EV general discussion

It is a mixed story but there are a lot of people stuck in their ways as well for example one person I know who owns an older Micra, fair enough lives in a block of retirement flats with allocated parking so no chance of charging at home but lives 400m from a 4 bay 22kw charging station and never does more than 6 miles total round trip - any longer than that they either use public transport or get their nephew to drive them, won't even consider an EV.
In this circumstance why would you even consider an EV? The micra sounds perfect. Use barely any fuel, likely cheaper road tax and cheaper insurance than an EV, park anywhere without the stress of a newer car getting scratched.
 
In this circumstance why would you even consider an EV? The micra sounds perfect. Use barely any fuel, likely cheaper road tax and cheaper insurance than an EV, park anywhere without the stress of a newer car getting scratched.

Keeping the old micra in that case sounds perfect. One tank of petrol lasts a month, costs beans to insure and maintain. Likely to stop driving altogether in the next few years anyway. Vs the cost of buying an EV? No brainer.

Annoyingly my work came up with an EV scheme that is great value not long after we'd bought my wife's petrol runaround - buying the petrol car was quite a bit cheaper than a new EV at the time, but definitely not cheaper than the EV scheme from work. Bad timing.

Person in this instance buys a brand new car every 10 years or so, the old one is getting passed it, and same as others I've mentioned before likes the Micra and wants a new one but won't buy an EV. Which is kind of coming back to my point about the new Micra - it is like Nissan is ignoring a big chunk of their Micra market and how their actual wants and needs vs their imagined Micra market, at least in the next few years anyhow - that will likely change in the longer run.
 
Hopefully this is the right thread for this.
Looking for a bigger car to replace the Smart and having second thoughts about a performance car.
Wasn’t considering electric initially for various reasons, but it’s becoming clear if I want nearly new, electric really opens up the options.
In terms of chargers, I’m not really sure what I have to do?
My understanding is most dealers don’t supply/fit so it’s just down to me to sort?
Do they need to be paired with smart meters and specific tariffs, or is it just a matter of buy one, and somebody comes and installs and I plug the car in?
I had also wondered about the economics of not having a charger and purely using public chargers? I am not a high mileage user - less than 8000 per year.
i’ve honestly got no idea at this stage of costs etc for the charging side.
Public chargers - can you just turn up plug in and pay with a card or do you subscribe in some way?
 
I wouldn’t have an EV without home charging. That said you do 150 mile a week so you could just get away with 3 pin granny charging. Public charging is too expensive, it makes an EV economically difficult to justify over a petrol or hybrid.

You will need a smart meter to benefit from the cheap EV tariffs and any install is carried out by a certified sparky. There’s EV specialists out there, they aren’t overly complex to install, but they do have to be setup and the CT clamp has to be installed. Before all that the DNO (organisation responsible for electricity supply in your region) has to be notified. And it needs to be checked if you can have a charge point fitted from a max load point of view. Ie if you already have a heatpump, electric hob and showers, will the addition of a charge point take you over the max allowed current draw, but that’s where the CT clamp comes into play.
 
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Hopefully this is the right thread for this.
Looking for a bigger car to replace the Smart and having second thoughts about a performance car.
Wasn’t considering electric initially for various reasons, but it’s becoming clear if I want nearly new, electric really opens up the options.
In terms of chargers, I’m not really sure what I have to do?
My understanding is most dealers don’t supply/fit so it’s just down to me to sort?
Do they need to be paired with smart meters and specific tariffs, or is it just a matter of buy one, and somebody comes and installs and I plug the car in?
I had also wondered about the economics of not having a charger and purely using public chargers? I am not a high mileage user - less than 8000 per year.
i’ve honestly got no idea at this stage of costs etc for the charging side.
Public chargers - can you just turn up plug in and pay with a card or do you subscribe in some way?

1. Get a smart meter.
2. Get the dealer to either cut you a deal with a charger thrown in, or heavily reduced.
3. Use a 3-pin charger.

Also, unless you are really old or moving soon you are likely to want a charger for the car after this one, and so on. Much like any appliance you don't look at is a pointless expense but one that adds convenience to your life at a cost.
 
1. Get a smart meter.
2. Get the dealer to either cut you a deal with a charger thrown in, or heavily reduced.
3. Use a 3-pin charger.

Also, unless you are really old or moving soon you are likely to want a charger for the car after this one, and so on. Much like any appliance you don't look at is a pointless expense but one that adds convenience to your life at a cost.
I’m either really old. Or just charge at work…
 
BYD finally launched the Seagull (Dolphin Surf here) in the UK.


Sounds like its going to land with another strong 0% PCP/PCH offering from BYD at ~£200-220 per month (nothing upfront) to go against the cheaper and more expensive cars in the similar size class.

Had an i3 for a year then bought a Model 3. That's now 6 years old and my commute is going from 200 miles per week to maybe 20 miles at most.

The closet Renault & BYD (Ford) dealerships are both on the same road and ~30 miles away so now I just need to decide on a Renault 5 Techno or Dolphin Surf Boost. Lower cost or better drivers experience really.

I will probably have some software/app issues compared the Tesla eco-system which for me has been so good I rarely thought about it.

I had my first failure in the Tesla after 6 years. The PTC element (cabin heater) failed but the onboard diagnostics created a service entry in the app before I even had a chance to raise it myself. All I had to do was arrange an appointment date and drop the car off at Tesla. The parts were pre-ordered based on the diagnostics and the car was turned around in 3 days with one warranty fix applied at the same time. Common fault with the rear camera wiring loom.
 
