Jokes on me, I have a membershipJokes on them...I'm a tight arse and I don't like tea/coffee
EV general discussion
- Thread starter Ricochet J
- Start date
Probably a stupid idea....
I don't have an EV, yet. Insurance puts me of as it essentially doubles from 350 to 700 depending on the car.
With my energy provider Fuse I have thousands in credit from refferals, to a point I basically have 9 years worth of bills covered. No way Fuse is going to last that long so looking at ways to use the credit.
They offer the Easee One EV charger 7.4kW Single Phase EV Charger for £899 fully installed which I can use my credit to pay for it, making it essentially free. Is it worth even doing it when it's likely not going to be used? I own my home so would it even add a tad to the overall value? Or easy to swap to a more powerful unit in the future?
I don't have an EV, yet. Insurance puts me of as it essentially doubles from 350 to 700 depending on the car.
With my energy provider Fuse I have thousands in credit from refferals, to a point I basically have 9 years worth of bills covered. No way Fuse is going to last that long so looking at ways to use the credit.
They offer the Easee One EV charger 7.4kW Single Phase EV Charger for £899 fully installed which I can use my credit to pay for it, making it essentially free. Is it worth even doing it when it's likely not going to be used? I own my home so would it even add a tad to the overall value? Or easy to swap to a more powerful unit in the future?
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Associate
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- 19 May 2010
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- Cheltenham
Yes. Even if you don’t have one yet or think you might move house, you can always take it with you. A house with a charger is always going to be a plus point vs one that doesn’t, too.
It seems to be aimed at a certain demographic group that are either young(ish), working and have a family.Jokes on them...I'm a tight arse and I don't like tea/coffee
That would be me (as long as 37 is still youngish
)Wouldn't the net saving in the fuel costs save you more than an effective 29 a month insurance increase? Insurance on electrics is bonkers, some things are cheaper than you expect and others a lot more, the new Mini JCW we bought is cheaper to insure than a 3 year old Mini Electric SE Level 3 by about £40.
Are you comparing similar cars and also maybe looking at unestablished brands of EV? For example MG and BYD were at one point very expensive to insure compared to EVs from VW, Kia, Hyundai etc. Tesla tends to be high insurance due to the higher performance and less modular design.
My Cupra Born for me and my wife was £340 to insure and that compared favourably to an old iX20 petrol we also have.
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My ID3 has been no different to my last ICE car (Seat Ibiza) in terms of insurance, possibly even slightly cheaper. My wife's Kona on the other had for some reason was slightly eye watering for the first year but renewed at the start of the month and it's settled back to what I'd expect.
So I've now had my new 2026 Tesla Model 3 RWD for a while, Stealth Grey, with 8,000 miles covered in about 4 months! I will caveat this post by saying my previous cars have all generally cost at least double the price of this one, when new. I've tried to focus on things specific to this new 'Standard' model.
Being the entry level car, and for the money, it's very difficult to fault. You still get the decent build quality (something I am fussy about), with virtually everything found on the Premium trim, aside from a handful of things - most obviously the ventilated seats, rear screen and ambient lighting strip. Things like the heated steering wheel, matrix lights, crystal clear surround cameras, and electric seats all remain, as well as the big glass roof.
They have tweaked the power delivery to lower the insurance group, and from a standstill it doesn't pick up like an AWD Tesla, but once it's moving and over 30mph, the bulk of that performance is still there. Overtaking is very easy and it feels like a performance car. Handling wise there are no complaints either, it's relatively light for an EV at about 1800kg. You do feel the weight a bit when pushing on, but it's very controlled. One element that's been downgraded is the suspension - this model doesn't have the frequency controlled dampers, but in honesty the difference is not really significant at all.
In terms of comfort and the cabin, initially the seats took a bit of getting used to, but they are a big departure from the amazing BMW comfort seats I had. However, after a while they felt fine and are actually very comfortable, even on long drives. There could be a bit more adjustment and a thigh extension (only available on the Performance trim), but it's a non-issue really. Refinement wise it's pretty quiet, not much wind noise and fairly minimal road noise - no doubt assisted by having narrower tyres compared to my previous cars.
I was concerned by the downgraded 7 speaker setup, but it's still a solid sound system with a good level of clarity. It's not at the level of the AWD cars by any means, but the door speakers do reliably deliver some solid bass, even without a subwoofer. It's very much an above-average system and doesn't distort at high volume either. Indicator stalks being present again is good news, I wasn't too bothered by the buttons on the steering wheel, but this is unquestionably better.
