EV general discussion

Relentless81 said:
Which one do you have?

I keep looking at Octavia iV estate but worried about reliability especially on the DSG box and the boot is quite small for an estate due to the batteries
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It depends on what you need from a load space TBH. Basically you lose the ability to drop the floor, some people never use that option, for others it's essential.

I've got an Astra PHEV Estate (not a recommendation by the way, I couldn't find an Octavia iV or Leon in budget at the time) and that retains a good number of litres of boot space in PHEV form (just over 500 IIRC). However, not being able to drop the floor means that one of the most common bits of kit I need to transport won't stand up in it so I go from being able to carry three in the boot of my old Leon TSI to just one as it needs to be laid down.

Then again that same kit won't go sideways in my colleagues new Bigster with its apparently 612L boot (which looked rather small compared to our estates) so he's in a similar position!
 
sovietspybob said:
While yeah you can get a ~300 mile car for under 10 grand you'd have to take quite the brave pill to take on something like that, it's not like buying an 10 year old Toyota. While i know some youtube people love to buy old high milage stuff and tell you how fantastic it all is there is always a risk of very large bills especially with something like a Tesla. If the MCU goes out of warranty, cha ching!

Even looking at 2nd hand Model 3's, it's a fair calculated risk compared to other EV's as they do seem more fragile from what i can tell, suspension is consumable every 3 or 4 years etc, unknown how well the MCU will last, heat pumps and octovalves etc etc.
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So go for a low mile 4 year old car for £15k? e.g. ID.3 Tour, the batteries last (https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/...-3-loses-eight-miles-range-after-107000-miles)..

The Model 3 scores well enough in many reliability indexes.. ECUs/Octovalves have had more than enough time on the market to know issues aren't prevalent and can be considered reliable.. If the worst thing is a cheap replaceable suspension mount, which is a wear item anyway, then surely all is good? A lot of manufacturers (e.g. BMW/JLR) have used Intel MCUs, we use industrial ones in our products, they are reliable..

There is no equivalent expensive high frequency failures like wet belts, swirl flaps, turbo's, dpfs etc.. you get odd random failures, but ALA and Warranty Wise can offer fairly good warranties for £300-£400 a year if that is a worry..

This thing about being affordable is only true to a point, you can get 1 year old Model 3's with 3 years full warranty and 7 years on the battery for massive discounts over new, it's almost comical how much you get them for due to unprecedented over supply forcing crazy depreciation.
 
The older ones don’t even have heat pumps or octovalves. They’ll have a PTC heater and a more conventional AC system for heating/cooling.

Why would you do back to Tesla for something like a new screen or computer on an out of warranty car? Bucket loads of these have been crashed so there is a plethora of cheap used parts out there.

A used screen can be had for £170 on eBay vs £1k from Tesla. The Intel MCU computer can be had for a similar amount, no idea what the cost is from Tesla for that.

You can even buy access to the same service software the service centre would use by the hour/day/week etc. if you need it for any repairs (which you don’t to replace a damaged screen IIRC).

It’s just a car at the end of the day.
 
Yeah i think you're both right ultimately, i'm just very risk adverse when it comes to cars which is why i've only owned Japanese stuff the last 16 years and daily driven Toyotas for 10 of those so i'm used to motoring for 100,000 miles with zero issues at all.

I think i just need to bit the bullet and go for a 2020ish long range model 3 and im sure it'd all just be fine as i can only stretch to say 12-13k, im fairly handy with the DIY so changing suspension arms would be fine it's just a hassle i could do without, working on modern cars holds zero interest to me anymore :( Gone are the day's i'd be happily up until midnight changing the suspension or exhaust on my Impreza before taking it to work the next day!
 
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Well if your up for a project, you can retrofit the suspension off the refresh model 3 onto the old one and dramatically improve its comfort and ride.

There are plenty of other cars out there which are decent.

I used to own a standard range with a 60kwh battery (from December 21) which would ‘only’ do 200 miles up the motorway in winter and I never found range to be a limiting factor really. 200 miles is still 4 hours of mind numbingly boring driving in the real world and both the slow AC and rapid public charging network is miles better today than it was in 2022.
 
lordrobs said:
So the actual RRP doesn't seem to be as relevant as it first seems as only options relating to the power output or battery capacity count. Therefore a £36999 base model car with £10k of option packs would still fall into the eligibility criteria.
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The discount also applies to higher trim levels as long as the battery & power output are the same, so we are probably about to see a bunch of "poverty spec" trim options on ~£40k EVs to get a new base spec under the grant threshold.
 
On another note, for the commute home yesterday, i took a more scenic route that allows for spirited driving, and managed 1.6kw/mi instead of the 2.5/2.6 i would usually get via the motorway. :D Think that would take a full charge range from my expected current 220 miles to 130....... :D :D
 
I’m looking for advice please. I ordered a new Renault Megane Techno Alpine on Saturday. It won’t be here until October. I’m getting 0% APR and paying £337 a month PCP.

