When are you going fully electric?

Rroff said:
Is there something wrong with the 2021 Nissan Leaf? noticed the Nissan dealer near me is going through loads of them cheap and/or putting them up at the kind of price I'd expect then after 1-2 weeks they are massively reduced. Don't believe there is any battery lease or anything like that involved, most of them are on low miles. The prices on the like 2020 and 2022 models are more like I'd expect.
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Nothing wrong with them at all. I bought a 2021 Nissan Leaf Tekna in June and am really glad I made the switch. I am currently sitting at £1.63 per 100 miles but that doesn't take into account any free periods from Octopus so it's actually less than that. The car is loaded with tech, at least four cameras, 360 degree birds eye view, rear mirror is a camera display, heated seats, heated steering wheel, Pro Pilot, a huge range of safety systems, leather trim, leather steering wheel and leather seats with alcantara trim, 7.1 Bose sound system, loads of other stuff and a huge boot. I got mine from a Nissan dealership in Inverness and they threw in a 3 year free servicing package, 3 year Nissan warranty and a 7 year battery warranty. While it's not the best EV out there it's a very nice place to sit and drive and it really shifts if I want it to. In combination with the tyres I had fitted a couple of months ago (Dunlop All Season 2) it's also the best car I have ever owned for driving in snow. We had lots of snow last week and she maintained traction and grip without me even thinking about it.

There is a new model coming next year but it's yet another boring SUV.
 
pastymuncher said:
There is a new model coming next year but it's yet another boring SUV.
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To be fair whether it is bodied as an SUV, hatchback or estate most run of the mill cars are pretty boring. Visually at least that looks on par with the current Leaf, maybe slightly more pleasing to the eye.

I finally ordered a new work hack estate (couldn't turn it down for <£25k brand new) and the main selling points were the shape and size of the boot and the fact it had physical buttons on the dash. Thrilling stuff :p
 
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Jonnycoupe said:
he was talking about the apparent quirk of 21 between the 2020 and 2022?

Maybe the 21 plates on the forecourt are the 40kWh batteries?
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40kWh yeah, but they've been selling them at like 10 grand with 3000 miles whereas the 2020 plate at 10 grand are like 30,000 miles and 2022 plate on ~3000 miles 16+ grand - not a difference in trim level, etc.
 
Yeah the drive vs no drive thing could mean in the future having a drive for an EV raises property prices!

All I have to do to save money on charging is move to a house with a driveway! sooo £200000 and I can save £500/year! Although eventually that is pretty much on the cards, eta 10 years :) And then get a heat pump and solar which I also want to do.

Tesla prices are much better compared to elsewhere so thats something.
 
Rroff said:
40kWh yeah, but they've been selling them at like 10 grand with 3000 miles whereas the 2020 plate at 10 grand are like 30,000 miles and 2022 plate on ~3000 miles 16+ grand - not a difference in trim level, etc.
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blimey are they really that cheap? i wish my wifes car could have been written off this year instead of last year!! (almost to the day thinking about it) as we could have saved a packet!.
 
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Mr Jack said:
What a spectacularly stupid idea. Electric cars aren't selling well enough lets get rid of the rules designed to help them sell, hurp derp.
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Most people don't want an electric car. They still want petrol or diesel. There is also a £15k "fine" if the manufacturer sells more ICE vehicles than their percentage quota. So that means as EV sales fall they have to further cutback ICE sales despite there being demand for them. What will consumers do when they can't get an ICE? Option 1 is to buy an EV that they don't want. Option 2 is to import an ICE from a country that doesn't have the same regulations. Option 3 is to buy nothing. Option 4 is to buy an older used ICE. Out of those four options, three of them result in manufacturers making less profit and going out of business.

For some time now I've thought there should be massive subsidies to install solar on our houses. I know not everyone can do it. But some people can. Once you make electricity cheap enough by doing this, then people will naturally want an EV. If you generate some of your own electricity then suddenly an EV becomes more desirable than ICE. When cars replaced horses as the primary means of transport it wasn't because government had to intervene with regulations. It was because a car was more desirable than a horse. We need to make EV's more desirable that ICE and currently, for most people, they aren't.
 
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Hades said:
Most people don't want an electric car. They still want petrol or diesel.
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And? They still need to stop driving them.

