Diesel, EV, or stick with petrol?

[Funky-Melon]

Hi all,

I've been looking to move jobs for a while and it's looking like I'll receive an offer from a company I interviewed at yesterday, great company, great people, interesting work etc, the issue being that it's a 104 mile round trip. I've been full time working from home (electronics engineer) with the odd commute into the office that's ~5 miles away for the last 4 years, so this'll be bit of a change for me. I'm currently driving a 2011 Volvo C30 T5 (2.5, 5 cyl, turbo) which did roughly 34mpg (calculated) yesterday on what would be my new commute but the cars on 90k now and will be clocking up the miles, so I'm not sure if I should be looking to swap it for a diesel or even lease an EV, or just pay the £200+ a month in petrol.

I'll be in the office 3 days a week, so a bit under 15k miles a year.

What do fellow Overclockers with long commutes drive?

 

[Funky-Melon]

I have a drive big enough for both mine and the wifes car, so an EV could be an option, not sure if I'd save any money buy owning/leasing one though, guess it depends how much I need to spend in maintenance on my current car/any future car.

She drives a 2016 Swift Sport, I have suggested we swap cars but she's not having it

 

[Funky-Melon]

Do work offer a salary sacrifice scheme for an EV.

208 mile round trip for a Tesla model 3 whould be easy as pie.

Edit. To be clear these only make sense if need a new car. Your current one could be fine. But how long will it be viabl for? How comfortable is it on long journeys? As someone who is a high(ish) mile user having a car that can eat up miles is actually an important thing.

They do but I haven't seen how it works yet/if it's worth doing.

Well it's a Volvo, they're pretty much the masters of making a comfy seat and as it's a pretty big engine, it'll happily plod along on motorways all day long. The T5 engines are good for hundreds of thousands of miles if looked after but most don't buy a T5 with 15k miles a year in mind.

As much as I like it, prices have been going up quite a bit on them so I'm kinda looking to see if it's worth selling up and seeing if the man maths makes sense on something else that's more economical longer term.

I'm guessing diesels are mostly dead now, or will be in the next 5 years or so as more cities jump on the ULEZ bandwagon?

 

[Funky-Melon]

Lots of cheap small to mid size EV 1-3yrs old that would cover OPs range and come with a lot of kit versus a 2011 Volvo that would handle the commute well I reckon if a new car is wanted and as he believes there's some Value in is Volvo perhaps it makes sense, for me if I was just changing for the job, I'd wait and see if the job is what I expectd before making any purchasing decisions off of it though.

Yeah, any potential purchase would be a few months after settling in and knowing I'm happy there. I've specified it's 3 days only on-site for me and if it's not in the contract then I won't be going through with it. They didn't seem phased by that.

I got my T5 a few months back as the low mpg (24mpg average) are a non issue for my once a week 10 mile round trip. It's realistically worth about £4k more than I paid for it, I know it's only a Volvo but tidy, facelift C30 T5's are getting hard to find and some have gone for silly money recently.

So I guess I could make a few grand on it and use as a deposit on an EV of some sort later down the line as it might make more financial sense as a motorway daily. The mileage could bump the monthlies quite a bit though.

 

[Funky-Melon]

Well, 7 months after accepting the job the T5 is plodding along nicely. Done over 10k miles in it, crossed the 100k mark and somehow averaging over 40mpg cruising at 65/70mph.

Have thought about chopping it for a V40 D4 as they'll do ~60mpg and with the torque I doubt I'd miss the T5 much (till the EGR/DPF plays up) but still unsure on diesel.

The company offers EV salary sacrifice after a year so if it's not too much per month on top of my £260 fuel bill then I could perhaps consider one of those, I think it's the Octopus scheme where they offer car, 4k miles of electricity, tyres, insurance etc but we'll see. I expect it won't be worth it.

Will stick with the C30 for now though.