What do you drive?

[sidcow]

Not only is it price competitive but when you take into account running costs it will be significantly cheaper.

If the monthly lease cost is around £100 as she states, that's probably more like £80 a month when you're comparing it to an ICE vehicle costs per month filling it up with petrol.  

[bobzy]

Just now, Davkaus said:

That's for the next engine up with a 65bhp engine - to be fair, that's only an extra £350 quid, and anyone who'd consider spending 15 grand on one of these simply has to take that option really. The 65bhp is an affordable but boring car that'll absolutely do the job for people who see cars as a white good - perfect for short journeys but can do some longer ones in a pinch.

That base 45bhp model would be actively dangerous on a major A road or motorway though, and I think it's only even an option so they could grab the headline of "under 15 grand!" 

I'd wager the vast majority of people don't do regular motorway driving.  In fact, probably more likely to use the car to do shopping, drop/pick up kids from school and similar small, local trips.  Those are the kind of shit trips that people "should" cut out in any case, so having an EV that delivers this is at an affordable price is brilliant.

Of course, it'll be let down by (as you allude to) people wanting nicer cars/a brand like BMW et al, but as a concept it's pretty bang on.

 

I'd be tempted if it wasn't for the fact we have on-street parking here with no guarantee of being in front of your house nor infrastructure in place to get regular charging points.

[Davkaus]

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

 

 Or, yes, Dacia have got this horribly wrong and there is no market for a cheap, small, easy to park, local runaround, EV in a nice colour, with a boot just big enough for the weekly shop.

You're swinging at shadows here mate, absolutely not what I was saying at all - even in that post I said it'd be a good proposition for some people.

My criticism was simply around the cheapest base option - and as I alluded to in my previous post, I think that's just a headline grabbing price point and they probably won't make many of the 45hp models anyway.

A year ago the MG 4 looked like stonking value at 27-28k, this coming in some 12 grand cheaper and realigning the bottom of the market can only be a good thing. Just spend the extra £350 if you're getting one  

[Genie]

14 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I thought she said 14 seconds?  Which, whilst not quick, is significantly better than 19 seconds!

19.1 seconds I think

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

You're swinging at shadows here mate, absolutely not what I was saying at all - even in that post I said it'd be a good proposition for some people.

My criticism was simply around the cheapest base option - and as I alluded to in my previous post, I think that's just a headline grabbing price point and they probably won't make many of the 45hp models anyway.

A year ago the MG 4 looked like stonking value at 27-28k, this coming in some 12 grand cheaper and realigning the bottom of the market can only be a good thing. Just spend the extra £350 if you're getting one  

 

I was just riffing, rather than doing this work thing!

 

[Genie]

9 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I'd be tempted if it wasn't for the fact we have on-street parking here with no guarantee of being in front of your house nor infrastructure in place to get regular charging points.

This will continue to be an issue for large parts of the UK in the race to adopt electric cars (combined with the lack of infrastructure investment by the government).

[Mic09]

19 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Eh?  You are comparing the new price of an EV for the second hand price of an ICE vehicle?

It's the tipping point because it's where EV's become price competitive with ICE cars.  There are a number out in the next year like the VWID2 which are price competitive with a Polo that will enable you to pick up relatives from Luton or have a weekend in Wales.

Battery prices are plummeting all the time  it will soon be CHEAPER to make an EV than an ICE car.  In fact looking at this we're probably there already.

And next year or the year after you'll probably see a Dacia Spring refresh with a bigger battery to extend the range as competition bites.   

You are probably right. It's not a fair comparison.

I love the idea of a brand new car, but I always question myself; why. But that's just me. If everyone thought like me, there would be no cars. 

If I was shopping around for a small nippy town car, £15k is not the price point for me. 

But I appreciate there is a market for these, my close relatives are in that market.

So I am looking at it from a purely subjective perspective. If I want to have a nippy weekend shopper, I can wisely spend £5-8k and still not piss off the polar bears. 

 

Edited March 13 by Mic09

[sidcow]

6 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

You are probably right. It's not a fair comparison.

I love the idea of a brand new car, but I always question myself; why. But that's just me. If everyone thought like me, there would be no cars. 

If I was shopping around for a small nippy town car, £15k is not the price point for me. 

But I appreciate there is a market for these, my close relatives are in that market.

So I am looking at it from a purely subjective perspectives. If I want to have a nippy weekend shopper, I can wisely spend £5-8k and still not piss off the polar bears. 

 

Your £8k second hand ICE car is still very much going to piss off the polar bears.

Which brings another reason why this will be such a high success.  There is a sizeable number of people who just want an EV.  They worry about the Environment and want to do their bit.  But the price of EV's has just made it impossible.  I think a lot of them will jump at this regardless of if it 'makes total sense' because they will be more willing to make compromises in an EV than they will for an ICE vehicle.  I'm one of those people but I'm holding out for a VW ID2, hopefully next year as I hope VW will allow me to exit my PCP early.  Either way my next vehicle will 100% be electric.

Edited March 13 by sidcow

[Genie]

For a little bit more you can get a lot more EV. Something bigger, fun to drive, faster, more bells and whistles, better badge.

Used Jaguar I-pace for £17-18k, Tesla Model 3 for similar money. Kia Nero £15k. Brand new Nissan leaf £20k. A used BMW i3 for less than £8k.

