DH swapping paid for car for a financed electric one

[Carswapissue]

DH drives a BM1 series which is paid off, about 7 years old/45k miles. Only costs are the usual service/tax and about £160 a month in fuel.

He intends to sell this and finance a 2021 BMW ix3 with the funds (down payment c.9k) which would have monthly payments of £200 over 3 years with an optional balloon payment at the end.

His logic being he’d save a ‘fortune’ on fuel and is considering (only considering) a job where he’d have to commute 65 miles a day which would cost a lot of money in his current car.

I find adding an extra bill to be ridiculous. AIBU? And do those of you who drive electric think the savings would be big if he did that commute?

I have an EV (which I love and adore) but I think he should wait until he gets this job to decide. The new job might even do it on the EV salary sacrifice scheme for him.

That being said, £200 a month seems cheap for an EV to me, so it sounds like a good deal if he does have to commute 65 miles a day. You'd be replacing one bill (petrol) with another (the car payment) so you'd have to make sure the balance was right.

As a comparison, I replaced £80/week in petrol in my old vauxhall astra, for probably £10/week with the EV. I have a 10 mile school run so I was driving 40 miles a day minimum, plus extra runs.

As PP has said he should change job first and then see.

There’ll be some good deals on EV’s as they or trying to get them sold before people feel the impact of the annual mileage charge

Some chargers in Scotland are still free, so I don't pay for fuel at all sometimes

Even when taking the 3p per mile charge into account, the ev will come out cheaper than petrol - assuming charging from home!

Or if theres another £8k available (whether in savings or using better finance) he could buy a second hand one instead, outright.

Well if the 65 miles a day is on top of the 6k or so miles a year the car currently doing, then you are looking at at least 20k miles a year. Assuming charging at home that’s going to cost maybe 3p a mile. But if you are currently paying £160 a month for 6k miles a year that’s around 30p a mile, and a 27p a mile saving on 20k miles is £5,400 - or £450 a month.

That’ll cover the £200 PCP payment and, if you save the other £340, give £12k to clear the ballon payment. There will be also be almost no maintenance cost on an EV, but a 12 year old 1 series will become increasingly expensive to run. So assuming the job is the right one and works out he should change it as soon as he’s settled in to it IMO. A modern car will also be safer than an old one, which for higher mileages is even more important

He says he wouldn’t trust the battery to not become ‘knackered’ and being pricey to replace so would value having the security of not owning it.

Very interesting. Thank you

It might be good to consider maintenance/repairs. The former should be reasonable if there are no issues. But if you have an accident they can cost a fortune to fix, so something to factor in.

The batteries are lasting far, far longer with much less degradation than originally modelled. They've found while analysing at fleet-scale (ie. 10s of thousands of cars) that the battery degrades aroundt 2% per year, so implying a lifespan of 15-20 years which is more than twice as long as originally expected.

I have a 2021 model, I charge under normal conditions and either use the motorway fast chargers, or plug in at home with a granny charger and have 32k miles on the clock. My battery is currently at 97% state of health (I bought it from the leasing company last year and had it tested at the Hyundai dealership).

This have a work supplied ev… Reeves is trying to fuck everything that’s good about the scheme that made it worthwhile!

Do you mind sharing your usual weekly/monthly mileage and the cost?

Changing cars is always about wanting to change car, it never saves money, no matter what people tell themselves and others. A 45K 1 series still has about 80K left in it so there is no reason to move on, unless you just want to. A home charged EV would save 1-1.5K a year on fuel, but it will take a good few years to catchup the eventual purchase of an EV. But if you just want a new car.. go for it.... Speaking as somoni who does 20K a year and traded as 120K 1 series for an EV 3 years ago...

Could you say where? I’ve never come across one!

The new ix3 though IS BEAUTIFUL 🤩

South ayrshire are all free. We have 2 in the village car park and 2 behind the pub.

Quite a remote backwater! And I'm not sure how long it will remain free, but it's survived the transition from chargeplace Scotland (though my card still works) - it's at a ferry terminal

So he gets this snazzy new car, but what do you get, OP?

For only $200, I'd get the new car lol

I would never buy that car though. Yuck

It would not be £200 per month, he'll need to pay for charging on top of that.

I have an EV and its only $50 a month to charge, give or take. Its my daily driver!