EV general discussion

Chrisc said:
Basically you put down a half decent deposit and end up with a balloon payment at the end of the term but monthly payments are a good chunk lower.

it certainly helped me in my younger days to get a safer car while ferrying my newborn around.
Click to expand...
Because often they are leveraged by folk buying cars they can't afford to impress people that don't actually care. With rates so low, personal loans have been tremendous value. There was a time when certain PCP deals represented outrageous purchase value (M140 Shadow Edition and Golf R come to mind), but generally they are very expensive ways to drive new cars.

And the issue is once folk are in the trap, they get stuck in it for decades.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dlockers said:
Because often they are leveraged by folk buying cars they can't afford to impress people that don't actually care. With rates so low, personal loans have been tremendous value. There was a time when certain PCP deals represented outrageous purchase value (M140 Shadow Edition and Golf R come to mind), but generally they are very expensive ways to drive new cars.

And the issue is once folk are in the trap, they get stuck in it for decades.
Click to expand...
ah get you. So basically those kids you see driving evoques?
 
Chrisc said:
ah get you. So basically those kids you see driving evoques?
Click to expand...
Ahh I don't stereotype tbh. It is normally older people driving A classes that are getting the most rinsed from my limited view of the world.

I pcp'ed a brand new Fiesta when I was 19 - but what folk didn't know was, that because I had Ford privilege, I was only paying £200/mo with almost no deposit. I then pcp'ed a brand new C180 Coupe at 21; using some equity in my Fiesta I was only paying £330/mo. The Jags I PCP'ed I got on privilege too, so also had no deposit. I was driving a brand new XF black edition at ~24.

So it was OK that I was PCP'ing as I effectively paid nill deposit on any of my cars :) As soon as I could though, I took a bank loan and paid "cash".
 
Anti-PCP is mainly snobbery tbh

People don't 'deserve' to be driving cars that they can't afford with cash you know ;)

And they are being stupid with their money because obviously the person taking out a PCP must be ill informed and not realise what they are doing ;)

Not sure how any of this is relevant to EV but it annoys me anyway :)
 
chanjy said:
Anti-PCP is mainly snobbery tbh

People don't 'deserve' to be driving cars that they can't afford with cash you know ;)

And they are being stupid with their money because obviously the person taking out a PCP must be ill informed and not realise what they are doing ;)

Not sure how any of this is relevant to EV but it annoys me anyway :)
Click to expand...
I think it's inverse snobbery tbh. People just can't fathom how folk are budgeting such massive numbers for often worse cars than what they already have.
 
its not ontopic for this thread but the way i see it so long as people can afford to pay it off, and they are adults, then they can do what they want.... their money, their life.

where i change my view however (and i say this knowing a number of these people) is when people happily get into massive debt buying things they really dont need, whilst at the same time not paying their bills and therefore screwing over people.

my dad was a self employed builder so he saw it a fair bit, people going on flash holidays and owning a car/home he could only dream off..... whilst at the same time being a royal pita getting money out of them for jobs done.
i have had it with people owing me money as well one of who went bancrupt....... and yet still able to go out and buy nice stuff.

so personally despite being something i wouldnt do personally unless i could wangle it to save money or i had literally no other option, finance is fine....................... running up massive debt and not paying bills, whilst still living a life you cant afford due to credit however is not so fine.

(mind you i possibly swing too much the other way. i had the devils own job getting my 1st mortgage because i had no credit history, i always saved to get everything i needed and if that meant a hand me down vhs video player with a wire on the remote control and a tv that needed punching to stop the screen rolling and making a high pitch screech for a few years**.......... so be it :D - i am not quite that extreme now )

**i still look back at my old goldstar oops that was my parents!.... Fidelity telly with affection it lasted almost 30 years.
 
