EV general discussion

[[TW]Fox]

But PHEV's usually have quite a small range

They do but this fits within most peoples mileage most of the time.

I could do all of my local driving on battery power if I'd bought the plug in hybrid version of my car. I could sometimes go weeks without using the petrol engine. But in terms of the actual mileage split, the majority of my mileage is longer journeys often to places where I can't guarantee the availability of easy charging, so petrol suits me much better. A good plug in hybrid though would work well for me.

charge it at work for free

Surely hardly anyone can really do this, why would an employer want to pay for your personal transport at commercial electricity rates?

 

[Penfold101]

They do but this fits within most peoples mileage most of the time.

I could do all of my local driving on battery power if I'd bought the plug in hybrid version of my car. I could sometimes go weeks without using the petrol engine. But in terms of the actual mileage split, the majority of my mileage is longer journeys often to places where I can't guarantee the availability of easy charging, so petrol suits me much better. A good plug in hybrid though would work well for me.

Everyone's use case is different - I do a 150 each-way journey from my house to work each weekend, and a 10 mile daily each-way daily commute with a full electric and I can make it work. There has to be a bit more planning if I know I've got other long journeys to do over the weekend but so far I haven't had any issues. The times i've had to dive into a rapid and expensive public charger have been minimal, and the money I've saved over doing the same journeys on fossil fuel has paid for my home charger install in just a few months.

Surely hardly anyone can really do this, why would an employer want to pay for your personal transport at commercial electricity rates?

He says he can in his post - how widespread this is I don't know.

As it happens I can charge for free during the week as I live in military supplied accommodation so it works well in my particular situation.

 

[bigmike20vt]

@DarrenM343 If your worried about the local emissions then get a full BEV.

The irony is that a full BEV and a PHEV have almost the same narrow bands of best value. You need to do plenty of miles but not very far in one go (you can go further on a BEV while staying on the ‘cheap’ fuel) and their costs are pretty similar.

@sandys perhaps a bit of an over exaggeration of the need to stick to motorways and clinging to charge points, the slower you go, the more range you get . Rural France also has a pretty decent network.

There is a certain amount of irony on the towing point though. PHEVs tend to have lower towing capacities, smaller fuel tanks and they drink fuel when towing compared to their diesel cousins, particularly something like a caravan. If you’ve ran out of battery power, the power and torque can also be lacklustre.

The above is obviously model dependent but lower emissions are absolutely at a compromise to stuff which may or may not be important to you. It’s definitely not a ‘best of both worlds’ situation.

towing is a concern but in reality how many people tow caravans? those who do and want to go travelling at any distance, then fair play to them, for now i dont think the infrastructure is there (even charging with a a caravan is a pain).
maybe they are out already but if not i expect its only a matter of time before caravans come with their own battery and either hook up to the car somehow as a range extender or have their own motor on their wheels. (still need charge points which can allow you to charge without uncoupling however)

 

[bigmike20vt]

we found the absolute perfect i3 yesterday and was just checking over the photos and i was trying to get the 12v battery replaced.............. and someone walked into the shop and put a deposit down. utterly crushed. the spec we wanted are like hens teeth.

2018 33kw i3 with rex, with sunroof, stereo upgrade, front and rear cameras for parking asist with adaptive cruise and tinted windows with the white interior.

over all yesterday was a crappy day, losing out on that and on top of that there is noticable damage to my drivers side front car seat in my ipace. it seems one of the rivets in my back pocket on my trousers was bent and when i was sat down driving, it has significantly damaged the leather, i spotted that last night too

am just waiting now on confirmation of another i3 today as we need a new car............ but this one is not close to as nice, has pooh brown leather (it may not be the official colour name ) and does not have the stereo upgrade and has minor damage to the rear bumper..

other than the 600cc engine which will get used once in a blue moon, our household will be fully electric, hopefully within the next week.

 

[chanjy]

Lesson learned then, if it's rare as hens theeth don't haggle over a few quid haha

Personally I'd wait if the spec is going to be important for you rather than rush? You'll regret it for the next couple of years if you buy one you don't actually want

 

[sandys]

But PHEV's usually have quite a small range - if the mileage he does on petrol is simply because the battery has run out and he can't get all the way to work on it then that nulls that argument. If, for instance, he had a larger battery which he could do the work commute with (there and back, charge it at work for free) then the only time he'd need the petrol would be for the towing aspect - that was my point.

for me ~30 miles in winter nearer 40 in summer, covers the school run, run to work etc, on longer runs it is still a hybrid, so mpg is decent, but if it wasn't for towing we'd have a full BEV

Surely hardly anyone can really do this, why would an employer want to pay for your personal transport at commercial electricity rates?

