EV general discussion

uncle_rufus said:
Perhaps it's different at the higher (or midrange, idk?) prices like that... Most I've ever paid for a car is the current one at £14.5k... which admittedly was for something "only" a few grand cheaper than I could have gotten it new - but at that price a few grand is quite a big chunk of the overall purchase cost and every little helps. Used a Personal Loan to get a much cheaper rate than the ~9% an actual Hire Purchase was going to cost - so yes a deprecating asset still but at least it will be worth something in the end not nothing. Much like renting vs mortgage really
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Thats the point though, those times have gone since the shortages. That £14.5k car saving a few grand will be new price now and saving you nothing.

Years ago when i bought my own cars i used to do exactly the same as you, buy one year old ones where a massive chunk of the depreciation has been used up especially if it was a very heavily depreciating car.

But maybe as I moved up and and up to better and better cars, more luxury and high end, that didnt work anymore. I remember buying a brand new VW Touareg with the a few options and a list price of £56k for £38k as VW were offering 5k off new, another £6k contribution to the finance and I got the dealer to knock off around another £7k.

At £38k it was way cheaper than any used one for sale in the country, even just one year old ones.

Three years later I got £27k for it so it really only cost £11k in depreciation.
 
WJA96 said:
I do 1500 - 3000 miles per month and from what you've posted in the past I'd say we're in similar roles.

The charging time has to be work time. I work when I charge the car. I process e-mails, orders and make calls from the car while charging.

I always pick a hotel with a charger if possible. That's a good way to charge and not notice it. Likewise, I tend to eat in places that have chargers and charge then as well.

It's not as easy as running a diesel. It's just not. It requires planning and it definitely alters the way you look at mobility.

The upside is the saving in BIK on a company car. That's it. I wouldn't be in a BEV if it didn't save me a chunk of money on BIK taxes.
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I don't tend to top 2000 miles in any given month unless I'm doing a Scotland tour but my mileage is pretty sporadic. Hotels would be my main concern as I just book whatever is close to where I'm working. I would be concerned turning up to my overnight stop reliant on charging over night and finding nowhere to plug in.

At the moment I tend to just deal with the super urgent stuff during the day and get to my destination ASAP then crack out the laptop so I guess I could shift that around. Funnily enough 'charge while you eat' was suggested by the person I mentioned. I guess that is pretty efficient from a time point of view but I imagine it is often a trade off between eating establishments and charging facilities!

All that said, like you I would make it work for the BIK but new car isn't an option from my employer right now let alone an EV with suitable range for what they expect me to do. By the time I do end up in one those zero / low BIK days will be a distant memory. Honestly what I would really like is a plug-in hybrid but it seems that these are being pretty much side-lined in favour of full EV which is a shame IMO.
 
November registration data is out, looks very positive for BEV's 22,176 registrations or 18.8% of the total monthly registrations, YTD it sits at 10.6% or 163,022, up 88.9% YoY.

If you count all plug-ins the total was 28.5% for November, which is pretty significant if the trend continues it'll hit 50% in less than 15 months.
 
Pure conjecture in my view. If the chips get release from todays bottleneck to start making the full gambit of cars I cant see 50% before 2023.
 
What proportion of these cars are company cars (or those on salary sacrifice schemes) for which the economic case for a BEV is overwhelming? I'd imagine a large amount of the growth in new registrations is driven by this - which means the level of growth won't be sustained at the same rate because we'll run out of company car users to order a BEV.

It would be interesting to see statistics specifically for private purchases as it will be this segment for which we can see the real clues about market takeup.

For example, as a company car user (which you effectively become if you take a car via salary sacrifice) who wanted to get a BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe, you'd need to have your head examined to choose petrol over electric - purely on the tax.

A 40% taxpayer would pay £7331 a year in company car tax on a 430i M Sport next financial year. By contrast, if they picked an i4 40e M Sport instead, they would pay just £427.

