Buying a car, what fuel bearing in mind new legislation?

[Kayemm]

DH and I need a new car, we've always bought with either 0% finance or a bank loan. We usually keep them for around 10 years if we possibly can.

We have an Audi Diesel and have been advised by the garage to get it through it's MOT and get rid as soon as possible, the choice of diesel was a mistake. We'll get around 5k for it.

We were looking at a non plug in hybrid or a petrol but now think that the second hand market for these is going to start to plummet along with the cost of petrol going up as more and more stations convert to chargers.

I'm not keen on going wholly electric yet as we tend to drive in this country for holidays and do around 12k miles a year, it's a lot of time that we would have to spend charging.

Anyone in a similar situation or have any advice to give?

Anyone in a similar situation or have any advice to give?
Change your 10-year strategy; re-assess more frequently.
Buy a second-hand and only keep it for 4/5 years. Repeat until there is more stability and you can go back to your old policy (if you want to).

Honestly, we got an electric car in March this year and it's been brilliant - to the extent it's now our main car (mine is a diesel estate). You charge at home (overnight) and on a full charge in ours you can get 250-270 miles on one charge. We've also driven to the French Alps and back and it was no more difficult than having a diesel/petrol car - if anything it forces you to take breaks, which on a longer journey is helpful. You plug in, grab a coffee/loo break/lunch, give it 20 minutes and off you go again. Not to mention it's substantially cheaper.

I'm about to really test the car by doing a long distance journey in this country, where the car charging infrastructure, particularly in Scotland is...variable (South East of England to Edinburgh). I've identified where we will stop to charge up, and to coincide with lunch time/breaks etc., so you're not actually losing any time by charging.

I'm in much the same situation. I have a Volvo diesel. I usually keep my cars 10-12 years and then trade them in.

This time I will keep the Volvo until it is no longer economical to repair and then scrap it and buy a hybrid.

I think there will be a lot of people doing the same.

What car do you have?

I think you may find second hand non EV rise in prices as there is still a market for them and this will increase.

Buy a car which works for you and your family needs.

Why do you say the choice of diesel was a mistake? diesel cars will still be sold new for the next 11 years and there will still be some around after that for a few years.

We do the same with a 10 year car (although we save up so no finance). We recently went for a petrol vw. I wouldn’t buy electric because they are costly and after 8 years need a new battery so the resale value goes through the floor.

I have an electric car, I was very resistant but DH really wanted one so we leased one for 6 months to see if it worked for us and it does so I bought one.
We charge at home around 90% of the time and have been to Northumbria and Hampshire in it (from Yorkshire) and had no issues with charging, only had to queue once for around 15 minutes in over 18 months of going electric.
If you can't charge at home or do lots of long journeys and prefer not to stop then its not for you but for us its great.
Plus it was a Company purchase so works very well financially too

I’ve got a Nissan Leaf. It’s literally just turned three years old and I’ve done 43,000 miles in it. I’ve got a home charger and I’m with Octopus on their intelligent EV tariff, currently this works out about £2.15 per 100 miles.

If you have home parking so can install a charger at home, I’d highly recommend looking at the EV market. A second hand Leaf Tekna e+ is currently around £12k (I don’t know much about other models!).

I wouldn’t get a battery smaller than 55kW, but for long distance driving it’s absolutely fine. Trips up to Scotland (from Essex) and the Lake District have been hassle free. Devon was marginally more difficult, but this was a couple of years ago and part of that was user error 🙈

We're also similar wrt to our car buying strategy, leasing, PCP etc does not appeal. We also don't buy new, but tend to buy something a few years old from a dealership.

We recently changed our car for a second hand Volvo V40 plug in hybrid. We didn't feel confident enough to go full electric yet, as the charging infrastructure locally is poor. But the phev allows us to get 25ish miles on electric, so our local journeys are covered and we can charge with a "granny cable" in a few hours at home. Then for longer journeys, we have the security of petrol, with the added efficiency of battery. Even when the battery is too low to provide full electric power, it still boosts the efficiency of the petrol drive, so we're getting over 80mpg out of the long motorway journeys we're doing.

I'm curious as to why you discounted a PHEV?

We've just gone electric too and although we were a little apprehensive at first its great! We charge it at home most of the time but if needed can easily charge it in under 20 minutes at lots of places (most, if not all of the motorway services now have the fast chargers). Yes it takes slightly longer to 'fill up' than a petrol car but think how much time you save not going to petrol stations for the majority of your time. I used to have to go to the petrol station at least once per fortnight.