In terms of range, this is where it stands out. Without really trying, I am averaging about 190-210 wh/mi, though obviously it'll be worse in the winter. That is around 5 miles per kWh, and means a real world range of 290 - 310 miles - not far off the WLTP figures. Of course it depends how you drive, but even when pressing on it doesn't seem to vary that much. Being the LFP battery, more frequent charging to 100% is actually not an issue (and is actively encouraged at least once a week). Another advantage of it being a smaller 60kWh battery is how much of a full charge you can put in overnight, a 5 hour overnight window for example puts in about 34kWh - over half.
One of the reasons I got a Tesla as my first EV is the reliability of the platform and ecosystem, including the supercharger network. The phone key is flawless, and the software inside the car is too. I've had a couple of niggles but nothing that couldn't be described as trivial. The software is brilliant, Spotify, Apple podcasts and Netflix all work flawlessly and the nav mapping is effective too. There is however one quite annoying feature - the inability to switch between TACC (Adaptive Cruise) and Autosteer (the lane keeping system). To switch, you need to put the car in park. This used to be possible on older models by double pressing the cruise button, but they removed it a couple of years ago. Unless you are primarily on the motorway, I think TACC is more useful as Autosteer doesn't allow any microadjustments at all, and so it's constantly disengaging.
If we end up with FSD approval in the UK, it would add another interesting dimension to the Tesla, with the car being able to do most of the driving for you. I don't think I'd bother as I quite like driving, but I'd have to give it a try. It seems to be working well in other European countries although it's something you'd need to experience to fully appreciate how good (or bad) it is.
Lastly, charging almost entirely at home, I'm not really seeing any drawbacks. Charging the car overnight is incredibly convenient, and range anxiety isn't really a thing, particularly with the supercharger network - including for non-Teslas at quite a few sites now. I got this as a stop-gap introduction to EVs, I usually have a 7 Series and would like an i7, but the prices are a bit volatile so I want to see where they settle in a 12-18 months. However, it's so good that I would consider another Tesla, and not having to fork out thousands a year on tyres and servicing will make a nice change. Not to mention it's saving me somewhere in the region of £400 per month in fuel alone... I do laugh when I see people slating EVs, focusing on all of these theoretical short-notice road trips they never actually do...
Being the entry level car, and for the money, it's very difficult to fault. You still get the decent build quality (something I am fussy about), with virtually everything found on the Premium trim, aside from a handful of things - most obviously the ventilated seats, rear screen and ambient lighting strip. Things like the heated steering wheel, matrix lights, crystal clear surround cameras, and electric seats all remain, as well as the big glass roof.
They have tweaked the power delivery to lower the insurance group, and from a standstill it doesn't pick up like an AWD Tesla, but once it's moving and over 30mph, the bulk of that performance is still there. Overtaking is very easy and it feels like a performance car. Handling wise there are no complaints either, it's relatively light for an EV at about 1800kg. You do feel the weight a bit when pushing on, but it's very controlled. One element that's been downgraded is the suspension - this model doesn't have the frequency controlled dampers, but in honesty the difference is not really significant at all.
In terms of comfort and the cabin, initially the seats took a bit of getting used to, but they are a big departure from the amazing BMW comfort seats I had. However, after a while they felt fine and are actually very comfortable, even on long drives. There could be a bit more adjustment and a thigh extension (only available on the Performance trim), but it's a non-issue really. Refinement wise it's pretty quiet, not much wind noise and fairly minimal road noise - no doubt assisted by having narrower tyres compared to my previous cars.
I was concerned by the downgraded 7 speaker setup, but it's still a solid sound system with a good level of clarity. It's not at the level of the AWD cars by any means, but the door speakers do reliably deliver some solid bass, even without a subwoofer. It's very much an above-average system and doesn't distort at high volume either. Indicator stalks being present again is good news, I wasn't too bothered by the buttons on the steering wheel, but this is unquestionably better.
In terms of range, this is where it stands out. Without really trying, I am averaging about 190-210 wh/mi, though obviously it'll be worse in the winter. That is around 5 miles per kWh, and means a real world range of 290 - 310 miles - not far off the WLTP figures. Of course it depends how you drive, but even when pressing on it doesn't seem to vary that much. Being the LFP battery, more frequent charging to 100% is actually not an issue (and is actively encouraged at least once a week). Another advantage of it being a smaller 60kWh battery is how much of a full charge you can put in overnight, a 5 hour overnight window for example puts in about 34kWh - over half.