Yes, thats right - the petrol one is almost £600 a MONTH in TAX more expensive than the electric one. I don't think its unfair to say it is this which is driving the growth. I'd imagine you'd see the same thing instead of electric power if they'd found a way to power it by steam, who cares how its powered when the saving is that big?!

Meanwhile, as a private buyer, the sums are very different. Despite its list price you can still get a discount on a 430i, so you'd pay about £40k for a new one. The i4 40e M Sport, however, is about £50k after discount. So, it's £10k more. On a PCP, this is about £100 a month more from what I've seen. Which I think it is good value and if i was choosing between the two I'd perhaps wonder if the extra cost was worth it given the reduced fuel costs etc. But it's nothing like the same decision as 'The electric one is £600 a month less'.

There is no way to sustain the level of growth once the company car users have all moved over, the draw of £600 a month saving is rather stronger than the draw of spending £10k more.
 
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Journey said:
November registration data is out, looks very positive for BEV's 22,176 registrations or 18.8% of the total monthly registrations, YTD it sits at 10.6% or 163,022, up 88.9% YoY.

If you count all plug-ins the total was 28.5% for November, which is pretty significant if the trend continues it'll hit 50% in less than 15 months.
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Although good I suspect it has being skewed by the chip shortage. Manufacturers have kept chips back for EVs over ICE cars and prioritised Ev production in order to hit their targets . I was meant to have had my car in November but due to chip shortages its going to be March, but I could still order an EV from the manufacturer and get it before the ICE car.
 
Greebo said:
Although good I suspect it has being skewed by the chip shortage. Manufacturers have kept chips back for EVs over ICE cars and prioritised Ev production in order to hit their targets . I was meant to have had my car in November but due to chip shortages its going to be March, but I could still order an EV from the manufacturer and get it before the ICE car.
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Well that's 6 months of your 3 year wait to move to full BEV, if they push it back to July or even further what you going to do?

As for the chip shortage, it has been commented by Nissan and others they expect 2022 to be just as bad. So I guess EV's will just grow their market share even faster than expected, especially with many more models coming to market in volume.
 
[TW]Fox said:
Meanwhile, as a private buyer, the sums are very different. Despite its list price you can still get a discount on a 430i, so you'd pay about £40k for a new one. The i4 40e M Sport, however, is about £50k after discount. So, it's £10k more. On a PCP, this is about £100 a month more from what I've seen. Which I think it is good value and if i was choosing between the two I'd perhaps wonder if the extra cost was worth it given the reduced fuel costs etc. But it's nothing like the same decision as 'The electric one is £600 a month less'.
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I agree, the BIK tax is not sustainable as it stands but once the % update goes up, I'd expect to see those tax numbers to start moving upwards on both ICE and electric to keep the 'savings' as an incentive. I think the government will get caught out on the speed of the uptake on this and will end up having to have to make some substantial corrections in future years (e.g. more than just upping it by 1/2% a year).

I disagree on your private buyer view though, while the incentives are basically non-existent now, the economic argument is starting to win through anyway. Using your example, the total cost of ownership between the two is pretty much on par or I'd guess tips into the EV's favour at £1.48/litre for fuel and a fairly average mileage. I'd also guess that the BEV would have a lower depreciation than the ICE equivalent with demand being very strong in the used market (before COVID) and will only get stronger as time progresses as the mindset shifts.
 
Journey said:
Well that's 6 months of your 3 year wait to move to full BEV, if they push it back to July or even further what you going to do?

As for the chip shortage, it has been commented by Nissan and others they expect 2022 to be just as bad. So I guess EV's will just grow their market share even faster than expected, especially with many more models coming to market in volume.
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You missed my point. My point was mine, along with 1000s of other peoples cars due for delivery in November have been put back until 2022 which means 18% of cars registered in Nov as Ev is a skewed figure as there should have been more ICE cars but they are delayed. EVs aren't being delayed as they are getting priority over any chips from manufacturers
 
Greebo said:
You missed my point. My point was mine, along with 1000s of other peoples cars due for delivery in November have been put back until 2022 which means 18% of cars registered in Nov as Ev is a skewed figure as there should have been more ICE cars but they are delayed. EVs aren't being delayed as they are getting priority over any chips from manufacturers
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I didn't miss your point, my point was how many people will refuse to wait and buy what is available now.
 
