When are you going fully electric?

EddScott said:
Not sure if I can post in here as it's "fully electric" but was wondering if anyone in here has real world experience with VW Passat GTE? Preferably an estate.

Going to look at a 20 plate tomorrow. My commute including school run is a few miles a day. We walk/cycle in nice weather. Weekend is almost always local. Only consistent journey for me is 200 mile round trip to Cardiff every fortnight to race toy cars. Other than the Cardiff trip, most weeks I could probably do the lot on battery?
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I owned one for a bit

Pretty nice cars, boot was huge and it was fully loaded (GTE Advance). Just a bit boring to drive so I got rid but rationally it's a great car and you probably won't go too far wrong. There was a battery upgrade at some point but mine was 18 reg and did 15-20 miles on electric only.
 
Richie said:
Apparently prices on used EV are dropping

https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/pub...-as-experts-warn-of-more-trouble-ahead/279724
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Yeah, I've enquired about cancellation fees for my Niro order. With the way the prices are going, buying a couple of year old MG5 is looking like a better option than salary sacrifice. Almost the same monthly payments but I own the car at the end of it (have to pay for my own maintenance and servicing, so it does work out slightly more expensive).
 
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Richie said:
The article does state that used ICE car prices rose whereas used EVs dropped so that's probably something to take from it
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Its very clickbaity though

Eg it mentions the Model Y falling a lot, but doesn't say that tesla dropped the price of the brand new model by a similar amount.
So of course used ones will fall in price.

It sounds like a load of industry whine (do they need some cheese to go with it?) that they got caught with their pants down and don't like it.
There is never any sense in used car prices going up, apart from small segments that are seasonal. Eg convertibles can often go up in spring but fall in autumn.
They have probably been making hay last couple of years with prices going up whilst cars sit on their forecourt, or at minimum being able to play hardball on price due to limited supply.

Its basically just supply and demand starting to correct in the market.
About bloody time :)
 
It is because the drop led to a residual value crash and as nearly all cars are bought on some form of finance whether business or personal there will be losses.

A model Y went from ~450 a month yo ~750 a month due to the crash regardless of the drop in price making it in real terms more expensive for most.

There will be people in this thread I'd imagine who bought a Tesla because of strong residuals who will now loose out, great for used car buyers not so good for the people the used car buyer needs to feed the market.
 
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sandys said:
There will be people in this thread I'd imagine who bought a Tesla because of strong residuals who will now loose out, great for used car buyers not so good for the people the used car buyer needs to feed the market.
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They won't lose out much as they can just hand the car back at the end if it's worth less than the optional final payment.

PCP has been refined so much that, if the mileage set at the start (say 8,000mpa) is accurate, the residual value of the vehicle is pretty close to the optional final payment.

Obviously things like COVID and supply issues have had an affect this time but those are non-standard conditions
 
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Richie said:
They won't lose out much as they can just hand the car back at the end if it's worth less than the optional final payment.
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Richie said:
PCP has been refined so much that, if the mileage set at the start (say 8,000mpa) is accurate, the residual value of the vehicle is pretty close to the optional final payment.
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Exactly, this is what has been stuffed by the drops.

The finance is provided on the basis that they make a good chunk of money, it is not a charitable donation of funds so you can drive a cheap EV.

If the GFV was £29k and now the car is worth £18k at the end because Elon wanted to spaff one out, somebody has to make that difference up.

Add to that the change in finance rates, it makes the whole thing very expensive such that finance houses will be going, eerr Tesla is not a safe bet anymore up the rates, dealers going I'm not getting stiffed on that up the rates, private buyers saying hmm I don't want to put anymore money down the toilet than I have to, we're not buying one of those, he could do it again the next time he wants to spur sales and I'll loose even more. It's loose, loose.
 
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Residual prices built into cars bought during covid were very pessimistic if you compared to residuals in the market at the time. It’s like the industry knew used prices were not sustainable.

That model Y price is an outlier and essentially a miss price. They took the new sale price and didn’t adjust residual value after a big price cut. It was only advertised at that price for a matter of hours until someone noticed. Likewise part of the price jump was them updating interest rates from 3.9 to 6.9, that had a huge impact on monthly costs. Remember when every man and his dog were getting a Golf R on tick for £200/month?

Either way, manufacturers actually competing for new car sales is a good thing. Ford just cut a huge chunk of the Mach-E in response. It’s pretty clear Tesla was making hay while the sun was shining and given fords response, they probably were too.

These price drops are a good thing for the long term health of the used market though. No one should be paying £40k for a 3 year old car that cost £40k new at the time.
 
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Interesting questions and answers on Fords earning call earlier this week.

But as we look around the world, I mean, Europe is -- had fits and starts of making us all kind of excited that it's going to work and then it doesn't from time to time. And China, you kind of been chasing competition there, and it hasn't really paid out for you. But there are two very important parts of Europe and China that are very strong for you. Commercial vehicle in Europe is incredibly strong.

So could we just strip Europe back to pure commercial vehicle? And could China just strip back to pure Lincoln? Two places we know you're making money and cut out the other stuff so that you can actually fund the transition that you're talking about. I mean, just -- we kind of all dance around this stuff, and you've headed in this direction with the global redesign, but there's real opportunities here to be really profitable.

Jim Farley -- President and Chief Executive Officer

No, you hit on it. And I'm glad we're getting into some of the strategies. I mean, I would think of China business similar to what we've done in South America and IMG. Small but profitable, focused.

We've been, in the past, in China kind of small but focused on everything. And Lincoln and our commercial with JMC is very profitable and an important business, but they have to make the EV transition. And I don't think you can be globally successful in the EV business if you don't compete with the Chinese. I mean, they're going to come to Europe.

They're already there. They're going to come to the U.S. BYD is a powerhouse, Geely, there's so many others. And so, we believe China is very strategically important for us.

But to win there, we have to make those businesses transition profitably to EV, but I would think of it as kind of small and focused, maybe even more than the past. And Europe is definitely -- we have a great CV business, commercial vehicle business, that now is getting electrified. So we're like making that transition now. We have a new Ranger, the electric version of Transit, 1-Tonne Transit.

And all of them, we have a new manufacturing site in Romania that's really scaling up now in commercial. So we have a really strong business. And the decision really is how much do we need, how much -- how many engineers, how many people do we need in Europe and how big of a profile do we need in passenger cars?
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Wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple of years we will only have ranger/puma/Mach e/transit in Europe.
 
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Ford, everyone, makes the biggest margins on trucks, & beating tesla on the f150 was a master stroke; their escort successor using id3 platform to be assembled in europe too (don't mention the b word)

2nd hand ev pricing drop extended across other models than Y too, i3/e-tron/polestar ... consumers scepticism on charging network availability, public kwh price giving parity with ICE , ... and inflation(b again)
 
I don't think a single EV is priced for general population yet. They are the only vehicle that makes sense on company car perk schemes, and hence because they are billed gross, they can be outrageously expensive.
 
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