When are you going fully electric?

[pc-guy]

Yep, I'm much the same - 80% is my normal charge level, but I've dipped as low as 4% on a longer trip. Granted, it did calculate 10% arrival state of charge, and so I started to nudge my speed up as success seemed more and more likely!

I have gone to 1% once. Wasn’t intentional but just forgot to charge the car over night and only had enough time in the morning and risked it on the road knowing there will be plenty public charger on the way back should I need one. But as the miles rolled away, I was getting closer and closer to home so decided to leave it and see how deep I can get into the range estimate.

Turned out the cars range estimate was pretty good.

 

[jpaul]

I meant say it can’t be that Different to a ICE car with. 100K+ on the clock

can be a paradigm switch, maybe the intelligent ev buyer will consider low battery loss is offsetting some of the traditional wear/maintenance costs that depreciate a high mileage ICE,
fewer moving parts in the ev drive train, gear-box, dmf, catalyst, dpf yada yada .. even though steering/suspension similar (or perhaps these suffer more with the weight)
In the 2nd hand ev adds I've looked at on autrotrader - it's stupidly not yet first instinct to look for battery report.

 

[Ben Cole]

Stupid auto correct. I meant say it can’t be that Different to a ICE car with. 100K+ on the clock

Gotcha.

I think it is worse. List on the car was £39.5k. As explained I paid nowhere near that but 6 months later, lots of people were (from the Kona forums).

I did WBAC for a laugh recently and it was just over £8k. It's January 2021 car.

 

[Feek]

I took my car in for a service and MoT yesterday and was given an MX-30 as a courtesy car.

Are Mazda going out of their way to troll people?

Plenty of room in the front but absolutely no space for anything other than a six year old on the back seats through those suicide doors.

Over the shoulder visibility is almost zero due to the size of the mechanisms for the back doors (effectively where the B pillar would be).

And an absolute comedy 100 mile range. When I took it back, I asked if that range figure was correct and the guy even looked a bit embarrassed when he said that it's right.

I liked the HUD though.

 

[sandys]

It is supposed to be decent to drive.

To be fair I could live with that range right now, it'd last me a week if life was predictable of course, unfortunately I work in the hire/fire semiconductor industry and often end up commuting up and down the M4, 200 miles a day has to be my minimum because chopping and changing cars to suit what I need is not feasible from a cost perspective, buy and run 'til death (mine or the cars ) is my M.O.

They do have the range extender tech though in the MX30 R-EV, that approach does interest me, especially if it is put in something small, lightweight and fun like the proposed Iconic.

 

[Feek]

They do have the range extender tech though in the MX30

Not the one I had, it wasn't the MX-30R.

It is supposed to be decent to drive.

It was alright but not especially fast.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

MX30 to me seems to be a Range Extender but the Extender wasnt ready at launch, its a big like the original A class designed to be a BEV, they changed it last minute stuck and engine in and it fell over as the CofG was much higher.

 

[Kenai]

And an absolute comedy 100 mile range.

Believe it or not, there will be a market for lower range cars because not everyone is doing 500 mile non-stop journeys all the time.

There will be plenty of people that this would be ideal for, maybe just as a second car, but even as a main car the average motorist barely manages 150 miles a week, so for people who can home charge this could well be plenty and they're not lugging round an extra 300kg of battery they'll never utilise.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Imagine making 3 MX30s with 1 Macan battery. Yet same people would moan about the amount of minerals used to make the cells and how heavy the cars are

 

[Greebo]

Believe it or not, there will be a market for lower range cars because not everyone is doing 500 mile non-stop journeys all the time.

There will be plenty of people that this would be ideal for, maybe just as a second car, but even as a main car the average motorist barely manages 150 miles a week, so for people who can home charge this could well be plenty and they're not lugging round an extra 300kg of battery they'll never utilise.

Yep would suit my parents to a tee. They do around 3000 miles per year and my dad insists on a new diesel car every three years. Sigh. They quite often have issues with the diesels as well as they hardly every go on dual carriageways/motorways so the engine never gets warmed up enough to clear out the DPF. Most journeys are around 4 miles, sometimes 14 miles. Perfect EV usage for a 100 mile range car with a home charger.

 

[chanjy]

Yep would suit my parents to a tee. They do around 3000 miles per year and my dad insists on a new diesel car every three years. Sigh. They quite often have issues with the diesels as well as they hardly every go on dual carriageways/motorways so the engine never gets warmed up enough to clear out the DPF. Most journeys are around 4 miles, sometimes 14 miles. Perfect EV usage for a 100 mile range car with a home charger.

Yup, it's mainly ignorance and FUD at this point, EV would be perfect for them and can preheat/precool the cabin for these short journeys too where a diesel isn't going to get the cabin to the right temp.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I don’t disagree to an extent there is a market for these very short range cars but the vast majority would need a vehicle that’s more flexible.

You might only do the airport run twice a year but you don’t want it to be a complete pain in the backside.

The MX-30 isn’t particularly cheap either, I’m just not sure who’s buying these brand new.

Sure there’s a market but whether it’s big enough to warrant a standalone vehicle like this is another question. It’s almost like they don’t want to make money on it.

 

[Greebo]

I don’t disagree to an extent there is a market for these very short range cars but the vast majority would need a vehicle that’s more flexible.

You might only do the airport run twice a year but you don’t want it to be a complete pain in the backside.

The MX-30 isn’t particularly cheap either, I’m just not sure who’s buying these brand new.

Sure there’s a market but whether it’s big enough to warrant a standalone vehicle like this is another question. It’s almost like they don’t want to make money on it.

