How can I buy a used EV in 2025 (e-niro, leaf, ioniq)

[Alexnh]

Hello pistonheads, long time listener, first time calling in.

I'm considering buying a used EV to save a little money on fuel. My wife and I both commute by bike so we don't do a huge mileage, taxiing children to various activities, shopping and days out at the weekend. We currently have a Nissan Juke which we find barely adequate in terms of cabin and boot space. More room would be better. We fill the Juke with petrol every two weeks, so we're spending afford 1.5-2k year on fuel. We have solar panels and a small 6.5kwh battery and would be interested in having v2h capability. The car would be in the drive charging most of the week.

I have long idly harboured a dream of buying a Leaf but recently broadened my search to the niro/kona ev, ioniq and similar. We'd be looking to spend about 10-15k, and the Juke would likely be sold or exchanged. It's worth 3-4k apparently. We could finance the purchase from savings. I do get that it might not make great sense to spend 15k to save 1k/yr! My wife needs some convincing.

I've been looking on Facebook marketplace and Gumtree but am wary of many of the adverts on Facebook in particular. Lots of cat s and cat n cars and pco registered. Too cheap to be good? Honestly, S/N written off cars wouldn't totally put me off we tend to keep our cars for a long time but maybe that's a bit of a cavalier approach. I wouldn't like to end up with something I couldn't sell if I needed to.

So, I would like your thoughts both on the choice of car and on the process of buying one in today's marketplaces. Are Gumtree and fbm ok or should we stick to dealerships and auto trader? I have an obd reader and an happy to use leafspy etc.

Edited by Alexnh on Thursday 13th February 16:37

[ashenfie]

I guess the big question is how many miles per month/year are you doing? Sounds like 3-4k a year? That being the case mostly your spending £30-£40 on petrol per month max and therefore thats going to be your saving max. Getting 3-4 year old leaf or for slightly less a petrol Nissan juke say and the servicing costs verse cheaper purchase price more or less balances things out.

The thing with solar is that during produces loads energy in the summer when you don't need it and very little in winter when you do. Therefore the best option is to sell surplus energy (export it) and buy it back at cheap rate (i.e. an Octopus type deal) when possible.

[Nomme de Plum]

Modern solar panel are much more efficient and generate from daylight as well as direct sun. 6.5kWh is not that small really but what is the solar array generation?

I'd suggest get some technical advice as it really depends where you live and solar array orientation .

I think my EV is great but if you don't need to change your car yet you would need to take into account the cost of taking that money out of investment. This applies equally with BEV or ICE. One big advantage with EV is there is no engine warm up so if your typical journeys are short the BEV may be better.

I'd recommend you drive some and see what you think. Having a nice warm preconditioned car this time of year is quite seductive.

Personally I'd never use Gumtree or Fb for such a major purchase.

Edited by Nomme de Plum on Thursday 13th February 17:09

[samoht]

I think the Juke is quite small inside; the Leaf, Ioniq and Niro are likely usefully bigger, although the Kona is also fairly small.

With overnight cheap rate you can expect electricity cost to be roughly one-fifth of petrol cost (so could be down from £2k to £400 pa).

I'm afraid v2h isn't really a 'thing' just yet. The Leaf supports it but you can't get a two-way home charger AFAIK - there was a limited trial with Leaf owners but I don't think it went anywhere afterwards.

In terms of car choice the key question is what's the longest journey the car will frequently do?

Because having to frequently stop and use public charging will be a faff and erode the cost savings, conversely buying more range than you need will mean more cost up front than required. A car that has the range to cover your typical journeys, and then accept the odd charge stop on occasional longer trips, is likely the best balance.

The 64 kWh Niro/Kona/Soul are the best value for range I think, but you could get something cheaper if shorter range is adequate.

My concern with PCO (taxis) would be how they've been charged. If they've done a lot of rapid charging I think it could degrade the battery perhaps. But you can check this with the OBD reader.

I'd prefer AT for this than gumtree, having said that if you are confident you can pick out a good car anywhere esp using the OBD reader to interrogate the battery. I'd want to see service history too. Given those two I'd be fairly relaxed about where I buy the car I think.

As a proposal, how about an early Ioniq?
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202502058...

(just an example)

100+ miles motorway range, bigger inside than a Juke. Decently fast charging if you need to do longer trips.
Pay £7500 and get £3500 for the Juke, that's a £4k cost to change so maybe 3 years to pay back. But should last you longer than the Juke and with lower maintenance costs.

