BEVs

[squeaker]

Since when has 4.2m long weighing over 1.5t been 'small' in a UK context (Texas maybe)

[Carlton green]

Since when has 4.2m long weighing over 1.5t been 'small' in a UK context (Texas maybe)

Since marketing men and car manufacturers discovered that they could upsell and line their pockets with the profits. VW stopped making the (small) e-UP and it wasn’t because they didn’t sell (there’s certainly a market for small cars with an affordable purchase price), it was because there’s more profit to be made elsewhere.

[pete75]

Dodgy buying Chinese cars at this point. Online stuff says loads of problems, particularly with electronics which remain unsolved via very poor customer service. MG in particular. Guess they are having to build up a working service network...

Al

You mean MG hasn't changed since British Leyland days?

[Cowsham]

The new Ioniq 3 from Hyundai. Things are progressing. The 61 Kwh battery gives 304 miles range, and the weight is below 1600Kg, so 5 miles per Kwh is becoming more prevalent. What's interesting is that the range is 10% more than the Kia EV2 which has the same platform and battery. That shows you the value of aerodynamics:

At least it's prettier than a lot of cars made recently -- (many of which looked like a transformer ( kids toy ) with dementia ) including our Leaf which is an ugly brute ( the new one is much prettier)

[Jon in Sweden]

Step one is complete. We've just ordered a solar panel, battery and wall box system for the house.

10 panels, 15.8kwh battery, invertor and wall box. £9100. That's with a fairly substantial tax rebate from the state. The balance is split interest free over 48 months and the anticipated payback period for the system is 54 months. So it's effectively cost neutral until it's paid off, at which point we're a little over £200 a month better off. All our heating is heat pumps, it's worth noting.

What's really nice is that we'll be able to run the house AC with reckless abandon over summer when it's blisteringly hot.

Next step is an EV. Currently looking at some 4-5 year old Skoda Enyaqs. I do 20,000km a year at work and with an EV, the diesel saving will pay for the car.

Onwards and upwards and moving away from oil dependence.

[Cugel]

The new Ioniq 3 from Hyundai. Things are progressing.

At least it's prettier than a lot of cars made recently -- (many of which looked like a transformer ( kids toy ) with dementia ) including our Leaf which is an ugly brute ( the new one is much prettier)

Har har - define "pretty" as relating to cars. Frankly I've come to regard all of them as ugly brutes, even that Leaf, despite one residing on the driveway and usefully carting us about where the (free) bus going past the door doesn't go.

Streets are often ruined with car-litter, parked there in long lines of garish-ugly detritus, waiting for the owners to get in and thrust them badly from A to B where they do their secondary littering of the day.

Some regard various car-shapes as lovely 'cos the engineering has given them a certain "look", often akin to a bedroom toy. Well, boys will be men, I suppose .... although in practice many men become boys (toddlers, even) when they get into a car driving seat.

*********
One day the things may be supplanted by instant-transportation pods (hopefully with effective flyscreens). Perhaps the pods will eventually be reduced to the size of a small chip that can be embedded in the users left eye? One will look at a map and instantly be there!

Cycling will then be either just the body-exercising device it is now for many of us; or a transport device owned by those of a certain age that find themselves agin' anything modern and so clinging to the devices and habits of yesteryear. They will have an old Raleigh, kept next to the woodshed hoarding the fuel for the polluter that they heat the hoose with.

But I'm wandering i' the mind now. In actuality, we'll all be dead of weather or a particularly bad mental paroxysm in the head of one o' them loons "in charge" of that Russia, USA, Israel or some other $*!3hole country.

*********
That Leaf is never short of kilowatt-hours just now. Sun from dawn to dusk every day! Already I'm complaining about the lack of rain rather than about a surfeit of the stuff.

[Jon in Sweden]

I just found out this morning that there is a Swedish grant scheme for rural electric mobility, for which we would qualify. It applies to both new and used vehicles and would save us just over £5k. That is good news and makes the whole enterprise a no-brainer.

[Jdsk]

...
Next step is an EV. Currently looking at some 4-5 year old Skoda Enyaqs. I do 20,000km a year at work and with an EV, the diesel saving will pay for the car.
...