Last edited:
bigmike20vt said:
i must admit i am completely ignorant to the different finance deals. is PCP the same as a lease? if so that is from what i can tell the best way to buy an ev these days, esp if you can get company car perks on it.

for me out right buying a brand new car is just not something i could stomach the losses on myself but to each their own. and as i mentioned above, i failed to catch the falling knife as well even going 2nd hand.
even so tho, i cant lose as much on the car as it had already lost when i bought it, so there is that at least.

until i got my ipace all my cars had been cash in hand purchases (sometimes with a trade in).... but that is easier done when the money you are handing over is well under £10k
Click to expand...

PCP is kind of like a hybrid lease
Normal leases you pay some kind of downpayment (its often advance rental in effect), you pay monthly then at the end hand it back
PCP technically is a purchase method but there is an option to hand it back, walk away at the end of the term, you would do this if the car is worth less than the balloon.
Balloon often somewhat misleadingly being called guaranteed future value. Typically they are very cautious on this value.

Normally PCP is structured so that the expected value of the car at the end is more than the outstanding balloon payment (to take full ownership)

So what happens is people get car 1, at the end the may have a car worth say £10k and a balloon of £9k. The dealer says I can take your equity (£10k-£9k) and use that as your deposit for car 2.
You can have this brand new xyz for £350 per month.
You don't have to do that, but many do.
Hence the "they are only getting cars on PCP that they cannot afford"
Equally it can often be a very smart thing to do. Dealer and manufacturer contributions can be significant.
When I bought my last car I got £3.5k from VW finance that I could not get buying outright. Made it a no brainer.

Like any finance the key is to understand the costs of the finance. Your borrowing most of the value of the car this way, certainly until quite late in the term. So your paying quite a lot of finance.

Leases will often be slightly cheaper in monthlies but they are a bit less flexible generally.
If your only ever going to switch at the end of 2/3/4 years then a lease can be better.

Both leases and PCP have a get out "hand it back" when 50% of the payments have been made. Lease is simple, PCP however the 50% includes the balloon so its likely on most PCP deals you cannot get out of it until the very end.
 
Last edited:
adam cool dude said:
Mini Electric starting 11k. 20 plate. John Cooper Works 20 plate 18K. Both 33k ish RRP.
Click to expand...
The new one on the cards and limited range makes going for one quite a stretch regardless. JCW naturally has more appeal as a range topper anyway and more exclusive in terms of supply and demand, this was bound to happen.

Just look at the glut of 3 year old IPACEs on OV70/OE70 plates from Arval.
 
Last edited:
I always intended to buy my 2nd hand I Pace. I did the finance thing for the offer then paid it off early.

Have had a few friends scoff having bought rather than lease and it may well become an expensive ornament once the battery warranty expires (Mines an OV70)

However, I've had a small win as I have two rental properties I've decided to let go. Buy selling the IPace to my company and then giving the money back as a loan, I can use that as income for 24/25. I should then only pay the lower rate of CGT on the house sales.

On that basis, it's worked out quite well to buy outright. For now anyway.
 
It interests me hearing talk of SS schemes being so good. Unfortunately for me, mine never seems that brilliant especially when I do 35k miles a year so the quotes are even worse for me personally.

Every now and again, one model seems to be a good deal. So the car park has been inundated with BMW i3s, then white Tesla M3s and more recently Ioniq 5s. Thankfully some variety has now kicked in.

Personally, I bought mine outright (Hyundai Kona). Got what was a good deal at the time. Now at 94k miles WBAC offer £10.5k. It's worth a lot more to me, still does the job really well (fits requirements really well), especially since I've cared for the battery and range hasn't dropped by an appreciable amount (OBC health reads at 97%)
 
All this talk of not caring about depreciation on leases made me curious about mine. Just checked the value of my car and it's lost ~£10k since I got it in March. I haven't paid anywhere near that much and even the total by the end of the contract will only just cover it, never mind the next 3 years/30k miles! Looks like they're probably going to take quite a hit on it unless prices stay essentially static over that time. Definitely glad I went for the lease rather than buying!
 
Ben Cole said:
It interests me hearing talk of SS schemes being so good. Unfortunately for me, mine never seems that brilliant especially when I do 35k miles a year so the quotes are even worse for me personally.

