Thinking of getting an EV

If my calcs are right then at 3.8 miles per kWh, I will use about 3200 kWh per year which is £53 per month at 20p/kWh or only £19 a month if I can get 7p/kWh.

I currently spend between £200-£250 per month on petrol.

That saving alone immediately covers a £10k loan or £200 of any contract hire cost.


If I went for the work scheme, there is a further £100 saved from the included insurance, car tax, servicing costs.

I'm now down to only a £100 additional outlay for the work scheme.

I could easily spend £100 on repairs a month (on average) on this car.

Isn't this a no brainer to get the brand new car on the work scheme?
 
danlightbulb said:
I can't find £20-£30k up front to do this option.
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Again it comes down to comparing like for like. You were talking about an MG5.

You can pick one of those up with a chunk of warranty left and average mileage from around £11k.

Your £1200 repair bill scenario is a valid one and to answer your question, you are left with a fully functioning car again that is yours. At the end of the salary sacrifice you are left with nothing other than a load of yet to be decided finance options to keep you on that finance hook.

It's your choice, there is no right or wrong but you seem to be approaching it from a financial stand point so the answer will rarely be finance, tax efficient or not.
 
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lordrobs said:
It's your choice, there is no right or wrong but you seem to be approaching it from a financial stand point so the answer will rarely be finance, tax efficient or not.
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Obviously finances are a major part of it (I have to be able to afford whatever option I choose), but I'm trying to approach it from a common sense perspective really.

If the annual cost of keeping an 18 year old petrol car going is not that much different from getting a brand new EV car, then even being locked into contract hire, it feels like the sensible option is to take a brand new car and no maintenance hassle.

Getting a brand new car was never an option before because I never saved enough on fuel to make it worth it. EV seems to change the game massively on that aspect. If I save 2/3rds of the cost of ownership just on fuel alone that is massive factor.

Is my maths right on the charging cost? I never thought charging an EV would be so much cheaper than buying petrol.
 
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danlightbulb said:
Do you have an example of where to look for this option please? I'd not considered used EV at all, but if I can offset the cost of it through petrol savings that could be a really good option.
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I got mine through Nationwide Vehicle Contracts

Other posters are correct though, it's the "low effort/risk" option, but probably more expensive vs buying a used one outright. While loan repayments for 3 years would be higher than leasing the same car, at the end of it you'd still have a car worth a few £k, so you could then:
  • Keep the car - stop making payments.
  • Sell the car, so overall cost is lower.
Looking at AT, you can get a new model MG5 Trophy for ~£17k (interestingly, the SE seems to be more expensive).

Over 3 years that's ~£550/month at 7%, or ~£350 after taking off fuel costs, but after the 3 years, the car is still going to be worth maybe* £6k

Obviously the older model is cheaper - you're looking at ~£12.5k for the Excite model or ~£13.5k for the Exclusive

I'm glad I got my Niro on a lease, as it was just before the market plummeted and I would have taken a massive hit on depreciation if I'd bought it, but I'll definitely be buying my next EV when the lease is up (and a 3-4 year old MG5 is top of the list!)

danlightbulb said:
Is my maths right on the charging cost? I never thought charging an EV would be so much cheaper than buying petrol.
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Pretty much

A good average to use is ~3.6mi/kW (obviously depends on the car and how you drive), at 7p/kW on Octopus Go, that works out at 1.94p/mile, or ~£233 for your 12k miles, so a bit under £20/month.

That's for home charging - if you need to use public charging then it doesn't really work out any cheaper than ICE (and can be more expensive depending on charger cost).

A home charger will be ~£800-1k installed (some dealers will throw one in for free with a used EV), so that wipes out ~6 months of fuel savings.

You'll also save on servicing and brakes, but probably spend more on tyres. VED might as well be ignored since it will apply to EVs from next year.

* the "maybe" is the risk part of buying vs leasing. With the lease, the risk is all on the finance company - if the bottom of the market drops out (like last year), then they take the hit, but obviously you're paying a premium for the lease to cover that risk).
 
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danlightbulb said:
Obviously finances are a major part of it (I have to be able to afford whatever option I choose), but I'm trying to approach it from a common sense perspective really.

If the annual cost of keeping an 18 year old petrol car going is not that much different from getting a brand new EV car, then even being locked into contract hire, it feels like the sensible option is to take a brand new car and no maintenance hassle.

Getting a brand new car was never an option before because I never saved enough on fuel to make it worth it. EV seems to change the game massively on that aspect. If I save 2/3rds of the cost of ownership just on fuel alone that is massive factor.

Is my maths right on the charging cost? I never thought charging an EV would be so much cheaper than buying petrol.
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Everything depends on being able to charge at home. If you had to charge elsewhere then there might not be any difference in fuel costs. Might even be more expensive. I assume you'd also budget for getting a charger installed.
 