Missus company allows this and its not considered a taxable benefit, but a nice benefit for the employee really, they are really trying to encourage people back in I'm sure it won't last but as long is it does we'll take advantage.

towing is a concern but in reality how many people tow caravans? those who do and want to go travelling at any distance, then fair play to them, for now i dont think the infrastructure is there (even charging with a a caravan is a pain).
maybe they are out already but if not i expect its only a matter of time before caravans come with their own battery and either hook up to the car somehow as a range extender or have their own motor on their wheels. (still need charge points which can allow you to charge without uncoupling however)

It's not just caravans, it's all sorts, racecars, bikes, boats, horses, towing is a thing outside of caravans

 

[bigmike20vt]

It's not just caravans, it's all sorts, racecars, bikes, boats, horses, towing is a thing outside of caravans

sure but caravans are heavier than most things....... racecars and very large boats aside, i would have zero qualms towing a small trailer with your garden rubbish, a few pushbikes or even a i dunno off road scrambler motorbike or a small boat for on a lake in something like a model Y

and as for horses.............. get a proper horse for the job and let that do the towing... i reckon a decent sized cart horse would be an ok tower

jokes aside tho, it doenst change much what heavy thing you are towing, even as an ev fanboy its hard to argue that the infrastructure is just not there at the moment for towing heavy stuff with an EV. hopefully it will change as the right EV can tow just fine

 

[bigmike20vt]

Lesson learned then, if it's rare as hens theeth don't haggle over a few quid haha

Personally I'd wait if the spec is going to be important for you rather than rush? You'll regret it for the next couple of years if you buy one you don't actually want

you are right on the 1st point, i was definitely playing high stakes poker with a bum hand.
as for the 2nd part, i would 100% do as you suggest if i could, and indeed for my ipace i was able to walk away, as we had a car and wasnt in a rush.

but my wifes car is written off and is in the hands of the insurance, and its long term not sustainable us having only 1 car so we cant really play it too cool.

 

[sandys]

Price of an old i3 REX would probably get you a model 3 that'd do double the range, so less days per week on your charger and less concerns over petrol use, it'd likely still be under Tesla warranty, course it is massive so might not be as palatable.

 

[Greebo]

But PHEV's usually have quite a small range - if the mileage he does on petrol is simply because the battery has run out and he can't get all the way to work on it then that nulls that argument. If, for instance, he had a larger battery which he could do the work commute with (there and back, charge it at work for free) then the only time he'd need the petrol would be for the towing aspect - that was my point.

54 miles EV range which is one of the reasons i picked the x5 45e. That's still near to 40 miles in winter. The new one does 63 miles. Thats decent enough that all my miles to and from work are on EV except for the dual carriageway/motorway sections. New model might change that to more EV miles as it has a much bigger electric motor and can do a much higher top speed and acceleration. New Range Rover phevs have 70 mile EV range.

 

[Greebo]

They do but this fits within most peoples mileage most of the time.

I could do all of my local driving on battery power if I'd bought the plug in hybrid version of my car. I could sometimes go weeks without using the petrol engine. But in terms of the actual mileage split, the majority of my mileage is longer journeys often to places where I can't guarantee the availability of easy charging, so petrol suits me much better. A good plug in hybrid though would work well for me.



Surely hardly anyone can really do this, why would an employer want to pay for your personal transport at commercial electricity rates?

Company car with fuel paid for including private miles and with a PHEV with sub 50g CO2 and a decent range then only 5% BIK. Fuel supplied gets BIK at a similar low rate as well. Whether I filled it up with petrol 52 weeks of the year or not.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Price of an old i3 REX would probably get you a model 3 that'd do double the range, so less days per week on your charger and less concerns over petrol use, it'd likely still be under Tesla warranty, course it is massive so might not be as palatable.

i did try to argue that, however my wife absolutely does not want to have 2 pure EVs, we have my ipace and she let me choose what ever i wanted there with little input so it was only fair i did the same for her (though i did try to guide her....

at least we have a car which for 90% of the time will be run on pure electric, most of the petrol miles will be forced just to keep the engine ticking over (tho funnily enough this weekend it will get a full work out as she is going on a 150 mile round trip) .

the timing sucks, we were gonna keep the pug for another 3 years by which point hopefully my wife would be over her EV fear, and there would be more choice in the small car segment as well as mroe charging.

unfortunately the guy who wrote our car off forced our hand.