Every now and again, one model seems to be a good deal. So the car park has been inundated with BMW i3s, then white Tesla M3s and more recently Ioniq 5s. Thankfully some variety has now kicked in.

Personally, I bought mine outright (Hyundai Kona). Got what was a good deal at the time. Now at 94k miles WBAC offer £10.5k. It's worth a lot more to me, still does the job really well (fits requirements really well), especially since I've cared for the battery and range hasn't dropped by an appreciable amount (OBC health reads at 97%)
Click to expand...
Most the good deals I see are either Chinese, or premium EV's being offered at more reasonable prices.
 
Haggisman said:
All this talk of not caring about depreciation on leases made me curious about mine. Just checked the value of my car and it's lost ~£10k since I got it in March. I haven't paid anywhere near that much and even the total by the end of the contract will only just cover it, never mind the next 3 years/30k miles! Looks like they're probably going to take quite a hit on it unless prices stay essentially static over that time. Definitely glad I went for the lease rather than buying!
Click to expand...
There's no way the amount we're paying for our Q8 will come anywhere near close to covering the depreciation. We'll be paying just over ~18k over 3 years. Based on 3 year old eTron prices now, I expect it to loose ~£40k in value.

They must be getting them for a heck less than list price from Audi.
 
I'll consider electric cars when the cars go fully disconnected from the net - I really dislike the control manufactures have to disable vehicles at will (as has happened in America numerous times with Tesla vehicles) - its an absolute breach of freedom, a vehicle isn't a commodity in which anyone but you can decide if you can drive it or not - as far as I a concerned its an item that extends the human right of freedom of movement - of which that right has been under constant attack from the right for years now.

However I doubt any future vehicle would ever be off grid - so I'll have to stick to my older school diesels for now, which I'll drive to the bitter end until it becomes unviable.
 
Last edited:
Without stating the obvious but the ‘depreciation’ entirely depends on how much the lease company paid for it in the first place and they are not paying RRP. The only time they would have come close to RRP was in the period heavily impacted by covid which didn’t really get going until part way through 2021.

I too am not entirely sure why so many people scoff at PCP on new cars and not leases. Generally speaking (there are plenty of exceptions) the cheapest way to buy a car in ascending order is:
Cash
Loan
PCP
Lease

Now clearly lease and PCP can be cheaper if manufacturers are chucking in heavy incentives to shift cars but leasing typically is the most expensive (salary sacrifice aside on BEVs due to low BIK)

Combat squirrel said:
I really dislike the control manufactures have to disable vehicles at will (as has happened in America numerous times with Tesla vehicles)
Click to expand...

Citation needed on that one.

I’m aware they have banned salvaged Teslas from using their chargers unless the car has been inspected (at the owners cost of course) but that’s not the same thing…
 
Last edited:
b0rn2sk8 said:
Without stating the obvious but the ‘depreciation’ entirely depends on how much the lease company paid for it in the first place and they are not paying RRP. The only time they would have come close to RRP was in the period heavily impacted by covid which didn’t really get going until part way through 2021.
Click to expand...

While maybe true for new vehicles, mine was 2 years old when I got it.

They could have sold it for ~£28-30k, and while they might have paid less for it at the time, that's what it was worth.

Examples with the age/mileage of mine are now going for £18k, so it has lost £10k
 
Last edited:
While true, there is way more nuance to it than that because of how the auto industry works in that cars are sold by the manufacturers at ‘wholesale’ (can’t think of a better word) to dealers, fleet customers and leasing companies who ‘sell’ them.

In reality a car sold to a fleet operator isn’t worth £28-30k retail because they don’t have the ability to retail it.

There are long term contracts signed well before covid which needed to be fulfilled so diverting cars to retail sometimes isn’t an option and it’s easy to look at leasing in hindsight.

For example, I bet those who leased model 3’s for 2/3 years in 2019 were kicking themselves. If they bought/PCP’d it, they could have sold it for 90% of what they paid for it.

As a customer, it’s no different to playing a slot machine. Over the long term, you win occasionally but ultimately over the course of a few leases, the house always wins.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom