Does my driving fit an EV?

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Discussion

P675

Original Poster:

361 posts

39 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
At the moment I do this in a 3.5L no-plug hybrid spending £240 a month petrol:

3 days a week
- 30-50 mph for a mile or so to the dual carriageway
- sit behind a lorry with ACC for 16 miles, often can be stop and crawl
- 2 miles of city traffic, usually not bad but can be stop-start
- all again in reverse

1 day a week
- 30-60 mph A roads for 35 miles

1 day a week
- 70 miles A roads with a town bit for 4 miles

About 1000 miles a month. Doing some research I can fuel a Tesla Model 3 with an EV tariff for about £20 a month doing the same miles. Would this work out for me? It's tempting seeing a used Model 3 for £300 a month when I'll save £200 in petrol, and get a much newer car out of it with aimilar performance. Installing a home charger would cost, but I might get away with granny plug and charging at work for a bit. Any thoughts on this? To spend £300 a month on a 320i or something and then still have the fuel bill is unappealing.

LowTread

4,455 posts

231 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
Yeah would work.

I have a Model 3 Long Range and my usage is:
160 mile round trip once per week. Mostly dual carriageway.
10 miles per day for the other days of the week if i'm doing the school run or whatever locally
Possibly a 100 mile round trip once per week visiting relatives.

I bought it used and paid less than £20k. I'm paying £250/m on a 0% credit card deal, and paid a 50% deposit on the car.

I managed just fine on a 3 pin plug. Buy a decent waterproof extension lead though.

3 pin will add approx 0.3%, or roughly 7-8 miles per hour. Probably fine for your usage. On Octopus Intelligent you'll get loads of extra hours on top of the guaranteed 6 that are included once Octopus realise that your charge rate is so low. It'll sometimes give you 15-16 hrs per day at cheap rate for the whole house.

I went for a 7kW Ohme charger and it's overkill TBH. It's handy if doing a spontaneous trip, or if coming home late and doing a big trip next day, but that rarely happens. More convenient than the 3 pin and extension lead though.

So far it's increased our electric bill by roughly £30/month, but i've done 5k miles in 3 months. Saving roughly £120/month over my previous ioniq hybrid that did 60mpg.

HTH

Tycho

11,847 posts

280 months

Thursday 2nd May
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It'll do it easily. I have the Model 3 LR RWD and do 2 days a week in the office which is 60 mile round trip and each way it uses 10% of the battery for a journey that is 1 mile to the M4, 25 miles on the M4 and 3 miles at the other end to the office. I'll just plug in once a week which costs about £4 and I'm good for all other trips at the weekend etc. I currently do about 1200 miles a month.

I possibly still wouldn't recommend for someone who can't park at home but I only need to use Superchargers when visiting family in the West Country or Merseyside.

df76

3,825 posts

285 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
We do about 1000 miles a month, and the fuel savings save a decent chunk of the SS lease cost. I'm enjoying not visiting a petrol station.

We used a granny charger for the first few weeks, and as long as you have a decent socket to use, it would work. We are also with Octopus and that gave the added bonus of cheaper electricity for the whole house whilst the car was slowly charging on the lower cost rate.

raspy

1,799 posts

101 months

Thursday 2nd May
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You want to pay £300 a month in order to save £200 a month? That makes no sense to me.

Tycho

11,847 posts

280 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
raspy said:
You want to pay £300 a month in order to save £200 a month? That makes no sense to me.
I suspect that the OP wants to get a newer car and can pay £300 for a used Model 3 and fuel it for £20 rather than getting something like a 320i for similar and then paying £200 to fuel it.

SWoll

19,175 posts

265 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
raspy said:
You want to pay £300 a month in order to save £200 a month? That makes no sense to me.
No, he wants a much newer car than he has at present for £100 a month rather than £500.

He does however need to consider depreciation, insurance etc. in his calculations.

Edited by SWoll on Thursday 2nd May 15:13

plfrench

2,942 posts

275 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
Absolutely would work - even on a granny charger in winter, you should easily see 25mph charging rate, so overnight would easily top you up 200 miles if needed.

The only thing I would query would be your statement of 'similar performance' to a 3.5l hybrid - if that's a Lexus, Merc, Honda or Infiniti (all that Autotrader could suggest that met the criteria), then you're out of luck... the Tesla would be signifcantly quicker than any of those in real-world use.

off_again

13,079 posts

241 months

Thursday 2nd May
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Insurance - dont forget this and make sure its added to your calculations. Tesla insurance can be quite expensive.

df76

3,825 posts

285 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
plfrench said:
Absolutely would work - even on a granny charger in winter, you should easily see 25mph charging rate, so overnight would easily top you up 200 miles if needed.