[ZX10R NIN]

You have to also take into account the depreciation that EV will suffer vs saving 1k per year, in your case it makes more sense to keep what you've got.

But if you want a new set of wheels then man maths away & take a look at these:

50kwhCitroen eC4:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202412117...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202411286...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202501218...

35kwh MX-30:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202502098...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202501067...

50kwh Mokka:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202501168...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202501238...

54kwh Lexus UX:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202501218...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202501318...

[Uncle boshy]

No need to head to marketplace,

You can get a 70 plate leaf for £10k with history,

https://www.cargiant.co.uk/car/nissan/leaf/dl70rxz

Or an ioniq for not much more and within your budget

https://www.cargiant.co.uk/car/hyundai/ioniq/bf70a...

Or even a Citroen e4

https://www.cargiant.co.uk/car/citroen/e-c4/lb21ut...

[Alexnh]

Thank you for all the replies.

I will check the mileage but i think it's more like 5 or 6 than 3-4. We have to full it every two or two and a half weeks and a fill is 65 quid.

Our most frequent trip is a 20 mile round to trip to a local town which we do 4 times a week for the children's activities. I think we can adjust to charging for longer trips. We drive to visit relatives 60 mile away a few times a year.

In terms of investment, it's a depreciating asset and so I'm interested in cars that have depreciated significantly already in the hope they'll go more slowly and the fuel savings offset it. There's certainly some man maths going on. I guess a cheaper ev, 6k ISH would make more sense.

I'd consider an early ioniq.

[samoht]

Good, so 20 miles round trip is easy for any EV. Even 120 miles round trip (60 each way) should be do-able depending on speed and weather.

I agree about depreciation and going a little older/cheaper, however I'd say it's well worth budgeting to spend at least £8k rather than £6k. Because of the rate at which new and better EVs came out in the late 2010s, the extra £2k means you can be looking at much more capable cars like the Leaf mk2 40 kWh, Zoe 52 kWh, or Ioniq 28. But no need to spend £15k for this usage, unless you want to.

It sounds like you could save £1k+ a year in petrol, maintenance likely cheaper too, so could pay back in 3-4 years and be quids in beyond that.

[Alexnh]

Going to test drive a 2021 Leaf tomorrow at our local dealership.

[rlg43p]

There are some BIG discounts going on new Leafs. A couple of examples below. I think this is where my money would be spent - if the car is suitable for your family requirements. Boot doesn't look that big to me though.

Having such a new car for this level of spend is quite appealing.

[66HFM]

For context, we moved house in June to a house where the previous owners had solar panels, Tesla battery storage and a car charger, we managed to get one of the Honda e:Ny1's on a 2 year PCP when Honda were chucking big money at them (c.£11k discount etc).

I niaviely thought that we'd be running the car for free using the solar panels to charge it, as mentioned previously, we receive a greater sum by feeding the electricity produced into the National Grid and then charging it overnight through Octopus Go.

Its been an interesting learning curve over the 5 months we have had it, including a drop in range from 250 miles to 160 miles when the weather was at its coldest, and then losing another 40 miles if you put the heating on...
We only got it because of the deal on offer and with us keeping a 2nd ICE car, especially as the in-laws live 350 miles away,,, although could have been a good excuse to see them less... We also wanted to try an EV especially with our home set up.

Don't forget to factor in the cost of the charger and installation and of course only consider if you have off-street parking.

There are some great deals on used EVs including Leafs.

Would we buy another one, at the moment no, but perhaps that maybe done to the Honda rather than EVs generally.

[Downward]

Uncle boshy said:

No need to head to marketplace,

You can get a 70 plate leaf for £10k with history,

https://www.cargiant.co.uk/car/nissan/leaf/dl70rxz

Or an ioniq for not much more and within your budget

https://www.cargiant.co.uk/car/hyundai/ioniq/bf70a...

Or even a Citroen e4

https://www.cargiant.co.uk/car/citroen/e-c4/lb21ut...

Yeah have a look at Nissan used. You’ll get 2 years servicing free, breakdown and warranty.

I picked up a Tekna over a year ago with 10200 miles. 4 brand new Goodyear tyres. Over a year on and it’s cost me electric,cleaning and a few air fresheners !


Or there’s a few brand new ones on lease for £170 a month.

[samoht]

rlg43p said:

There are some BIG discounts going on new Leafs. A couple of examples below. I think this is where my money would be spent - if the car is suitable for your family requirements. Boot doesn't look that big to me though.

Having such a new car for this level of spend is quite appealing.

The Leaf boot is quite long I think, overall it's decently practical as I recall.