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Had an i3 for a year then bought a Model 3. That's now 6 years old and my commute is going from 200 miles per week to maybe 20 miles at most.

The closet Renault & BYD (Ford) dealerships are both on the same road and ~30 miles away so now I just need to decide on a Renault 5 Techno or Dolphin Surf Boost. Lower cost or better drivers experience really.

If you are doing 20 miles per week do you even need a car/brand new car? Or is this your only household vehicle?

As for R5 vs BYD, once the hype has warn off and the stock is plentiful I'd imagine a entry level R5 might be close to that of the BYD in terms of cost. Again if you are doing 20 miles per week does the driving experience matter that much, as long as it isn't a supermarket trolley that always pulls to the right? :)

Do you not fancy another i3 or maybe even a cheap older Mini-E?
 
The issue with the R5 is that it appeals to the kinds of people that had car posters on their walls when they were little and the micra looks like it would probably be more appealing to those who didn't.
Based on the people in the owners groups it appeals to a mix of people, older and younger, male and female. The appeal seems fairly universal given how well it's been received.

AFAIK it is out starting out at £25k, not sure how it will be more premium, unless they are improving the quality of the interior materials, or giving a higher specification options list which is where the Japanese cars used to excel way back when.

Good to see lots more smaller cars becoming available though, regardless of what people think of the looks.
My guess is a slightly higher spec as standard e.g. heat seats/steering wheel which are currently only on the top-spec R5. The website shows the HK audio system available as an option which the UK R5 currently lacks.

The closet Renault & BYD (Ford) dealerships are both on the same road and ~30 miles away so now I just need to decide on a Renault 5 Techno or Dolphin Surf Boost. Lower cost or better drivers experience really.
Apparently none of the Surfs have proper climate control, and even the most powerful 150hp one is over a second slower 0-62 than the R5. I appreciate it's cheaper but it's not striking me as the unbeatable value proposition we were promised when these Chinese cars first started to arrive. If you're not fussed with performance have you considered the Citron eC3 or the Grande Panda?
 
If you are doing 20 miles per week do you even need a car/brand new car? Or is this your only household vehicle?

As for R5 vs BYD, once the hype has warn off and the stock is plentiful I'd imagine a entry level R5 might be close to that of the BYD in terms of cost. Again if you are doing 20 miles per week does the driving experience matter that much, as long as it isn't a supermarket trolley that always pulls to the right? :)

Do you not fancy another i3 or maybe even a cheap older Mini-E?
I could buy another Tesla but I am at least sensible in buying a more appropriate car plus I would like to go back to a car with a warranty. I'm also interested in trying another brand again before going back to a Tesla. My work change requires a 2 day trip to London each week and I have two stations nearby. The closest is rural so less regular trains. The bigger one has ANPR car park payment so really easy to park and catch more frequent trains.

Yeah I've specifically thought about an i3 again because I may be one of the few that likes them :)
 
Apparently none of the Surfs have proper climate control, and even the most powerful 150hp one is over a second slower 0-62 than the R5.

I thought the climate control was just the fact it had a hot cold slider, just not numbers in Celsius? As for 0-62, does any care anymore, and the video review linked shows an 8.1s 0-60, hardly slow, the R5 is 7.9-9.0s?
 
Apparently they plan to price it as a premium alternative to the R5

Is Nissan's hail mary an entry into comedy? Micra? Premium? Micras are about as premium as Primark tracksuits.


I just need to decide on a Renault 5 Techno or Dolphin Surf Boost.

When the Chinese started exporting cars to here, they hada certain look about them. You could tell from a mile away that they were cheap Chinese rubbish. They've certainly worked on it in recent years and their cars are a lot nicer, however that Dolphin looks like it's gone straight back to those cheap & nasty days. It wouldn't even get a look in compared to the R5 for me.
 
I thought the climate control was just the fact it had a hot cold slider, just not numbers in Celsius? As for 0-62, does any care anymore, and the video review linked shows an 8.1s 0-60, hardly slow, the R5 is 7.9-9.0s?

Climate control means you set your desired temperature, manual A/C is just a varying scale of hot or cold air. If someone's paying a premium for the higher-performance version then they likely do care about performance to some extent, but I accept I'm being a bit overly-critical here as with its closest competition you aren't getting those sorts of figures at any trim level. The low and mid-spec trims seem to be where the value is in that end of the market but even so, I'd have expected stuff like climate control and LED headlights as standard to set it apart from the growing competition in this segment.

Nice to see another manufacturer going for some bright colours though, hopefully those aren't a massive premium.
 
Is Nissan's hail mary an entry into comedy? Micra? Premium? Micras are about as premium as Primark tracksuits.

Nissan has been trying to position themselves as a premium brand lately - unfortunately even when they put nice soft touch materials and better quality controls, etc. on the more prominent parts behind that is still the same old cheap scratchy hard plastics which rattle and vibrate and undoes the impression, never mind at the prices they want to charge people's first, second or third choice isn't Nissan - and that isn't a slight of Nissan just how it is. I actually quite like the full spec (usually Tekna) trim level on Nissans as it combines smart looks with an understated style and mostly sensible layout but then as above is undone by not having the conviction (or taking on the expense themselves) to do it below skin deep.

Case in point https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/nissan/nissan-micra-2017-review/ if you scroll down to the close up of the sat nav/infotainment - the orange coloured material is nice, the surround on the climate controls is NOT and creaks and feels naff.
 
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