Reliable £10k EV to drive 20k miles a year ....
Discussion
My iPace has been off the road for nearly 8 weeks now - 5 weeks waiting to get in to the dealer, 3 weeks (so far) at the dealer while they try and find out what is wrong with it. When it comes back the most likely outcome is that I will sell it and try to get something less likely to go wrong. The iPace won't be worth much if I sell it.
Is there a £10k used EV out there which will provide a few years of reliable service @20k miles per year? My mileage is mostly made up of a 90-mile round trip commute with the majority done on a dual carriageway. Almost all home charging, only rapid charge a handful of times a year.
Must have:
Enough range for a 90-mile daily commute all year round with a reasonable buffer so that there is zero range anxiety and the car is still usable for local stuff after I get home.
Would really like:
Enough range for 2-days of commuting (180 miles) so that I'm not stuck if the car doesn't charge overnight for some reason.
The capacity to rapid charge at a reasonable rate (100kWh or more) so that it isn't a pain to use on longer trips.
There are quite a few cars out there which would do the job, but they all seem to have weak spots:
Tesla isn't an option (Elon Musk is its weak spot!)
The Kia eNiro (and Hyundai Kona) has a mad 10k mile service interval, which would be a pain for me and also means that hardly any of the older used cars out there have been serviced to Kia's requirements and so would be out of warranty (everyone says "buy one of these, it will still be in warranty"). They also seem to have potential gearbox problems.
VW id.3 is in budget and would do the job very well; I can live with the infotainment issues, but there seem to be quite a few stories about battery cells needing replacement.
Lots of ex Addison-Lee id.4s have been flooding the used market recently - would be a decent replacement for the Jag in many ways, but the one I looked at showed all the signs of having had a very hard life
MG5? Available within budget. Cleevely Mobile seem to like them. Rapid charging is on the slow side. I'd like to think that I'm not a badge snob, but it turns out that we all may have our limits .....
Nissan Leaf? Don't know much about them, owners seem to rate them, have seen stories about battery cells needing to be replaced.
If I was spending £10k on an ICE vehicle I'd feel confident that I could do it without expecting any substantial bills. Not sure whether that is going to be the case for older EVs.
Does the car to do this exist, or are we still too early in the lifecycle of EVs to have confidence to run an older vehicle to big miles?
Is there a £10k used EV out there which will provide a few years of reliable service @20k miles per year? My mileage is mostly made up of a 90-mile round trip commute with the majority done on a dual carriageway. Almost all home charging, only rapid charge a handful of times a year.
Must have:
Enough range for a 90-mile daily commute all year round with a reasonable buffer so that there is zero range anxiety and the car is still usable for local stuff after I get home.
Would really like:
Enough range for 2-days of commuting (180 miles) so that I'm not stuck if the car doesn't charge overnight for some reason.
The capacity to rapid charge at a reasonable rate (100kWh or more) so that it isn't a pain to use on longer trips.
There are quite a few cars out there which would do the job, but they all seem to have weak spots:
Tesla isn't an option (Elon Musk is its weak spot!)
The Kia eNiro (and Hyundai Kona) has a mad 10k mile service interval, which would be a pain for me and also means that hardly any of the older used cars out there have been serviced to Kia's requirements and so would be out of warranty (everyone says "buy one of these, it will still be in warranty"). They also seem to have potential gearbox problems.
VW id.3 is in budget and would do the job very well; I can live with the infotainment issues, but there seem to be quite a few stories about battery cells needing replacement.
Lots of ex Addison-Lee id.4s have been flooding the used market recently - would be a decent replacement for the Jag in many ways, but the one I looked at showed all the signs of having had a very hard life
MG5? Available within budget. Cleevely Mobile seem to like them. Rapid charging is on the slow side. I'd like to think that I'm not a badge snob, but it turns out that we all may have our limits .....
Nissan Leaf? Don't know much about them, owners seem to rate them, have seen stories about battery cells needing to be replaced.
If I was spending £10k on an ICE vehicle I'd feel confident that I could do it without expecting any substantial bills. Not sure whether that is going to be the case for older EVs.
Does the car to do this exist, or are we still too early in the lifecycle of EVs to have confidence to run an older vehicle to big miles?
At £10k, you're just about into getting a 62kWh leaf, less than 50k miles, newer than 2020.
20k miles per year, it's saving £2k a year in fuel. Looking at older, smaller battery examples, I reckon you'd be in with a chance of depreciation being less than £3k a year even with that mileage. After 2 or 3 years, it should still have some value. Any remaining value or functionality after 5 years should probably be seen as a bonus?
Nissan have flogged a lot of leaves over a lot of years, probably not a bad bet?
If you want the comfort of a warranty, it might be interesting to see what you can get on finance for that mileage?
Any car out of warranty is a gamble IMHO.
Even running sheds, if you lose less than £1k per year or per 10k miles in depreciation you are doing OK, so £2k per 20k miles.
This as cheap as motoring gets (per mile).
That's the thing with EVs, for the fuel saving to kick the depreciation into the long grass, you need to be doing substantial mileage.