One of the reasons I got a Tesla as my first EV is the reliability of the platform and ecosystem, including the supercharger network. The phone key is flawless, and the software inside the car is too. I've had a couple of niggles but nothing that couldn't be described as trivial. The software is brilliant, Spotify, Apple podcasts and Netflix all work flawlessly and the nav mapping is effective too. There is however one quite annoying feature - the inability to switch between TACC (Adaptive Cruise) and Autosteer (the lane keeping system). To switch, you need to put the car in park. This used to be possible on older models by double pressing the cruise button, but they removed it a couple of years ago. Unless you are primarily on the motorway, I think TACC is more useful as Autosteer doesn't allow any microadjustments at all, and so it's constantly disengaging.
If we end up with FSD approval in the UK, it would add another interesting dimension to the Tesla, with the car being able to do most of the driving for you. I don't think I'd bother as I quite like driving, but I'd have to give it a try. It seems to be working well in other European countries although it's something you'd need to experience to fully appreciate how good (or bad) it is.
Lastly, charging almost entirely at home, I'm not really seeing any drawbacks. Charging the car overnight is incredibly convenient, and range anxiety isn't really a thing, particularly with the supercharger network - including for non-Teslas at quite a few sites now. I got this as a stop-gap introduction to EVs, I usually have a 7 Series and would like an i7, but the prices are a bit volatile so I want to see where they settle in a 12-18 months. However, it's so good that I would consider another Tesla, and not having to fork out thousands a year on tyres and servicing will make a nice change. Not to mention it's saving me somewhere in the region of £400 per month in fuel alone... I do laugh when I see people slating EVs, focusing on all of these theoretical short-notice road trips they never actually do...
Basically what I've experienced with my model 3 too.
All these EV-slaters forget that the vast majority of EV owners have previously (or also currently) own an ICE vehicle, and therefore a better judge of the characteristics than Mr Jones who gets their news off tik tok.
Sure there's an odd numpty that didn't do their homework and mapped out the pros and cons of EV ownership for their circumstances...which is what's mostly paraded in the Daily Fail
All these EV-slaters forget that the vast majority of EV owners have previously (or also currently) own an ICE vehicle, and therefore a better judge of the characteristics than Mr Jones who gets their news off tik tok.
Sure there's an odd numpty that didn't do their homework and mapped out the pros and cons of EV ownership for their circumstances...which is what's mostly paraded in the Daily Fail
you are leasing with a servicing package ? - from 7 series remark, booted saloon cars are your normal, so didn't need a hatch.
that doesn't seem to have a physical internet connection plug - so like an ohme wouldn't work for me with remote garage, also need to check it's alternative sim reception would be ok,
maybe a wireless hub in garage is ok for it though.
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 9,496
lol funnily enough I just got back from ickworth house today ....... loads of things for free for kids to muck about with.... but most parents (and i was no exception) can't resist buying their kids an ice-cream. i did manage to not get myself (a really great looking) hot dog or crepe however so go me!!!That was always the idea behind it
It’s a bit like the £8 national trust day out vouchers. If your using the voucher, you probably were not going to go because your not a member so they are £8 up already. Likewise you’ll end up buying tea and cake while you are there like a good middle class pleb coming to marvel at how the ruling class live.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 9,496
christ how do you manage to refer that many.... I think I have managed 3 with octopus. tell me your secret?
7kwh is all 99% of UK people have at home so won't need to be upgraded. not sure it will add to value of your home.... but it's a stand out feature that other houses may not have so many make yours more attractive than a similar house down the road if the time comes to sell.
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I’m more of a cream tea guy myself, everything tastes good with a dollop of clotted cream…lol funnily enough I just got back from ickworth house today ....... loads of things for free for kids to muck about with.... but most parents (and i was no exception) can't resist buying their kids an ice-cream. i did manage to not get myself (a really great looking) hot dog or crepe however so go me!!!
Soldato
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- 18 Oct 2002
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- 9,523
That’s the thing with the LPF battery models. Yes it’s an entry level model with a lower quoted range compared to the bigger capacity AWD, but you can use 100% of that.
The non LPF models recommend that you keep it 80% max for day to day, which probably brings the day to day range down to a comparable level.
I kind of get what you're saying but if you need it then you charge to 100%, if you don't day to day then it's irrelevant.
The issue with this argument is that you generally don’t need the range on a day to day basis in reality. You can still charge the other chemistry to 100% whenever you need it.
It’s just a cheaper smaller battery, that’s all it is in reality (which is a good thing).
I 100% charge my long range Y whenever I need it and don’t even give it a second thought.
Edit: that would also be the case if I owned it. Life is too short to be worrying about babying an EV battery when the difference between that and just doing what you need to do it is likely to be sub-5% over 15 years.
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Exactly what I was going to post. Day to day doesn’t matter if it’s 50% or 100%. It’s like trying to explain to other friends and colleagues who own EVs that charging to 100% every charge does not give them “moar range”.
It’s just a meaningless number on a screen if you aren’t going to actually use it right now.