I made the mistake of looking at all the competitors last night because I couldn’t sleep and I could get a Tesla Model 3 in metallic blue with the same deposit and 0% APR for £317 a month.

I really like both but the recent Musk behaviour has put me off the brand quite a lot, this time a couple of years ago I wouldn’t even be asking this, but what one would you pick out of the two?
 
BG1980 said:
I’m looking for advice please. I ordered a new Renault Megane Techno Alpine on Saturday. It won’t be here until October. I’m getting 0% APR and paying £337 a month PCP.

I made the mistake of looking at all the competitors last night because I couldn’t sleep and I could get a Tesla Model 3 in metallic blue with the same deposit and 0% APR for £317 a month.

I really like both but the recent Musk behaviour has put me off the brand quite a lot, this time a couple of years ago I wouldn’t even be asking this, but what one would you pick out of the two?
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Personally? I'd get Tesla.. I wanted to hate our Model Y, but ended up really liking it
- Constant SW updates, which do genuinely add new features and tweak things to keep it slightly fresh
- Doing long trips and need to public charge? It's a game changer for many.. Sure you can manually do things yourself in any EV, but it just makes life that much easier and opens up even more chargers that are exclusive.. The accuracy of planning/range estimation is just unparalleled (for some reason)
- The efficiency and real world range are extremely good
- The standard kit is impressive
- The new Highland model has much improved ride and refinement
- There are no servicing requirements
- Things like Dog mode, Santa mode, joe mode etc all just add a bit of fun to proceedings..
- Sentry mode and remote interactions are excellent.

However, if just bimbling around town, charging the vast majority of the time at home and this is your first EV? It doesn't matter, get what you like the look of...

negatives for Tesla
- Dealers are a bit more spread out if you need one
- getting fuller versions of autopilot require expensive 'sw' upgrades (£3400 for 'enhanced', £6800 for 'full' which isn't worth it) so most people stick with the free basic autopilot but they are trying to diminish that over time.
- Insurance can be a bit more (mainly as all models get a lot of performance)
 
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Test drive both and answer the question yourself.

Edit: the 3 is a good package and at that price is hard to argue with. To add to what @Demon said above, the phone, app and car integration just work which can’t be said for other cars.

No Apple car play/android auto although the Tesla system is excellent.
No indicator stalk on the 3 - do a test drive.
 
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BG1980 said:
I have test drive booked for the Tesla and I’ve already driven the Megane which I really liked. I just wanted other people’s opinions.
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If you are looking at the standard range RWD, I would avoid driving the long range AWD model because you’ll probably end up ordering that instead.

The performance on the RWD is great but the AWD is just silly fast and you will want it. The performance is that again.

The standard range car has more than enough range for most, I think the only real difference outside of performance is the stereo isn’t as good but it’s still pretty good.
 
Yeah the standard range is what I’ll be driving. The range isn’t an issue as the biggest round trip I’ll ever do is 180 miles and now I have a house with a driveway I can charge from home. Most journeys I do are 10 to 20 minutes around town etc.
 
Yeh steer well clear of the AWD if you don’t want FOMO.

Check the insurance on the 3, it may be more than you want to pay. In the past it has been a lot more expensive compared to other cars, not as much of an issue these days but it’s still usually a bit more.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Until Ocotpus get fed up of the abuse and either kick you off the tariff or change the rules so only energy into your car is at the cheap rate.

They already do that for the £30/month tariff.
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I've been doing it for years.

I found it would be more expensive on that tariff as I wouldn't get the off-peak slots when the car wasn't plugged in or charging etc. As I do a lot of delays on items for heavy charging. I'm not abusing it, I am legit charging my car :)
 
Isn't an AWD tesla immediately luxury car tax domain FOMO costs and that's where you start paying, maybe chancellor will push it out in budget though.

to wit. seems entry CLA ev will be 45K , can see the FOMO will be strong - a summer 4.2m/kwh on 2-speed gearbox, 800V, rwd.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
I thought about the intelligent go and off peak…. We all know on “peak” costs is 5:30am-11:30pm!

Talking of peak. The king is coming.


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‘Secret’ but all over YouTube huh

Genuine question which hopefully you can answer - why has it taken so long after the ICE and PHEV models to get an EV out?

I see BMW with the i5 at the same time as the ICE models for example?
 
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BG1980 said:
I have test drive booked for the Tesla and I’ve already driven the Megane which I really liked. I just wanted other people’s opinions.
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I hated having to look to the middle of the car to the big screen for the Speedo when I tested one

Megane a fair bit smaller I think? So it’ll feel different on the road as well but both are fine EVs

Any chance you can go back and get the Megane with a grant now?
 
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