electric cars, does anyone here own a g-wiz?

[misdee]

I keep going back to these. by this time next year i should be debt free, and dh lease on his mobilty car will be running out. are these cars any good for running about town? will i get sued by pedestrains if they trip over the charging lead, what about tax, mot's, insurence? i need to know more

obviously we will also need a family car, but this looks ok for just me, dh and dd3 during the days i think.

bump?

I have a hybrid (Prius), are you interested in that at all?

I'm interested. Particularly about battery replacement costs. I believe they need replacing ever 5 years or so & that probably this costs a bomb! As most Prius's aren't that old yet I guess msot owners aren't aware of this?

I expect that would apply to a G-wiz too?

I've had it for over 4 years, no probs yet with batteries, I thought it had some sort of extended warranty on those but have to double-check now.

Tax was £30 for the year this year, the guy in the post office thought it was a typo, missing a 1 off the front!

wow!

how do you find the hybrid? is it a lot cheaper to run overall? i cant afford one now, but am looking at my options in the hope of being able to put down a deposit in about a year.

do they lose value as well? is it a big loss?

what happens if you run out of charghe when you arrive, do you just ask to borrow someones power. how long does it take to charge?

you don't plug it in at all, or charge it, it runs partly on petrol and charges itself. It's like driving a regular automatic car as far as the driver knows. So it's a compromise with a pure electric like a g-wiz, but still more enviromentally friendly, hence the cheap tax and no london congestion charge. We also need another car and I am thinking of a g-wiz myself but have to organise a plug somehow, and don't know if it could carry 2 adults and 2 kids.

In town I get about 50 mpg with the Prius, on motorway can get 70. It paid for the difference in cost with a regular petrol car of the same size in under 3 years by petrol savings.

I don't know about depreciation, I just drive cars till they break down too often then get another, The previous one was 13 years old. Don't the car mags have that information?

majorstress,
I believe the battery warranty period is 8 years so I guess that's its life expectancy.

They are said to hold their second hand value relatively well. However, a quick search shows that the basic Prius is cheaper than I thought it would be (although this example is at 100,000 miles) here .

The trouble with electric cars (hybrid or not) is that they do not really benefit the environment that much. Their direct emissions are less, but the electricity is generated in power stations (2.6 units generated for every 1 delivered). The power stations' emissions must be taken into account.

Yes that's true but, it's important to reduce street level emissions. And as time goes by with more offshore wind farms being installed...