Fair play to Dacia for getting a brand new EV out off that price but it can’t be much fun to live with. It’s a no from me.

 

[Mic09]

3 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Your £8k second hand ICE car is still very much going to piss off the polar bears.

Which brings another reason why this will be such a high success.  There is a sizeable number of people who just want an EV.  They worry about the Environment and want to do their bit.  But the price of EV's has just made it impossible.  I think a lot of them will jump at this regardless of if it 'makes total sense' because they will be more willing to make compromises in an EV than they will for an ICE vehicle.  I'm one of those people but I'm holding out for a VW ID2, hopefully next year as I hope VW will allow me to exit my PCP early.  Either way my next vehicle will 100% be electric.

Buying a car that is already on the market is much more environmentally friendly than building a new one, getting all the parts for the batteries, transferring everything around the world, running massive factories, getting workers to build it, the costs to environment are not even comparable.

You can have an argument between a new traditional vehicle vs a new EV and EV comes out on top. I have no issues with that. 

But 2nd hand purchases are more environmentally friendly for cars that barely burn any petrol and do minimal miles annually. 

And that is before we even consider things like 'I just saved £8k, we can now afford solar panels and a heat pump'. 

[sidcow]

39 minutes ago, Genie said:

For a little bit more you can get a lot more EV. Something bigger, fun to drive, faster, more bells and whistles, better badge.

Used Jaguar I-pace for £17-18k, Tesla Model 3 for similar money. Kia Nero £15k. Brand new Nissan leaf £20k. A used BMW i3 for less than £8k.

Fair play to Dacia for getting a brand new EV out off that price but it can’t be much fun to live with. It’s a no from me.

 

That's been the way forever.

Why buy a new Fiesta Popular when you can get a second hand Cortina Ghia for the same price?

[Chindie]

 

[sidcow]

5 minutes ago, Chindie said:

 

I look forward to watching this no doubt full of paid for inconsistencies paid for by the Oil and Gas industry video later.

[Genie]

21 minutes ago, sidcow said:

That's been the way forever.

Why buy a new Fiesta Popular when you can get a second hand Cortina Ghia for the same price?

True, I guess in my example the Nissan is the best competitor. For £5k more it’s a much better buy. 150bhp, 0-60 in 7.9 seconds, up to 240 mile range, better badge, better quality, better everything probably.

 

[Chindie]

9 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I look forward to watching this no doubt full of paid for inconsistencies paid for by the Oil and Gas industry video later.

I threw it in as a grenade 

It isn't paid for, the guy is way too small and insignificant, and it's not actually particularly anti-EV per se (he actually rates the Taycan as a very good EV, though has issues with EVs generally). He comes at it from the perspective of someone who was a car trader (he ran a small business buying and selling VAG Group cars for about 20 years), and his concern is basically the second hand market for EVs is ****.

[StefanAVFC]

45BHP!?

I'd rather have 45 horses.

[chrisp65]

43 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I look forward to watching this no doubt full of paid for inconsistencies paid for by the Oil and Gas industry video later.

About 40 seconds in he suggests he’s going to be comparing the EV with a car that has a clean internal combustion engine, which later turns out to be a 3 litre diesel in a car capable of 150mph. He’s probably just got a different definition of ‘clean’ to me.

We’re all conditioned to compare cars on their speed performance, 150mph and 0 to 60 in 4.8 seconds. Well that’s great, but that’s not representative of much of my commute route. Hopefully soon we’ll be forced in to putting a higher importance on cost to charge, speed of charging, range.

Yes, I want my car to safely pull out of a junction with a bit of pep. We really really don’t need to be able to get to 60mph in 4.8 seconds and we certainly don’t need to be able to do 150mph. Those are stats for the monkey brain.

 

[sidcow]

22 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I threw it in as a grenade 

It isn't paid for, the guy is way too small and insignificant, and it's not actually particularly anti-EV per se (he actually rates the Taycan as a very good EV, though has issues with EVs generally). He comes at it from the perspective of someone who was a car trader (he ran a small business buying and selling VAG Group cars for about 20 years), and his concern is basically the second hand market for EVs is ****.

Not necessarily directly paid but a lot of the "facts" most people peddle about EV's have their roots in a very heavily subsidised campaign by the oil and gas industry. Car Parks will collapse, they're dirtier to build, the batteries can't be recycled, they burst into flames, tyre pollution running into water, batteries deteriorate, full of rare earth metals, there's not enough  lithium, the grid won't cope etc .  A very sustained campaign.  Apparently The Daily Mail had 3 stories a day slagging EV's for a 2 week period recently.

I did see briefly he talked about battery degradation, that's been disproven so may times but it's in the public psyche because of all those fabricated stories, which end up with man in the pub, on amateur YouTube videos etc etc etc.

[sidcow]

Good video here of a guy testing the real world battery degradation of his 3 year old Tesla

 

 

Edited March 13 by sidcow

[AVTuco]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

True, I guess in my example the Nissan is the best competitor. For £5k more it’s a much better buy. 150bhp, 0-60 in 7.9 seconds, up to 240 mile range, better badge, better quality, better everything probably.

 

Yep, was going to say the same, after owning Leaf for 5 years. Nissan has been making EVs since 2011 so they have the experience already. Leaf is quite sizeable too for the price, not a small car. What you must remember though is that it has Chademo as fast charging standard, but if you only drive in town it's not a problem.