When are you going fully electric?
- Thread starter Ricochet J
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Work have offered me a Tesla Model 3 via salary sacrifice - the deal seems fantastic and cheaper than my current deal; unfortunately a big part of the current family car job is towing my race car and its just not practical charging with a trailer on the back at the moment.
Pulling 3kw from a 75+kWh battery is literally nothing. The dual motor will be pulling 240+kw when you plant the throttle.
75kwh is a massive amount of energy for household appliances. That would run my entire house for 5 or 6 days.
Let’s also be honest, it’s a gimmick that hardly anyone will actually use to pull any meaningful amount of energy in real life. Even if you were an avid camper you might use a negligible amount of energy to boil a kettle or run an induction hot plate. But even then if you are traveling with an EV you probably target sites with electric hook ups so you can charge the car…
Full on V2G/H is actually useful and provides a huge amount of utility.
Having a 3 pin socket in or on the outside of your car, not so much except on the rare occasion you get cause short and need to charge a laptop or you want to make a silly YouTube video along the lines of ‘I charged a tesla with my Kia lol’.
I put a deposit down on the TM3 back in the day when they said it would tow.....then its tow specs came out
Have realised since that towing with an EV in the UK is at the moment a bit of a dream.Have same issue, choice seems to be keep old tow car sorn till you need race season, mine is worth peanuts so could do that, or get a PHEV.
Other that that it is waiting for an EV with enough range that loosing approx 50% towing can still hit most venues or a rapid charger, having just over 200 miles towing would take the pressure off on a lot of venues.
That said though I don't relish the thought of unhitching the thing with all the expensive stuff there and leaving it in a trailer park to go off and use a power point, ripe for being stolen.
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I would have used it most race weekends, there is rarely supply at venues it would be handy for powering my fridge and stuff in the tent, I tend to carry a gas bottle and big jumpstart battery with inverter, of course this would be if EVs could tow the race car in the first place.
In addition plenty of off grid campsites where having a power source would be better than a noisy genny, I can see plenty of uses for me when the cars become realistically useful.
If it becomes a power source for home too when its latched that would also be handy, though I guess the issue is similar to solar and needs some form of control for feed back into grid as in an outage there's the same risks as a lot of solar setups which also can't work in an outage due to safety issues and require isolators etc.
To make it really useful for home though the EV batteries which are designed to provide large currents could be superior to most house batteries with the right setup, at the moment they struggle to run my hob etc, 3kw is not enough for house loads IMO, so grid backup needs more consideration no doubt with superior house hookups before it could be a standard and used in that manner.
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Just placed an order for a C40 Core in Slate Black. I know the Core has no reverse camera or other nice to have features, but going up to the Plus model added £50 to the monthly cost. Even just changing the colour bumped the price by £36 per month. So C40 Core in Slate Black it is and the bonus was my wife preferred the black over the other colours, apart from the silver. Though even she said not for £36 a month, as the black would be her close second choice.
This will be our second EV on Salary Sacrifice via NHS Fleet Solutions, as we already have an I-Pace. Trying to find a 1 - 1.5 year-old used mid sized premium brand EV with less than 20k miles is impossible for under £45k. In fact, many are more expensive than buying new since dealerships capitalise on the significant wait times for new and the fact that many new models have features removed.
This is my opinion but contrary to some common beliefs, I do not see EVs appreciating or holding value until 2025 - 2026, because all things considered the chip shortage will improve and people will be able to get new car easier. This will in turn hit the used car market and as such used prices have nowhere to go but down.
So for £313 per month on a 3 year SS lease with all servicing, insurance, tyres etc. It is an easier pill to swallow than paying ~£45k for a used premium EV that will most likely depreciate significantly over the next 3 - 4 years.
This will be our second EV on Salary Sacrifice via NHS Fleet Solutions, as we already have an I-Pace. Trying to find a 1 - 1.5 year-old used mid sized premium brand EV with less than 20k miles is impossible for under £45k. In fact, many are more expensive than buying new since dealerships capitalise on the significant wait times for new and the fact that many new models have features removed.
This is my opinion but contrary to some common beliefs, I do not see EVs appreciating or holding value until 2025 - 2026, because all things considered the chip shortage will improve and people will be able to get new car easier. This will in turn hit the used car market and as such used prices have nowhere to go but down.
So for £313 per month on a 3 year SS lease with all servicing, insurance, tyres etc. It is an easier pill to swallow than paying ~£45k for a used premium EV that will most likely depreciate significantly over the next 3 - 4 years.
All the forecasting curves have battery costs/kWh going down over time. The question is just how long that takes. It could be a good few years as demand is constantly increasing not just for cars but also grid storage for renewables.
With electricity costs as high as they are EVs are a lifestyle choice more than an economic decision at the minute.
With electricity costs as high as they are EVs are a lifestyle choice more than an economic decision at the minute.
Strictly from a running costs perspective, the financial aspect of your post is simply not remotely true. I have done a cost comparison for ICE vs EV based on 10,000 miles per year. I also run both an EV and a petrol car so can verify these numbers match my real life experience.
As of August 2022
Avg petrol cost = £1.75 Ltr. (roughly 20p per mile assuming ~36mpg)
Avg diesel cost = £1.85 Ltr. (roughly 20p per mile assuming ~45mpg)
Avg UK tarrif cost per kWh = 31p (that is day rates so worst case scenario). ~10p per mile
My current night rate cost per kWh = 15.45p (N. Ireland) ~5p per mile
Assuming 10,000 miles PA (all numbers approximate)
Fossil ICE car at 20p per mile = £2000 fuel + £165 road tax = £2165
EV on my current night rates at 4p per mile = £500
EV on avg UK Day rates (why would you) = £1000
So even if you were a fool and charged your EV at day rates you would be running your EV at roughly half current ICE costs. Most EV owners who charge at home do so on a night rate tarrif that is even cheaper. So typically an EV is around one fifth to one quarter the cost of running an ICE.
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The issue is the big premium you pay for an EV takes so long to offset the fuel costs.
Currently this is the problem with people adopting to EVs. I posted it a few pages back but even with prices I outlined above it would take 5+ years to offset the cost of an EV equivalent to an ICE. Most people will never own a car that long before replacing it, so it will not be economically viable going for an EV. My point above was to outline that it is not the electricity costs that make EVs expensive, it is the initial outlay now that grants have stopped.
For example I was looking at a Citroen e-C4, or a Peugeot e2008 as my wife's new EV. Both were decent cars and I even went and tested a used Citroen e-C4, which was very nice I have to say. The problem was that we were looking at 1 - 1.5 year old EVs with admittedly low mileage, but both were just under £30k. The same cars in ICE format were £10k cheaper.
So when I priced a lease through salary sacrifice the very low BiK rates for EVs still gives a significant saving compared to ICE. Polestar 2 SR SM was £352 and a Volvo C40 Core was £313. I was hoping for a Polestar 2 but my wife preferred the C40 and as it is for her, then that was the choice. It also helped that I was getting it £40 per month cheaper.
Volvo C40 for £11,269 over a three-year lease with all costs included apart from charging. Or a used e-C4 at £30k that I need to insure, service and maintain and hope it does not depreciate significantly over 4 years of ownership, when (not if) the chip shortage is resolved.
I know my circumstances are not typical but even if salary sacrifice was not available, I would be very reluctant to buy a used EV and assume the used prices won't falls significantly in 2 - 3 years.
Can you run the figures again with the EV owner not being able to charge at home...
...pointless argument is pointless. Let me turn that around for you and ask can you run the figures for someone who owns an ICE car with significantly worse fuel consumption. It doesn't even need to be an expensive ICE car either, because there are plenty of cheapish "hot" ICE cars with mpg in the low 20s or even less.
I gave numbers for tpyical use cases., no amount of fringe cases will change the basic principle that EVs are significantly cheaper to run.
The problem with your argument is the initial cost is a lot higher.
I love EVs and we wouldn't be without one these days but the reality of the electricity price cap is that the cost of fuelling an EV has increased a lot over the last year, and due to materials costs so have purchase prices for new EVs.
A Nissan Qashqai is £30k (plus discounts available) and the comparable Ariya is £45k. What's the average family going to choose?
I had a 320d that commuting to work did 30mpg- 41mpg if ever on the motorway.
At £1.80 per litre(it was £2 a litre not long ago) that's 27p per mile.
At 28p per kwh and getting 4 miles per kw that means i pay 7p per mile .
The crossover point would be £1.08 per kwh assuming £1.80 per litre of diesel.
As we all know both electric and diesel change regularly.
So for me, while it's getting dearer for electric is still cheaper than my previous car, and i prefer no gears and a near silent drive train.
I bought a mg5 pre reg for 23k, lots cheaper than your qashqai.
Initial cost isn't so straight forward.
There's also a top grar pcp deal comparison for a corsa petrol vs e corsa, guess which ones is cheaper per month and overall to run?
I'm not arguing, my next car will be an EV, but it's not always easy to get the true picture. It's not a fringe case to not be able to charge at home.
I have home solar and battery storage - 10kWh. Ideally I could do with another 10kWh to get through Winter using no Gas and full price electricity, which costs about £5k.
My thinking is my next EV will have V2H to support this and save me spending £5k on more storage.
Looking around the only problem is the way power gets to the house from the car, through the home charger, as these cost upwards of £5k
Issue is from Oct, av uk day rate will be more like 58p per kwh so almost 20p per mile, same as fuel and fuel is currently dropping week by week (paid £1.68 for petrol and £1.179 for diesel today (2 different cars)
So except for night charging, EVs will soon cost more if you day charge or use public chargers
Apologies for my poor assumption.
I totally get your like for like cost to buy comparisons and I do think EVs are overpriced compared to an ICE equivalent. What I also try to do is compare actual like for like rather than your Qashqai vs Ariya comparison. Not because the comparison is inavlid, but because it is easy for people to dismiss it as apples to oranges.