When are you going fully electric?

[Greebo]

I think a big part of the calculation is whether you can actually claim the 45/25 per mile directly or whether your company will pay car allowance recipients the company car rates and you only get the tax relief on the difference.

If you can get paid the 45/25 directly and an allowance, I think even with the big BIK discounts it'd be hard to make an EV stack up financially as a company car and as you say, privately they're still £££.

All depends on the cars and what you want to drive. Each case is different.

Some companies are mean on their car allowance. My gf worked for a big multinational and she could either have a £400 per month car allowance (so basically not much more than £232 per month after tax) plus 45/25 per mile or could have any lease car from the list up to £750 per month.

People who were quite happy to run a 3 year golf diesel could make money from having the car privately but if you wanted to run the same type of car as what £750 a month got you then no way, even with BIK unless it was a car with stupidly high emissions.

Years ago I had a friend who got paid 50p flat rate per mile, no matter how many miles he did (obviously paid tax over the allowance) and he could basically write off the full value of a new decent car every 3 years so whatever he sold it for after 3 years was his profit (he was doing 30,000 business miles per year for the company)

So there is no hard and fast rule as to which is better.

It will all vary depending on

Amount of business miles
Amount of private miles
Fuel economy
Amount of car allowance
Amount of PPM for business miles
Cost of business car insurance (some can be eye watering, it was for my GF when she was a vet with all the drugs in the car)
Whether you want to run new cars or older cars
Whether you want an ICE car with 37% BIK or an EV with 1% BIK.

You just have to sit down with a spreadsheet and work it out.

 

[Kenai]

Absolutely, that's why I said earlier it depends what allowances etc. you get and it's worth investigating the decision if you're looking to go EV.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

What are you talking about? In the same way as cars running out of fuel litter the roads?
Actually the motorway network is easier to transit in a BEV as most every service stop has a charger. Granted worse case is that you arrive and its broken but the network is getting better all the time.

i think that’s pretty much confirmed you haven’t used an EV

 

[{SAS}TB]

When the EV does catch on there will be cars piled up stranded out of electric. Motorways will be chaos

Lol

 

[peige]

i think that’s pretty much confirmed you haven’t used an EV

I have two, a Zoe and and Tesla Model 3 LR

The Zoe we collected on friday and drove 180 miles home in, she could have made it all the way but we stopped in one services for something to eat and the charger was broken there. We stopped again at Clacket and put in 20% while we got a coffee. Car could have made it with 10% to spare but we wanted to go out again in it when we got home

Very impressed with the Zoe, lovely little car with a decent range and lots of tech. The recent ncap thing is a downer but we're still very happy with the car.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

I’ve been out today and planned a charge on way back from Reading.

However managed to get on the roof of Oracle with two of the 6 bays free and fully charged back up on a 22kW podpoint (IPACE takes 11). So with a free charge, no need to stop and nice warm battery I’ve just come home in maximum sensible progress mode. Once I got off the M40 at junction 15 my average speed was 80… kph of course for the 96miles. 127miles at 2miles/kWh

 

[oweneades]

2m/kWh.... I think I can hear my Kona crying in the work carpark....

 

[mikeyw85]

We moved on to our second EV yesterday, having sold the Mokka-E earlier in the week for more than we paid, I managed to find a Mini Electric L2 in stock and picked it up from Bournemouth. We've had a shuffle of cars and my wife no longer needs a bigger car as I now have a 420i gran Coupe so I decided I'd try to get her back in a mini as she loved her JCW. This one had the right spec, was available and in a nice colour combo so we did the deal. Drive back was just under 150 miles and I stopped once to charge at a BP Pulse point just outside Oxford. Was stopped for 22 minutes and got 17KW added so did the 145 mile drive from Bournemouth to Northampton in under 3 hours including a the charge stop. Mini is put together very well, drive really nicely and is pretty quick. Its much more comfortable than the Mokka and I got 3.9m/KW on the drive back which is pretty impressive as the most we ever saw from the Mokka was 3.5. All in all I have a very happy wife.

I don't get fantastic efficiencey from my Cooper SE, but it might be where I drive, plus all the preheating. My average is probaby less than 3 miles/kwh. Not a massive concern as i'm able to fill it for free a lot of the time. Nice car though. The ride is a little firm, but it's enjoyable to drive. Obviously a touch impractical when it comes to space. I have 2 young kids and have wondered if I should have got a Mokka-E. I think i'd miss the enjoyment of driving though.

 

[jpaul]

but it might be where I drive, plus all the preheating.

can you see how much energy is used for pre/initial-heating of battery (or cabin ?) so you know what underlying capability is.

 

[Russinating]

I’ve been out today and planned a charge on way back from Reading.

