this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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My last car purchase was £8650 for a 1L petrol from 2016. And I bought it this year.
If he could direct me to the nearest electric car of the same price and range I'd be happy to buy one, until then it's a stupid comment and ICE are going to be here for a LONG time, purely because not everyone can afford expensive vehicles.
That amount will get you into a Renault Zoe or Nissan Leaf without much shopping around. Both would be three years younger, be considerably faster, and have a 40kwh battery so a practical range of about 160 miles between charges. Cheapest Zoes and Leafs are listed at about £5k now (but have the smaller battery)and most will take less than listed to get rid as there is a glut of them due to the second hand market being over valued. Zoes before 2021 will likely come with a battery lease, which starts at £50 a month, Leafs do not.
I actually think the battery lease makes more sense on an older electric car as Renault have to replace the battery for free once the capacity gets under 75% available capacity. Most battery warranties on the other hand expire after a fixed period, which a lot of people will now be butting up aginst if they are purchasing the early examples, and the percentage available capacity for a free replacement is often 60%, much harder to hit.
So it can be done in the UK, and even makes sense assuming you can charge at home as home charging works out considerably cheaper than ICE. It costs 9p a kwh to charge overnight so 160 actual miles of range costs less than £4, good luck finding any ICE car that can match that.
As you can charge overnight then you can charge every night, so your practical daily range is 160 miles. If you are genuinely doing more than 160 miles a day I really question the choice of a 1l car to do that. If you are doing 160 miles in a single journey then charging on route will still work out cheaper when spread out over total cost of ownership.
Buying a car and then paying a monthly fee for a battery isn't good. If I buy a car I want to own the whole car. Especially at £50 a month, I spend less than that on petrol, plus charging costs on top.
They aren't considerably faster, in fact they're slower. a Zoe is 110 horsepower, my 3 cylinder 1LT has 140 horsepower. Zoe 0-60 is 13.1 seconds, my car is 8.7 seconds. Zoe top speed is 90mph, my car is 125mph. (Granted I'll never go that fast, but still)
160 miles range is abysmal and no way near enough, my little 1LT cruises on the motorway like a champ, an electric car doesn't come close to the amount of car I have. Why would I bother buying an electric car that's worse in nearly every way when a petrol car is cheaper and/or better.