A nearly new Leaf is definitely good in terms of having warranty etc, so reducing maintenance. OTOH the depreciation will likely be quite a lot more, vs an older EV at £8-10k. You pays your money...

66HFM said:

Its been an interesting learning curve over the 5 months we have had it, including a drop in range from 250 miles to 160 miles when the weather was at its coldest, and then losing another 40 miles if you put the heating on...
...
Don't forget to factor in the cost of the charger and installation and of course only consider if you have off-street parking.
...
Would we buy another one, at the moment no, but perhaps that maybe done to the Honda rather than EVs generally.

Yeah, there's definitely a learning curve understanding range and how it varies with speed and temperature, and how little trust you should place in WLTP nonsense numbers. However if OP is mostly doing a 20 mile round trip, they probably don't need to worry too much about this.

Similarly with relatively limited daily mileage, charging from a three pin plug is probably enough to be going on with. Certainly as you say, the £1000-odd to get a charger installed isn't to be ignored.

[Alexnh]

The heavy discounts on new Leafs are interesting but it's pretty much at end of life now for that iteration. If I were going to spend that much I think a newer tech used car with heatpump, battery cooling and CCS would still be the way to go.

[edc]

You sat you want to change to save on ful cost of circa £2k per year but will spend circa £12k to change? Say you save £1k a year on fuel and servicing costs it's going to take you over 12 years to realise any cost saving.

[codenamecueball]

edc said:

You sat you want to change to save on ful cost of circa £2k per year but will spend circa £12k to change? Say you save £1k a year on fuel and servicing costs it's going to take you over 12 years to realise any cost saving.

If you're going to buy a new car anyway, you might as well identify potential cost savings along the way.

OP my Ioniq is coming up for 25k miles and costs buttons to run. It's spacious, comfortable and very efficient. If you do town mileage then I expect it'll make you happy, the only major downside is the rapid charge speed tends to top out around 40kW. Not sure what end of the country you're at but I'll probably be trading mine in at some point soon if I can secure a lease so if you want to have a look at the 38kW let me know!

Edited by codenamecueball on Saturday 15th February 09:32

[Alexnh]

edc said:

You sat you want to change to save on fuel cost of circa £2k per year but will spend circa £12k to change? Say you save £1k a year on fuel and servicing costs it's going to take you over 12 years to realise any cost saving.

No, not any more, the posters above changed my mind. Try to keep abreast of the thread's developments

I'm now considering vehicles around 6-8k, half of which is potentially covered by trading in the juke. So, spending say 4k from our savings which would be paid back in fuel savings over 3-4 years? Then we're back in the black, relatively speaking, in comparison to keeping the Juke. As the poster below you says, the car has to be replaced at some point and we find it barely adequate for our needs, particularly when the MIL visits to look after the kids as back seat space is tight in the Juke.

It looks like insurance premiums could be substantially more which is throwing another spanner in the calculations though.

[ZX10R NIN]

Alexnh said:

No, not any more, the posters above changed my mind. Try to keep abreast of the thread's developments

I'm now considering vehicles around 6-8k, half of which is potentially covered by trading in the juke. So, spending say 4k from our savings which would be paid back in fuel savings over 3-4 years? Then we're back in the black, relatively speaking, in comparison to keeping the Juke. As the poster below you says, the car has to be replaced at some point and we find it barely adequate for our needs, particularly when the MIL visits to look after the kids as back seat space is tight in the Juke.

It looks like insurance premiums could be substantially more which is throwing another spanner in the calculations though.

Space wise the B Class is a very good option:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202502149...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202502149...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202501137...

Kia Soul:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202411286...

40kwh Tekna:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202501288...

[Alexnh]

We're went to see Leaf and a first gen eKona, both used, at local dealerships yesterday. We only drove the leaf as it was late when we got to the Hyundai dealership. We found the leaf surprisingly spacious compared to the Juke. They offered us much less than I posted earlier for the Juke, I think I might've put the wrong age in the calculator I used. I honestly thought their pricing for used leafs was insane given I can buy a new one for 17. I reckon we could buy a 62kwh e+ for less than the dealership wanted for a 40kwh.

The Kona on the other hand was very cramped and had a tiny boot, which we knew already as they MIL had a petrol one.

We looked at an ioniq 5 which we liked a lot but that would be a splurge rather than a sensible decision.

Never considered a b-class so will have a look at that too.

[Caddyshack]

Seems a lot of hassle to save £100 pm or less, depending on what it costs to charge. Don’t expect to charge it off the solar.