Journey said:
I didn't miss your point, my point was how many people will refuse to wait and buy what is available now.
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Not that many. If you wanted an EV you would have bought an EV in the first place. A few might swap granted but doubt it will be in massive numbers.

registered new car sales were down 31% in Nov 2021 and doubt that was for anybody waiting for an EV so reasonable to assume it was ICE cars which were missing so hence the percentage of EVs has been artificially raised.

Plus until we improve the 16 EVs to every public charger ratio in this country (one of the worst ratios in the world), the demand for EVs won't reach their full potential.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I disagree on your private buyer view though, while the incentives are basically non-existent now, the economic argument is starting to win through anyway. Using your example, the total cost of ownership between the two is pretty much on par or I'd guess tips into the EV's favour at £1.48/litre for fuel and a fairly average mileage. I'd also guess that the BEV would have a lower depreciation than the ICE equivalent with demand being very strong in the used market (before COVID) and will only get stronger as time progresses as the mindset shifts.
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You don't disagree because this is basically what I said :D but it's far more of a considered decision. Whereas 'The petrol one will cost you £600 a month more' isn't. I can't imagine a single person would pick a 430i as a company car now - £600 a month just in tax? No thanks.

On balance, you can make a case for an i4 as a private buyer. But there are pros and cons. The pros and cons as a company car user are almost all made absolutely irrelevant by the sheer size of the saving. It's huge. This is absolutely going to power significant growth in this market sector. But the same level of growth won't happen in other car buying channels.
 
[TW]Fox said:
What proportion of these cars are company cars (or those on salary sacrifice schemes) for which the economic case for a BEV is overwhelming?
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Whilst the raw data isn't available to properly filter private vs fleet with petrol vs EV comparisons, year on year the fleet numbers in November are actually way down on 2020. Whilst obviously the comparitive surge in EV registrations may well all be EVs fleet, the fact private registrations have gone up significantly is an interesting contrast - although I guess actually a lot of salary sacrifice schemes, whilst taxed as 'fleet' registrations, potentially actually get counted as 'private' registrations as they're ultimately a personal lease.

https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/
 
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[TW]Fox said:
You don't disagree because this is basically what I said :D but it's far more of a considered decision.
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Perhaps I don't :D and it is a much more considered position.

@Greebo - The way I think about it as production rather than purchases. The spare capacity that most legacy automakers have now that they are not using due to shortages is not a delayed purchase, its completely lost and will never be regained. You also have to consider that cars being delayed until mid-late 2022 (e.g. like yours) also means someone who is buying in mid-late 2022 is being displaced to a future date as they'll not have the capacity to both clear the back log, replenish stocks and build cars for future purchases in that period. It's not like BEV's are unaffected either, VW has shut some I.D. lines down due to shortages also and there is now a waitlist of those - not exactly a low volume car either.

TLDR, those ICE car sales are ultimately lost and will never be replaced, particularly as most are trying to ramp up BEV sales.
 
My partner is looking to order a company car for next year when things are (hopefully) starting to get back to normal, to go along with our i3 so we've been looking to get a second electric car. Looking at the list, it's basically a choice between an Audi Q4 E-Tron or EQA. I suggested also looking at a Polestar to her which is on the list, but she immediately said no to one because she doesn't want a car with a 'duff brand' (roll eyes).

It looks like the car winning at the moment is a Q4 E-Tron sport, in grey, with leather and a panoramic roof. That's about the top budget, ideally we'd pay more on top and get an S-Line but I don't think that's possible.

Any gotchas or things to look out for on these?
 
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