We bought a second hand Tesla earlier this year. Lots coming off leasing deals so the price had plummeted. We have driven to Cornwall and to the South of France - no problems with either, as a pp said you stop every 3-4 hours and have a wee and a wander to stretch your legs and by then it is done.

I dont really understand the person upthread who said they avoid electric because the local charging infrastructure is poor. I’ve literally never charged it within 20 miles of my house other than at home. It’s true that if you live somewhere where you can’t charge at home this would be relevant - but in that scenario I wouldn’t get an EV

I bought a plug-in hybrid last year and am very pleased with it. I have a charger on my drive and almost all of my local journeys are made using the battery.

I would have liked to buy an electric one but although the infrastructure where I live is fine, I make frequent journeys to a part of the country where public chargers are few and far between and didn't want risk it.

I'm getting an EV in a couple of months. Check out if either of your employers has an EV salary sacrifice scheme as financially it makes good sense.

I didn't originally want one but the cost different was enough to sway me.

Because the dpf filters got blocked with metal shards from the fuel pump, the garage sorted it but it will happen again unless we get a new fuel pump.

Since covid we're each doing one day a week in the office, we don't do the miles to make a diesel a viable choice.

Another EV fan - had Tesla's since 2019, extremely impressed.

I do around 21k per year and have charged on the road a total of about 20-30 times in 5 years - so if you have a home charger, it's fine. I also do yorkshire to northumberland or Whitby for holidays, and have been down to cornwall once and birmingham a few times. Never had an issue charging.

There will be literally tens of thousands of EVs coming off leases in a constant supply over the next few years, so i wouldn't expect the second hand market to increase in value unless there's a massive increase in demand.

DPF can be a pain if constantly used for short trips. I would buy a petrol or self charging hybrid and stop worrying about any change in legislation, the date will be pushed back I am sure.

We've got an EV too, an ID4 and love it. It does around 300 miles on a full charge in cold weather, more in summer.

If you've got the space for a home charger then I can't recommend enough making the leap. We 'fill up' for a fiver at home and do around 15,000 a year.

Petrol stations on longer journeys take 20-30 mins max at a service station- have a wee and get a coffee and you're done.

Another one saying get an EV as long as you can charge at home. We only use one public chargers a few times a year and there are rapid ones on all major routes now (less than 20 minutes to 90%). We’ve had one five years now and would never ever go back

Why do people say this, it totally depends on how the car has been charged and looked after.

We have a 10 year old Nissan leaf, yes it's an older one so doesn't do many miles and is our second car. But the battery degradation on it is very low and is no where near in need of changing. But then it has been charged reasonably and had very few fast charges which make a big difference.

Electric cars if looked after properly can last a lot longer then most people realise.

If anything the demand for used petrol/diesel cars will increase in the coming years once the ban on new ones approaches. EVs aren't suitable for lots of people. If new petrol/diesels are sold upto say 2030, that means that there'll be lots of garages selling petrol/diesel well into the 2040s as the average lifespan of a car is currently around 14 years, with a sizeable proportion still on the road for 20 years. So I'd say that it'll be 2040-2050 before "most" people have EVs and demand starts to fall for petrol/diesels.

@Kayemm The EVs I like are very very expensive. You will also see depreciation is huge. People are worried about older batteries losing power and costs of replacing. I’m not giving Musk or the Chinese my money - so there it is!

We have now had 2 hybrid cars. Ours have been plug in ones and I just do the shopping in it. Plus some other local journeys. Don’t go snd get petrol very often. So you could consider a hybrid but 10 years is a bad strategy with electric or hybrid. You could get a “bargain” if you are prepared to put up with battery getting less powerful.

Or buy a petrol. That’s still 40% of new cars sold. I still see loads of charging points not working or not available at all and you can be waiting a long time to charge. In the meantime the Chinese will dominate the ev market with cheap electric cars I really don’t want to own.

That's rubbish. I have an ev that costs me less than £5 per 300miles.
My brother has a 10 year old ev that he's thinking of trading in for a new one. He had the battery tested and it's still at 93% efficiency. It's done nearly 150k miles

Both our main cars are over 15 years old now and we have been mulling over what to replace them with.

The choice is made slightly easier as we need a proper 4x4 and as far as I know, there are no proper 4x4 EVs. If there are any now or soon to be released, I doubt they will be within the financial means of mere mortals.

We will probably transition to a petrol 4x4 and a small EV for day to day use.

New electric cars do cost a lot to buy. Has anyone checked the prices of Tesla’s? Running costs are lower but initial outlay is bigger.