6,370 miles is the UK average miles now. We are all doing less and less per annum
The trends for the last decade is less and less. Its now 1000 miles per annum less than 10 years ago.

The most common bracket is 3000-4000 miles pa annum. its only all those people like me (20,000 miles per annum) which pulls the av up to 6,370.

So I would imagine the car manufacturers know what they are doing and the biggest market are people who do 3000-4000 miles per annum (or less) which tend to be lots of short journeys.

MOT data shows the UK's mileage is still around lockdown levels.

A look at the 2023 MOT data to uncover mileage trends, the most reliable models, the best day to book your test - and much more.

www.bymiles.co.uk

The UK av journey length is now 8.1 miles

Average Car Journeys in the UK

Average car journey distances, times and number per day in the UK.

www.nimblefins.co.uk

 

[b0rn2sk8]

6,370 miles is the UK average miles now. We are all doing less and less per annum
The trends for the last decade is less and less. Its now 1000 miles per annum less than 10 years ago.

The most common bracket is 3000-4000 miles pa annum. its only all those people like me (20,000 miles per annum) which pulls the av up to 6,370.

So I would imagine the car manufacturers know what they are doing and the biggest market are people who do 3000-4000 miles per annum (or less) which tend to be lots of short journeys.

MOT data shows the UK's mileage is still around lockdown levels.

A look at the 2023 MOT data to uncover mileage trends, the most reliable models, the best day to book your test - and much more.

www.bymiles.co.uk

The UK av journey length is now 8.1 miles

Average Car Journeys in the UK

Average car journey distances, times and number per day in the UK.

www.nimblefins.co.uk

I know but you don’t tend to buy a car for the 90% of journeys. It’s the 99% that most people are looking at which is not unfair.

Something like the MX-30 you can only go 50 miles in one direction which really isn’t a lot. You really don’t want to have to mes around charging when you are only doing 2 hours driving in a day in 2024.

If it could reliably do 150
miles like the Mokka, then I could get behind it but 100 miles is really pushing it in terms of covering enough journeys to be reasonable.

Things might be different if there were 7kw chargers literally everywhere but there just isn’t.

In other words, it’s a really expensive second car to pootle around town in.

 

[[TW]Fox]

6,370 miles is the UK average miles now. We are all doing less and less per annum
The trends for the last decade is less and less. Its now 1000 miles per annum less than 10 years ago.

The most common bracket is 3000-4000 miles pa annum. its only all those people like me (20,000 miles per annum) which pulls the av up to 6,370.

So I would imagine the car manufacturers know what they are doing and the biggest market are people who do 3000-4000 miles per annum (or less) which tend to be lots of short journeys.

MOT data shows the UK's mileage is still around lockdown levels.

A look at the 2023 MOT data to uncover mileage trends, the most reliable models, the best day to book your test - and much more.

www.bymiles.co.uk

The UK av journey length is now 8.1 miles

Average Car Journeys in the UK

Average car journey distances, times and number per day in the UK.

www.nimblefins.co.uk

I really don't like this use of statistics when we discuss how important things like range are because total annual mileage and even average journey length are not relevant to range.

I'll use my car as an example - my usage in my car is quite varied and helpfully the BMW app tracks my journeys.

In April 2024, I covered 590 miles in total. This was over about 15 journeys, so an average journey length of under 40 miles. But what this doesn't tell you is that one of those journeys in a single day was more than 400 miles and the rest were about 4-5 miles, with 2 at 50 miles.

None of those figures on their own tell you anything about how I use the car or what the most appropriate range is. My 'average journey length' over the course of a year is probably reasonably low but I use the car infrequently and often for journeys of significant length.

I don't think anyone buys a car to suit the average journey, they'll buy a car to suit the range of journeys they'll use it for.

 

[ICDP]

Tell us you don’t understand averages without telling us you don’t understand averages.

 

[Kenai]

I don't think the point is that the low average suggests everyone with such an average only needs low range vehicle but that with such a large element of the vehicle population doing such low miles, there is almost certainly a sector of the market where a 100 mile range will be absolutely perfectly adequate.

Not every vehicle needs to be designed to do everything for everyone - so some people with low averages but who do occasional long journeys ought to look at the range extender or another EV entirely but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a place for low range cars like the MX-30, Honda-e or Mini Electric, where they can avoid throwing massive batteries at things just for the sake of it, when the cars never go further than the local supermarket or garden centre. Given just how low the average is these days, this market is probably a reasonable enough size to make the MX-30 worth producing.

 

[ICDP]

Exactly what those studies suggest. As usual we have someone taking it wrong and applying a “but look at me” mentality.

Studies showing averages and trends are not about the individual. They are useful for planners, designers and marketers.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I don't disagree with that, I just don't think the 'average journey length' or the 'average annual mileage' is a useful figure in determining how many people could be absolutely fine with a car with small range. Like you mentioned in your sarcastic reply, it's like some people don't understand averages...

It would be better instead to think about how many people have a maximum journey length of under 100 miles, because this is a far more useful way to estimate the size of the group who could easily make use of a car without a huge battery.

 

[Kenai]

I don't disagree with that, I just don't think the 'average journey length' or the 'average annual mileage' is a useful figure in determining how many people could be absolutely fine with a car with small range.

It would be better instead to think about how many people have a maximum journey length of under 100 miles, because this is a far more useful way to estimate the size of the group who could easily make use of a car without a huge battery.

I would expect that's what manufacturers are doing when planning product development but such data is less readily available for people to easily utilise in online forum discussions in response to people who seem to believe every single car ever needs to be able to drive from Exeter to Edinburgh in one go.