Does anyone have any views on which electric cars have been engineered for a long life?
At the moment I have a diesel Mondeo. I paid £8500 for it from a Ford dealer, when it was 2 years 9 months old when it had done 56k miles. I've done 17k miles a year for 7 years, so its now at 175k miles.
If I had to replace it now, I would probably want an electric car, and to get one with a reasonable range. Having been used to a 750 mile range, I think I'll need at least 200 miles.
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That deal is to lease a Kia Niro 2. The headline rate is £263 a month over 24 months, with an up front payment of £2,365 with an allowance of 5000 miles a year. After 2 years, you hand the car back, hopefully with no payments. You will have paid £8,677 for 10000 miles, or 87p/mile.
You can adjust the settings to get other quotes. For example you could pay £312 for 48 months with a £3,745 up front payment and get 15000 miles, to pay a total of £18,721 at 31p/mile.
The list price is £34,890, with a £2,500 government grant, if you paid £2,390 as a deposit, borrowed £30,000 at 5.7% APR for 4 years, you would pay £700 a month, including £3,620 in interest. That comes to 60p/mile. You then own the car at the end.
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I realise I'm going to have to pay more, but I'm not enthused with paying more for 10000 miles than I did to buy my Mondeo outright.
In general I aim to keep running cars until they get scrapped.
I thought the Mondeo was a big, heavy car at 1456kg. However, a Hyundai Ionic 5 is 1900kg. Not only does it not come with a spare wheel and tyre, its not even supposed to be jacked up unless you use a workshop lift.
In the past, you could probably get by with using an old model of a car that had been forgotten by the manufacturer. However, an electric car will need ongoing support from the manufacturer to keep the software up to date. This will be to manage the wear and tear on the battery, how the car works with updated chargers, as well as security fixes. I don't see anything about manufacturers publishing the source code for the management software. When they decide to stop maintaining it, I daresay you will still be able to charge it at home, but you might find that public chargers will no longer work.
Kia and Hyundai have fairly long warranties. Free updates are all very well, but it means that you are relying on the goodwill from the manufacturer. I guess dealer servicing is a way to subscribe to keep getting updates, but I would like to see a commitment from a manufacturer for how long they will maintain and support the software for their cars.
For example, a breakdown lorry driver mentioned that he had picked up an electric car, where the battery had run flat, and the car was locked shut, with no mechanical override for the door locks. That sounds like a load of hassle in store for owners of that model once they get older.
Can weak cells in a battery get replaced, or does the whole battery need to be refurbished as a whole?
At the moment I have a diesel Mondeo. I paid £8500 for it from a Ford dealer, when it was 2 years 9 months old when it had done 56k miles. I've done 17k miles a year for 7 years, so its now at 175k miles.
If I had to replace it now, I would probably want an electric car, and to get one with a reasonable range. Having been used to a 750 mile range, I think I'll need at least 200 miles.
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That deal is to lease a Kia Niro 2. The headline rate is £263 a month over 24 months, with an up front payment of £2,365 with an allowance of 5000 miles a year. After 2 years, you hand the car back, hopefully with no payments. You will have paid £8,677 for 10000 miles, or 87p/mile.
You can adjust the settings to get other quotes. For example you could pay £312 for 48 months with a £3,745 up front payment and get 15000 miles, to pay a total of £18,721 at 31p/mile.
The list price is £34,890, with a £2,500 government grant, if you paid £2,390 as a deposit, borrowed £30,000 at 5.7% APR for 4 years, you would pay £700 a month, including £3,620 in interest. That comes to 60p/mile. You then own the car at the end.
====
I realise I'm going to have to pay more, but I'm not enthused with paying more for 10000 miles than I did to buy my Mondeo outright.
In general I aim to keep running cars until they get scrapped.
I thought the Mondeo was a big, heavy car at 1456kg. However, a Hyundai Ionic 5 is 1900kg. Not only does it not come with a spare wheel and tyre, its not even supposed to be jacked up unless you use a workshop lift.
In the past, you could probably get by with using an old model of a car that had been forgotten by the manufacturer. However, an electric car will need ongoing support from the manufacturer to keep the software up to date. This will be to manage the wear and tear on the battery, how the car works with updated chargers, as well as security fixes. I don't see anything about manufacturers publishing the source code for the management software. When they decide to stop maintaining it, I daresay you will still be able to charge it at home, but you might find that public chargers will no longer work.
Kia and Hyundai have fairly long warranties. Free updates are all very well, but it means that you are relying on the goodwill from the manufacturer. I guess dealer servicing is a way to subscribe to keep getting updates, but I would like to see a commitment from a manufacturer for how long they will maintain and support the software for their cars.
For example, a breakdown lorry driver mentioned that he had picked up an electric car, where the battery had run flat, and the car was locked shut, with no mechanical override for the door locks. That sounds like a load of hassle in store for owners of that model once they get older.
Can weak cells in a battery get replaced, or does the whole battery need to be refurbished as a whole?