There is also a £15k "fine" if the manufacturer sells more ICE vehicles than their percentage quota. So that means as EV sales fall they have to further cutback ICE sales despite there being demand for them. What will consumers do when they can't get an ICE? Option 1 is to buy an EV that they don't want. Option 2 is to import an ICE from a country that doesn't have the same regulations. Option 3 is to buy nothing. Out of those three options, two of them result in manufacturers making less profit and going out of business.
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What happens when the company is fined? It puts up the cost of selling legacy vehicles. Doing so makes EVs better in comparison and so more desirable to customers and more likely to be sold. Kind of crude, but still better than not doing it. Option 2 is not realistic for any volume of cars. And if manufacturers that can't manage to make and sell EVs go bust, so what? That's how markets work.
 
Hades said:
It was because a car was more desirable than a horse. We need to make EV's more desirable that ICE and currently, for most people, they aren't.
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We're living in unique times though - the right wing movement (Trump, Musk etc) has become really nuts. Our press is probably the "least free" it has ever been, given most of our news is received through unregulated social media etc. Even sane people are becoming outraged by gutter press reports around things like 15 min cities, insulatation, solar, etc...

A lot of the reasons why people think EVs won't work is because of the nonsense they've read online. My mum is 76 and has been driving for almost 60 years -- only now is there a car on the market fit for her purpose -- short journeys, remote cabin heating/defrosting, sans-petrol station visits (gives her mad anxiety so she doesn't bother/gets me to do it).

The perfect storm continues with the salsac gravy train too. EVs are clearly priced "new" exclusively for the salsac market - I am paying gross so the outrageous RRP is irrelevant to me, because I am saving so much (nil deposit, NI saving, tax saving).

Combine that with government incentives to penalise petrol car buyers (i.e. forego the sale to avoid the £15k fine), means neither petrol or EV option is attractive unless you are eligible for salsac.
 
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Mr Jack said:
And? They still need to stop driving them.



What happens when the company is fined? It puts up the cost of selling legacy vehicles. Doing so makes EVs better in comparison and so more desirable to customers and more likely to be sold. Kind of crude, but still better than not doing it. Option 2 is not realistic for any volume of cars. And if manufacturers that can't manage to make and sell EVs go bust, so what? That's how markets work.
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When the price goes up by £15k most people will buy a used ICE instead of the EV they don't want. Not everyone can either magic £15k out of thin air or make an EV work for them when sometimes it won't. Car makers in China and other locations won't go bust. Only European companies will. Or they will need to stop selling in Europe and sell elsewhere instead. Either way it results in job losses and economic harm.

Yes I agree we need to stop driving them. But all stick and no carrot is the wrong approach in my opinion. How much have the government pledged to give to private companies for investment into unproven carbon capture technology? £21bn. My view is that they should take that money and spend it on planting forests and mass subsidies for the public to get cheap solar and battery storage. Maybe make the subsidy dependent on switching to an EV at the same time. So there's both a carrot and stick but not just a stick.
 
Mr Jack said:
And if manufacturers that can't manage to make and sell EVs go bust, so what? That's how markets work.
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It's not though is it. If they go bankrupt because nobody wants to buy their products then that is indeed just how markets work. But that isn't the situation here, is it? It's not a free market, it's a market the government has intervened in to set sales targets that do not align with consumer demands with a penalty for not meeting those.

Whether that's the right thing to do for the greater aim of moving the vehicle fleet to zero emission is a different argument, but it isn't just 'how markets work'.
 
If mftr have to pay the fines Nissan obviously threatened to move out of UK, they are putting the price of both ICE&EV's up to cover those fines, making products non competitive.

Private Sales of ev's in Germany are dropping because govt removed some of the subsidies, so like UK govt needs to offer some carrots analogous to BIK.
 
[TW]Fox said:
It's not though is it. If they go bankrupt because nobody wants to buy their products then that is indeed just how markets work. But that isn't the situation here, is it? It's not a free market, it's a market the government has intervened in to set sales targets that do not align with consumer demands with a penalty for not meeting those.
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There's no such thing as a free market in that sense, it's a myth. All markets in history, ever, have been shaped by their regulation. This is no different.
 
Hades said:
Once you make electricity cheap enough by doing this, then people will naturally want an EV. If you generate some of your own electricity then suddenly an EV becomes more desirable than ICE.
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I've just asked 6 people in my office if they could have free electricity would they have an EV - all said no.
Obviously some would go for it.
 
Mr Jack said:
There's no such thing as a free market in that sense, it's a myth. All markets in history, ever, have been shaped by their regulation. This is no different.
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This is very different. Point to another consumer market that works in this way, especially one where the targets were picked in the way they were.
 
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