However managed to get on the roof of Oracle with two of the 6 bays free and fully charged back up on a 22kW podpoint (IPACE takes 11). So with a free charge, no need to stop and nice warm battery I’ve just come home in maximum sensible progress mode. Once I got off the M40 at junction 15 my average speed was 80… kph of course for the 96miles. 127miles at 2miles/kWh

Nice. Best I've got over a distance of >10miles is 11.4 miles/kWh (aka 92Wh/mi). Over 100 miles (131 to be precise) my best is 4.45/kWh (aka 225Wh/mi... 97% efficient). Funnily enough that was when I was driving my OH's grandma around the M25 and M4...

 

[mikeyw85]

can you see how much energy is used for pre/initial-heating of battery (or cabin ?) so you know what underlying capability is.

Not really. The preconditioning should be using very little though.

I just find it strange how there's other owners who suggest it's easy enough to get about 4 miles/kwh, and I (along with others) struggle to get more than 3.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Well it entirely depends on the car. The Model 3 RWD, Kona, Ionic, Soul and Nero are all knows for being very efficient. Other cars are very much known for chundering their electrons like the iPace, fat eTron etc. the rest are somewhere in the middle.

It also then depends on how you drive.

Preheating can take a lot of power, particularly if it’s heating a battery up from stone cold on a cold day (E.g. 2-3c) if it hasn’t been driven in a few days. Just doing the cabin uses a lot less of course.

 

[Minstadave]

for the 96miles. 127miles at 2miles/kWh

That's pretty much what I get from mine all the time

 

[jpaul]

a mini se precondition anecdotal
It's worth noting that the heated seats apparently use less power than the heating so can be useful to warm things up rather than just rely on the heating. Also, I've used preconditioning to warm the car up when I finish work over the last few days. The temperature has been around 0deg and each time it's used 5% of the battery.
so 1.6Kwhr cost - 8p

 

[john_smith]

40kw Leaf, i'm averaging 3.5 over 1500 miles. Hopefully it will nudge up towards 4 in the warmer months. The average speed is 25mph for those miles. I live in an area where travel is mostly on B roads.

 

[mikeyw85]

Well it entirely depends on the car. The Model 3 RWD, Kona, Ionic, Soul and Nero are all knows for being very efficient. Other cars are very much known for chundering their electrons like the iPace, fat eTron etc. the rest are somewhere in the middle.

It also then depends on how you drive.

Preheating can take a lot of power, particularly if it’s heating a battery up from stone cold on a cold day (E.g. 2-3c) if it hasn’t been driven in a few days. Just doing the cabin uses a lot less of course.

That's true. I think the Mini probably only preheats the cabin.

There are a heck of a lot of variables. As benefits to efficiency, i leave temp at 20, i use regen for 95% of slowing down, i stick to speed limits, i don't always floor it. Negatives being I use precondition, my commute is short but hilly and up to 60mph. It would also be possible to drive slower.

I guess the Mini is fairly old tech, being i3 based in certain area's.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

a mini se precondition anecdotal
It's worth noting that the heated seats apparently use less power than the heating so can be useful to warm things up rather than just rely on the heating. Also, I've used preconditioning to warm the car up when I finish work over the last few days. The temperature has been around 0deg and each time it's used 5% of the battery.
so 1.6Kwhr cost - 8p

thats nice… however cabin warming is really a different term to preconditioning, for a full system precondition we are talking warming the battery up and that can take a huge amount more energy than blowing some air around a cabin.

It’s about the IPACEs biggest weakness, keeping the battery warm to avoid that parasitic heat demand and the aluminium base plate around 90kWh it’s a big heat sink, even worse in cool rainy conditions.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

That's pretty much what I get from mine all the time

You have the baby wheels too! 2.6 for me getting there and summer my commutes all 3+ highest was 3.6 for the 38mile drive. Repeated day use is good with the battery at a nicer temp. Only time I look, blasting around in the week I don’t care. Literally couldn’t car less that a tiny FWD slow
Kona popping TO Aldi is repeatedly called out as “efficient” benchmarks when really it’s just a kid at high school getting As; The performance EVs are busy getting PhDs

Main thing is the car gives very consistent performance unlike many others, just means in winter it will be using more to keep the system at the appropriate temperatures.

 

[jpaul]

thats nice… however cabin warming is really a different term to preconditioning, for a full system precondition we are talking warming the battery up and that can take a huge amount more energy than blowing some air around a cabin.

both feet again - read the article - they are talking about the battery warming too, all in. grandmother+eggs

 

[Jonnycoupe]

When are you gonna learn I don’t read your links.

I mean why are you even on that page, did you Google it based on this thread and that popped up and now you think it’s okay to cite as evidence?

Preconditioning can be 4 hour period to bring the battery up to 45C on some cars to also allow a full pack calibration before cooling back off to 25C ready to run. Don’t come here pretending ”it doesn’t use much electricity” of course this is where the value of heat pumps come into effect.

EDIT: just glanced at the link; 8 posts of literally nothing about what’s actually happening. Please point me to the information you were hoping to share from Google hunting?