 

[Chrisc]

Ive noticed EV and PHEV are tumbling in prices recently. Noticed a MK8 golf GTE for low 20's with around 18k on the clock. I might actually be tempted by this.

 

[bigmike20vt]

I saw what looked like a beautiful example of a 2022 ipace HSE with 11k on the clock for £37k.

I mean it's not cheap and it wasn't a black edition but it's a hell of a lot of car for the money and makes mine look v expensive.

(mine was a December 2020 with 43k on the clock HSE black edition 6 months ago, but mine was a covid car and was lacking the motorway self driving and was £35200)

 

[b0rn2sk8]

sure but caravans are heavier than most things....... racecars and very large boats aside, i would have zero qualms towing a small trailer with your garden rubbish, a few pushbikes or even a i dunno off road scrambler motorbike or a small boat for on a lake in something like a model Y

and as for horses.............. get a proper horse for the job and let that do the towing... i reckon a decent sized cart horse would be an ok tower

jokes aside tho, it doenst change much what heavy thing you are towing, even as an ev fanboy its hard to argue that the infrastructure is just not there at the moment for towing heavy stuff with an EV. hopefully it will change as the right EV can tow just fine

Caravans are not actually that heavy, mine is only ~1300kg fully loaded and almost all single axels come in at under 1650kg and twins are usually no more than 1800kg. Towing capacities above 2,200kg on a car are usually confined to proper SUV's like Land/Range Rovers, pickup trucks and vans.

Towing and EV range is all down to the aero and drag, once the load is rolling, the weight doesn't have a significant impact. The weight only really becomes a major factor in slow stop start traffic. An EV towing any standard 7ft6 wide caravan will get roughly the same range no matter if its a little van like mine or a full length twin axel van. If you step up to 8ft van that takes a chunk more range off.

There are small groups of people towing caravans with EV's now and sharing a lot of information but it tends to get discussed in private groups. If you mention towing with an EV to your average caravanner and you'll get the full bingo card of FUD within 45 seconds of putting your keyboard down.

While their are people doing it, their cars tend to start at ~£50k with Model Y/PS 2/EV6's being most popular and tend to get -40% range when towing a 7ft6 wide caravan so 140-150 miles range with a 100% charge. I've just seen someone suggest they'll get 200 with their the big battery Fisker Ocean which is pretty decent. Towing a trailer tent, then you'll only take a 15% range hit (but who wants to go on holiday in a tent ).

150 miles is still a few hours driving when you are stuck in lane 1 with the trucks on most roads. The biggest issue is the layout of rapid chargers, its bad enough with a bike rack on some chargers but with a trailer it inevitably means unhitching at almost all motorway services if you need to rapid charge. The exception is if they are quiet and you are happy to just pull in front of them and block multiple stalls.

 

[jpaul]

what's the extended warranty cost like on an i3-rex(it's comprehensive on the rex?) - A 250e as a hybrid compact alternative -

 

[chanjy]

I saw what looked like a beautiful example of a 2022 ipace HSE with 11k on the clock for £37k.

I mean it's not cheap and it wasn't a black edition but it's a hell of a lot of car for the money and makes mine look v expensive.

(mine was a December 2020 with 43k on the clock HSE black edition 6 months ago, but mine was a covid car and was lacking the motorway self driving and was £35200)

Yeah just enjoy and don't worry about it tbh

I am also in a Facebook I Pace group and it's just full of moaning about the current values and how much they paid, makes you think some people had never heard of depreciation

 

[bigmike20vt]

true... but am not gonna lie if I paid 70k for a car and it lost half that in under years I would be dissapointed

 

[bigmike20vt]

what's the extended warranty cost like on an i3-rex(it's comprehensive on the rex?) - A 250e as a hybrid compact alternative -

that is a lot of car for the money. I must admit if it's genuine 40 mile electric range it would have tempted me had I known of its existence

 

[sandys]

range is wltp, seems you can knock 20% off those on most electric range claims, can't imagine the Merc is any different.

My cars claim is 47.8 miles, yeah right, if I went down a many mile hill and it's mpg claim, 282, I wish