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Haggisman said:
Over 3 years that's ~£550/month at 7%, or ~£350 after taking off fuel costs, but after the 3 years, the car is still going to be worth maybe* £6k
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Yeah this is really interesting optioneering now. As I said above, getting a brand new car was never an option for me, but now with this fuel saving it changes the game. I just never thought that the saving would be so big.

If the monthly cost of getting a brand new car on contract hire is only £100 different from keeping my current car (ignoring the chance of a big repair bill) then that loan above for a £17k car is £200 more expensive again, for 5 years or 60 months which is £12k over that time. £12k could pay for that contract hire car for 12 more years!
 
Uther said:
Everything depends on being able to charge at home. If you had to charge elsewhere then there might not be any difference in fuel costs. Might even be more expensive. I assume you'd also budget for getting a charger installed.
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Yes I think this would be about £500 to £800 depending on who I can find.

Can I even do the job myself? I would just have to run the right cable about 6m round the wall of the house and back to the consumer unit.

Then switch to an EV tariff.

The only time I'd have to charge away from home would be when I go on a longer trip on holiday or whatever. A couple times a year max.
 
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danlightbulb said:
Yeah this is really interesting optioneering now. As I said above, getting a brand new car was never an option for me, but now with this fuel saving it changes the game. I just never thought that the saving would be so big.

If the monthly cost of getting a brand new car on contract hire is only £100 different from keeping my current car (ignoring the chance of a big repair bill) then that loan above for a £17k car is £200 more expensive again, for 5 years or 60 months which is £12k over that time. £12k could pay for that contract hire car for 12 more years!
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You're ignoring the fact that the £17k loan is only really an £11k loan (after you sell the car), so over the 3 years, you can knock ~£167 off the monthly cost.

Or, after 3 years, your only costs are maintenance and electricity, so for the remaining 2 years you can then put the loan payments aside to buy the next car outright.
 
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Lots of talk about depreciation, but it's on a salary sacrifice so the depreciation isn't your concern as the car goes back to the fleet company at the end of the term.

Benefit in Kid (or BIK) is worked out as a percentage of list price of the car. That's the tax you'll have to pay each year. On a £35k car in 27/28 tax year that'll be an extra £1750 on your tax bill. https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/fleet-faq/what-are-the-current-bik-bands-/3/

Octopus do some fantastic rates if you can get the right charger installed and get onto their Intelligent Octopus Go tariff.
 
Im in a similar situation to you, I'm looking at a used Ioniq 38kwh for around 11k at the moment, im happy to take a punt on the fact its a used EV as the degradation of them seems very small so far and it'd still be in battery warranty for several years.

I do 50 miles a day to go into the office and I'm needing to go back more and more now and the petrol costs are starting to sting, so like you're maths going electric should cover any costs of buying the car for around 11k i reckon.

Plus for me i just really fancy a new car so im willing to pay a bit to not be driving around in a 14 year old shed with 125k on the clock, and i think that's totally fine if you also just want a newer car without 'will it go wrong today' hanging over you, for me it's not so much the cost to repair if my current old car breaks its a inconvenience of it all especially if you're relying on it to cart your kids around.
 
danlightbulb said:
Damn that's ramping up quite fast isn't it...only 2% now but 5% in a few years time. That will add £120 to the monthly cost by year 4 of the contract.
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1% per year to 2028 then who knows what. I'd personally budget for a 2% rise year on year from 2029 if you are concerned about that far down the line.

By 2035 there doesn't need to be any incentive (under the current government) so expect BIK to be on parity (in value terms) with the average ICE company car now by that point. I'd imagine a 20% BIK target for EVs by 2035 would be a reasonable punt.

I wouldn't necessarily let that put you off the Salary Sacrifice option though. The used market will be much more populated with EVs by then but I doubt the depreciation will be quite so much in the used buyers favour.
 
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Here is essentially what Im looking at for my current car vs the salary sacrifice EV (in year 1 at least, I need to incorporate the future BIK increases).

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if including my £100 a month repair buffer, its barely any more to get a brand new EV! That is crazy, I never realised until now that the sums would be this good.
 
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danlightbulb said:
Here is essentially what Im looking at for my current car vs the salary sacrifice EV (in year 1 at least, I need to incorporate the future BIK increases).

image.png


if including my £100 a month repair buffer, its barely any more to get a brand new EV! That is crazy, I never realised until now that the sums would be this good.
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Just imagine how the sums of your BMW 325i vs a Dacia Logan MCV would have looked 2 years ago...

Seriously though, you sound like you want to go EV and are happy taking a budget option so why not go for it. BIK rises and potential levies on Chinese imports mean that this is probably as cheap as it's going to get under salary sacrifice.

Works out to 42ppm taking 4ppm for electricity which I think is a reasonable estimate.
 
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Ive found something odd going on with the figures.

The figures I was getting from the leasing site dont take account that my pension contributions are already salary sacrifice. I need to adjust for this manually which makes the car more expensive because the tax saving is less (I put everything I earn over the 40% bracket into my pension).

But I could then pull back my pension contribution a little, to help. As I currently put 15% so could pull it back to 12-13% or so to help fund the car.
 
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