The only thing I would query would be your statement of 'similar performance' to a 3.5l hybrid - if that's a Lexus, Merc, Honda or Infiniti (all that Autotrader could suggest that met the criteria), then you're out of luck... the Tesla would be signifcantly quicker than any of those in real-world use.
You won't get 25mph on a granny charger, more like 7mph. 12 hour overnight charge will get you a top up range of 80-90 miles.

plfrench

2,942 posts

275 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
df76 said:
You won't get 25mph on a granny charger, more like 7mph. 12 hour overnight charge will get you a top up range of 80-90 miles.
Whoops, sorry, you're right - I'm so used to defaulting to 7kW paperbag

df76

3,825 posts

285 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
plfrench said:
df76 said:
You won't get 25mph on a granny charger, more like 7mph. 12 hour overnight charge will get you a top up range of 80-90 miles.
Whoops, sorry, you're right - I'm so used to defaulting to 7kW paperbag
That's the world I'm now in.. but, tbh, even those granny charge rates will be easily good enough for the vast majority of people. I slightly regret investing in a 7kw charger, as I just reduce the amount of cheaper electricity that I get.

plfrench

2,942 posts

275 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
df76 said:
plfrench said:
df76 said:
You won't get 25mph on a granny charger, more like 7mph. 12 hour overnight charge will get you a top up range of 80-90 miles.
Whoops, sorry, you're right - I'm so used to defaulting to 7kW paperbag
That's the world I'm now in.. but, tbh, even those granny charge rates will be easily good enough for the vast majority of people. I slightly regret investing in a 7kw charger, as I just reduce the amount of cheaper electricity that I get.
We do too many miles for it to work for us with a granny charger these days (have got 2x7kW chargers as they were going free), but on Ovo Anytime so doesn't make any difference to household costs anyway.

ATG

21,373 posts

279 months

Thursday 2nd May
quotequote all
Yet another post to say that you'll easily be able to do those journeys with a Tesla and a granny charger. If you can charge up for free at work, so much the better. Rather than dealing with range anxiety, the car will always be ready each morning for your journey. No more need to keep an eye on the fuel level and budget time for having to stop at a petrol station.

ashenfie

846 posts

53 months

Friday 3rd May
quotequote all
These days it's all about not paying interest at the moment. If you can right off 100% against tax, it's a no brainer buy new. 2nd EV prices reflect that for many buying new via schema makes the most sense. Personally a PHP/Lease schema would make sense to me, as not effort or risk required to exit. I worry if BYD released one of those £15K ev's in the UK what would happen?

annodomini2

6,914 posts

258 months

Friday 3rd May
quotequote all
ashenfie said:
These days it's all about not paying interest at the moment. If you can right off 100% against tax, it's a no brainer buy new. 2nd EV prices reflect that for many buying new via schema makes the most sense. Personally a PHP/Lease schema would make sense to me, as not effort or risk required to exit. I worry if BYD released one of those £15K ev's in the UK what would happen?
Won't be £15k with VAT etc and they have to adapt stuff to meet homologation.

New Renault 5 EV due Q1 2025, is supposed to start around £23k. Ok it's not £15k, but the competition is heating up.

LordGrover

33,716 posts

219 months

Friday 3rd May
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If the Geely Galaxy E8 makes it here, that'll be the game changer. Not exciting, but very good.

annodomini2

6,914 posts

258 months

Friday 3rd May
quotequote all
For the OP, most EVs would meet your needs.

Guessing it's just you on commute. Do you need to carry loads stuff? Or a family in tow on some of the journeys?

If anything Tesla would be more than you need.

df76

3,825 posts

285 months

Friday 3rd May
quotequote all
annodomini2 said:
ashenfie said:
These days it's all about not paying interest at the moment. If you can right off 100% against tax, it's a no brainer buy new. 2nd EV prices reflect that for many buying new via schema makes the most sense. Personally a PHP/Lease schema would make sense to me, as not effort or risk required to exit. I worry if BYD released one of those £15K ev's in the UK what would happen?
Won't be £15k with VAT etc and they have to adapt stuff to meet homologation.

New Renault 5 EV due Q1 2025, is supposed to start around £23k. Ok it's not £15k, but the competition is heating up.
You can pre-order a Dacia Spring now, and that at a starting price of £14,995....

CivicDuties

6,184 posts

37 months

Friday 3rd May
quotequote all
Yes, OP. Go for it.