You could look at the smaller battery leaves, but it looks to me that the 40kWh ones are not enough of a saving to work out cheaper in the long run?
20k miles per year, it's saving £2k a year in fuel. Looking at older, smaller battery examples, I reckon you'd be in with a chance of depreciation being less than £3k a year even with that mileage. After 2 or 3 years, it should still have some value. Any remaining value or functionality after 5 years should probably be seen as a bonus?
Nissan have flogged a lot of leaves over a lot of years, probably not a bad bet?
If you want the comfort of a warranty, it might be interesting to see what you can get on finance for that mileage?
Any car out of warranty is a gamble IMHO.
Even running sheds, if you lose less than £1k per year or per 10k miles in depreciation you are doing OK, so £2k per 20k miles.
This as cheap as motoring gets (per mile).
That's the thing with EVs, for the fuel saving to kick the depreciation into the long grass, you need to be doing substantial mileage.
You could look at the smaller battery leaves, but it looks to me that the 40kWh ones are not enough of a saving to work out cheaper in the long run?
ID3 is probably worth a shout as you say - I wasn't aware of issues with the battery cells. There's quite a few on Autotrader that are 71 plate, 60k ish miles for under £10k.
You'd have manufacturer warranty till 100k miles, so even if there was a battery cell problem, you'd be covered for nearly two years with your mileage.
You'd have manufacturer warranty till 100k miles, so even if there was a battery cell problem, you'd be covered for nearly two years with your mileage.
dapprman said:
If size of car is not an issue - Renault Zoe 50 ? - I got 200-220 miles out of a full charge with mine during the summer, though down to about 160/170 during the winter. Only catch is 50kWh charging so probably too slow for you.
This was my first and only thought at this price point.Funky Squirrel said:
BMW i3, it's really a city car so may not suit constant dual carriageway but it is comfortable well specced and reliable.
The range extender with the small petrol generator would alleviate anyrange concerns if something went wrong en route.
Later model 42kWh models are creeping into budget now.The range extender with the small petrol generator would alleviate anyrange concerns if something went wrong en route.
REx models are mostly a bit long in the tooth I think, and the short petrol range doesn't make them a car to go to Scotland in.
Years of age kill the batteries as much as mileage, so I wouldn't be spending £10k on a 10 year old EV personally.
The older i3 models are becoming cheap enough for local runabouts, not everybody does the OP's daily miles!
As I always state to answer such questions: use Google to come up with a shortlist to weed out those cars you won't consider first. This will avoid people trying to be helpful by chipping in with pointless suggestions. Then get back to us for opinions based on experience to narrow it down.
OutInTheShed said:
Funky Squirrel said:
BMW i3, it's really a city car so may not suit constant dual carriageway but it is comfortable well specced and reliable.
The range extender with the small petrol generator would alleviate anyrange concerns if something went wrong en route.
Later model 42kWh models are creeping into budget now.The range extender with the small petrol generator would alleviate anyrange concerns if something went wrong en route.
REx models are mostly a bit long in the tooth I think, and the short petrol range doesn't make them a car to go to Scotland in.
Years of age kill the batteries as much as mileage, so I wouldn't be spending £10k on a 10 year old EV personall
The older i3 models are becoming cheap enough for local runabouts, not everybody does the OP's daily miles!
The downside would be range; you won't get close to what the OP needs.
The Leaf battery issues have been largely resolved when they moved to another chemistry (less thermally intolerant) in 2018. They do still do passive cooling in their batteries.
It's also one of the reasons they only get 50kw fast charging, so a non starter for you.
I think the fast charging is really going to hurt in your possibilities.
A cheap Model 3 would be great, but outside of budget and a political issue it seems. A shame, as they really are the first mass-market EV with none of the EV downsides. What if I tell you that buying a second hand car doesn't really help any brand or CEO?
It's also one of the reasons they only get 50kw fast charging, so a non starter for you.
I think the fast charging is really going to hurt in your possibilities.
A cheap Model 3 would be great, but outside of budget and a political issue it seems. A shame, as they really are the first mass-market EV with none of the EV downsides. What if I tell you that buying a second hand car doesn't really help any brand or CEO?
ZesPak said:
The Leaf battery issues have been largely resolved when they moved to another chemistry (less thermally intolerant) in 2018. They do still do passive cooling in their batteries.
It's also one of the reasons they only get 50kw fast charging, so a non starter for you.
I think the fast charging is really going to hurt in your possibilities.
A cheap Model 3 would be great, but outside of budget and a political issue it seems. A shame, as they really are the first mass-market EV with none of the EV downsides. What if I tell you that buying a second hand car doesn't really help any brand or CEO?
My only reason for not buying a Model 3 18 months ago was that I thought I needed a hatchback for the dog - it turned out that he didn't like the boot of the Jag so ended up on the back seat instead ..... hey ho! It's also one of the reasons they only get 50kw fast charging, so a non starter for you.
I think the fast charging is really going to hurt in your possibilities.
A cheap Model 3 would be great, but outside of budget and a political issue it seems. A shame, as they really are the first mass-market EV with none of the EV downsides. What if I tell you that buying a second hand car doesn't really help any brand or CEO?
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