Ridiculous.

Yeah that's a stinker but also needs to be put into context. Considering the ICE has been around for well over 100 years, engine failure is still relatively common and way more common than battery failure (even factoring in relative numbers).

EV's are way more reliable due to fewer parts, require far less servicing and hugely efficient. One scare story really shouldn't put you off any more than the risk of an ICE powered car failing after its warranty period.

I'm thinking of leasing an EV for 3 years rather than buying outright. Normally I wouldn't lease but with the car market being so volatile right now for a huge range of reasons I'd rather not buy quite yet.

Which have just issued an item about electricity cars.

It shows that electric cars are the most fault prone type of car you can currently buy (and not for the reason you might think). I haven't read the whole article yet.

I'm looking for a new car at the moment. Fully electric isn't an option until there is a much better network of charging points. It's improving but still quite a way to go. Also, charging can be quite slow so you have to figure that time into journey planning. I admit that there are some all-electric cars which do pique my interest. But cost is another major factor.

Hybrid is another option of course, and although I may prefer a self-charging hybrid I do have the space to have a charging point at home. But chip shortages are causing increased delivery times. Some manufacturers aren't even allowing you to order one.

We have a plug in hybrid and it’s definitely the best option for us. Lots of small journeys but every 6 weeks a 200 miles journey away and then back home. It means no long stops to charge on the longer journeys as it switches to petrol and the rest of the time we plug it in and use electric.

I’ve wondered the same about the cost of electric vehicles, we live in an outer London borough and some of it has recently fallen into a ULEZ zone, e.g the local dump, so many of my friends now can’t use this without paying £12.50 to drive there or upgrading their cars which they can’t afford to do.

At the moment (IMO) electric cars only make sense if you are leasing, and particually if your work offers salary sacrifice on EVS which brings the cost down significantly. You need to be able to make it work with regards to shorter range and how much longer it takes to charge compared to just sticking 50l of petrol in it as well.

We'll get there eventually, but for most people having an EV as their only car is a few years off yet.

Hi OP, I drive an electric car and would never go back. I think with EVs you need to look at it completely differently to how you a petrol car. No-one buys EVs unless they are super wealthy. The technology is adapting so fast there's no point. Think of it more like a smartphone which you get on a pay monthly basis abs upgrade to get the latest tech. You also don't even need to take out a full lease contract. Providers offer subscription services which are simply monthly all-in-one payments which you can stop and start at any time a bit like Netflix. They also include the electric charging. There's no road tax, no congestion charge and insurance is included so you literally pay the subscription fee and never any more, unless you want to upgrade the car. They drop the car off to your house and collect it when you're done.

Eg I pay £399 per month and no more. I used to pay that on petrol alone, before road tax, insurance, MOT costs, etc etc. And that was before the petrol price increase.

If you have a house you can run a charger overnight - which is reeeeally slow but a good way to keep it topped up. If you have an office with a charger that's really helpful too. I have neither of these. I live in a flat and don't work in an office, but I still manage to keep it charged. If I'm going somewhere eg shopping I'll charge it while I'm there for example. I also managed to drive from london to Yorkshire - with a bit of planning over stops.

It does depend on where you live - in london we have access to chargers. But you'd be surprised. A recent trip to rural Norfolk was super easy as there were chargers all over the place.

In short I really recommend going electric. It takes a different way of thinking about driving and paying for your transport per month rather than owning a car.

Once you include depreciation in your sums running your current car for longer will almost certainly be cheaper.

Electric cars are most cost-effective if you have a regular long commute. If you regularly travel very long distances then ICE might be more convenient. If you do very little mileage, the price of fuel won't matter much, so ICE will be cheaper.

@PinkiOcelot

The price of electric cars is ridiculous. Even the really small ones. I was totally put off second hand electric when I read an article about a guy who had paid £27k for a second hand 4 year old Merc. He’s had it 4 years himself now and the battery has gone. The car is worth £12k and the battery is £15k to replace. Ridiculous.

There was a guy in Finland who bought a second hand Tesla Model S. The thing started to go wrong just 1,500km after he bought it and after 18 months of ownership, after a month in the workshop, he was quoted $22,000 (£16,000) to swap the battery, with no guarantee that this would actually fix everything that was wrong with it.

Instead, he took it to a quarry a couple of hours outside Helsinki, strapped an effigy of Elon Musk into the driver's seat, and dispatched the car with about 30kg of dynamite before posting a video of it to Youtube.

It will all get better over time,it’s just science needs to tweak things,look at mobile phones,yesterday a brick,today well.
Replacement of the big batteries is a long & dangerous job. I actually took a hybrid out last week, cost of battery not known,but it’s a 4 hour job, ouch. Petrol & diesel won’t just end on a given date,just gradually go over time,it’s the manufacture of vehicles that will stop,although the rate products are appearing,could be sooner, one thing for sure,people born today will think electric vehicles is the normal,as indeed it will be

Please note that many hybrids are automatic. It took me a while to get used to driving one.

@GMH74

Please note that many hybrids are automatic. It took me a while to get used to driving one.

I've noticed this and it's put me off getting one. I really like the new shaped Toyota Yaris but it only comes in an automatic. I ended up going for another MX5 - I'll have a bit of fun for the next 3 years and then think about something more sensible!

Automatic driving,soooo relaxing, just bought Toyota Aygo ,automatic

Mild hybrids are at the moment,the only vehicle to have manual gears

I've only good things to say about our second hand electric car and it saves us masses in petrol. We charge overnight. I wasn't sure about automatic either. Love it now.

@Otherpeoplesteens this kind of disaster story is readily available for all types of cars bought second hand, a quick Google will bring up hundreds.

Electric car prices are insane in the UK.

I'm in Canada where we feel stiffed compared to US prices and we've just put a deposit down on an EV that will cost us the equivalent of £32k.

That's still very expensive, but we'll save enough in gasoline cost vs electricity cost to cover the entire purchase price of the car in 8-10 years (if it lasts that long!) because electricity is very cheap here at the equivalent of ~5p per kWh.

The exact same model/spec vehicle is £45k in the UK!!