The Enyaq just came out as best of type in Which?.

Private Message sent.

Jonathan

[RickH]

Next step is an EV. Currently looking at some 4-5 year old Skoda Enyaqs. I do 20,000km a year at work and with an EV, the diesel saving will pay for the car.

Onwards and upwards and moving away from oil dependence.

We've now had our Inster a month. I've been keeping track of the figures. We average about 8,000 miles a year (~667miles per month) so we're a little below that this month. On local UK pricing we've saved over £90 in fuel costs.

589miles driven
126.43kW used
13.34kWh/100km / 4.66miles/kWh
£13.29 (@10.51p/kWh) electricity cost
Actually slightly cheaper as, although I accidentally put about 1kWh in at the day rate of 29.23p, I got just over 7kWh free (to me) when my daughter & SiL had negative pricing one afternoon & they weren't in to use it!
Diesel cost £106.34 (@186.9p/l & 47.1mpg)
The cost of diesel for the same distance in our old car at the price the cheapest locally from petrolprices.com on the day I started my spreadsheet. It has come down a little to 177.9p (would have been £101.22 saving £87.94 at that price) but the 2nd cheapest is still 182.7p.
Saving £93.06
If diesel price had gone up & was still 136p/l (I think it was 135.9p when I filled up before the Iran fiasco started) it would have cost £77.38 , a slightly smaller saving of £64.10.

Once we have our proper charger fitted next week we will have the capacity to charge from empty to full on our overnight rate.

[UpWrong]

Since when has 4.2m long weighing over 1.5t been 'small' in a UK context (Texas maybe)

If I had the time I'd like to plot a graph of the correlation between battery weight and vehicle weight to identify any which buck the trend.

The new Twingo has a range which suggests 6 miles/ Kwh, Weight around 1200Kg. Reviews have said the light weight helps the ride. It's still a pretty wide car, even though it's a 4-seater,

[Jon in Sweden]

That's a really useful breakdown of the numbers Rick! I would quote you, but the forum isn't allowing me to do that just now, for some reason.

Winter range is a bit more of an issue here than in the UK on account of us actually having a winter, but it's still all very doable. Norway is almost entirely electric in new car sales now and they seem to be managing fine.

[Jdsk]

Winter range is a bit more of an issue here than in the UK on account of us actually having a winter, but it's still all very doable. Norway is almost entirely electric in new car sales now and they seem to be managing fine.

And having the example of a country that is so much further through the transition is very helpful. Not just for cold and snow but for many other aspects. We can now see how to manage the changes and can address the problems from empirical observations and no longer only from reasoning.

But I expect the FUD to continue.

Jonathan

[Jon in Sweden]

I test drove an Enyaq today and it was very nice. I've had new cars in the past, but we've been in older vehicles for a little while. Quite a step up, when you jump out of a 2007 T5 Caravelle into a 2022 EV.

That being said, I am inclined to go with a VW ID4 over the Enyaq for the simple reason that there are more of them here to choose from and the cabin is more spacious. When you're the wrong side of 2m (from the point of view of fitting into a car), every little bit of extra space helps.

I don't like the look of the ID4, but then I don't have to look at it when I'm driving it!

[UpWrong]

Citroen planning sub £15K "2-CV" electric car, https://share.google/VwgcnRXSGwyNHpJTE

[Carlton green]

Citroen planning sub £15K "2-CV" electric car, https://share.google/VwgcnRXSGwyNHpJTE

An interesting article, thank you. More affordable BEV’s are becoming available, the Citroen e-C3 looks interesting and the closely related Fiat Grande Panda appears to be being well received. The Dacia Spring is an interesting option too. What many of us want is a 2CV / Renault 4 type car that’s cheap to buy and run, we neither need or want high performance or luxury features.

As commented on in the article, I’d agree that there are a lot of people out there who would buy a new car but can’t because nothing much small and affordable is available to them. Manufacturers have neglected that part of the market whilst they concentrate on wealthier buyers / higher profit margins.

One might wonder whether BEV sales and models are maturing, and whether people are also putting off a purchase because the market is changing so rapidly.