Plugin/petrol car under £10,000

[Ffffaster]

Hi there

I know zero about plug in electric cars, so hoping I can get some recommendations here? I have no set criteria. It's for commuting to the office in Reading, from London.

Max budget £10,000. Want a car that car switch to petrol from pure electric as I don't have a lot of charging points around my house, so that means I'll be using petrol a fair bit too.

I am doing research into this now but it would be great to have PH's guidance here too.

Thank you all.

[DuncanM23]

You're after a plug-in hybrid for under 10k? What sort of range do you want on electric only?
The car that springs immediately to mind is the Vauxhall Ampera. They are well regarded and there are a few to choose from, but they will all be fairly long in the tooth, and they are complex and relatively few Vauxhall garages know anything about them. The i3 Rex is too expensive.
I don't know much about Priuses, so there might be a plug-in version of the previous generation that might fit the bill. If you don't have reliable access to charging then a 10k EV is probably a bad idea as the range is not going to be >100 miles.

[SWoll]

Toyota Auris/Lexus CT200?

Essentially the same car under the skin, £10k will get you a low mileage 2015 Auris or a more leggy 2015 CT200. I'd trust Toyota a lot more than Vauxhall out of warranty personally.

[Maracus]

Honda CRZ?

[sjg]

If you can't charge at home forget PHEVs, they work well when you can charge regularly enough to do a majority of miles on electric, but typical public charging rates won't be any better cost-wise than petrol.

Get a good non-plugin hybrid, which pretty much means a Toyota one although early Hyundai Ioniq hybrids are sneaking under 10k now.

[Scrump]

Outlander PHEV?

[alishutc]

sjg said:

If you can't charge at home forget PHEVs, they work well when you can charge regularly enough to do a majority of miles on electric, but typical public charging rates won't be any better cost-wise than petrol.

Get a good non-plugin hybrid, which pretty much means a Toyota one although early Hyundai Ioniq hybrids are sneaking under 10k now.

This is good advice - I think unless you can regularly charge for free at work a PHEV isn't great for your use case, especially given the limited used options in that price bracket.

[raspy]

SWoll said:

Toyota Auris/Lexus CT200?

Essentially the same car under the skin, £10k will get you a low mileage 2015 Auris or a more leggy 2015 CT200. I'd trust Toyota a lot more than Vauxhall out of warranty personally.

I would suggest a high mileage 2016 Prius (the new shape) which also benefits from the more modern platform and it's nicer to drive. 70mpg was my average over 2 years with commuting into London from the burbs. It spent most of its time automatically in EV mode when in London traffic anyway.

[georgezippy]

I'd steer well clear of Toyota hybrids (older ones anyway), they are very good and reliable but your catalytic converter will be pinched on a regular basis it seems - sadly.