EVs... no one wants them!

[Tony33]

Dave200 said:

Tony33 said:

heck out the Buzz, £60k+ for something that looks like it was from the 60s! Joking aside the current crop of EV SUVs all look so anonymous and dull that something resembling a car will appeal to some potential customers.

Cars, especially EVs have massively inflated RRPs right now. Once breaking the “luxury” tax bracket it seems almost an arbitrary figure.

So your point is mostly that new cars look anonymous and are too expensive?

No, just that the lease deals are dominated by EV SUVs that are great deals because they have RRPs that no one is likely to consider. So the cost of leasing for a few years compared to RRP is very favourable.

[123DWA]

trumpton7291 said:

I see batteries are not the only expensive part of EV ownership...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/17/rena...

£11k... ouch!

It says Renault want to replace the whole A/C system comprising of 30-odd parts, I wonder how many of those parts have actually failed and need replacing and how many of those are just 'recommended'.

I'm sure we've all read the countless stories on here of a main dealer quoting 4 figures for a repair, only for the owner to fix the issue with an 85p washer or similar.

[otolith]

Lots of toucans here;

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[stevemcs]

123DWA said:

It says Renault want to replace the whole A/C system comprising of 30-odd parts, I wonder how many of those parts have actually failed and need replacing and how many of those are just 'recommended'.

I'm sure we've all read the countless stories on here of a main dealer quoting 4 figures for a repair, only for the owner to fix the issue with an 85p washer or similar.

Its more about where the metal parts get to, realstically some bits you would replace, other parts such as pipes wash out. ITs just time consuming

[yellowbentines]

CheesecakeRunner said:

Tony33 said:

check out the Buzz, £60k+ for something that looks like it was from the 60s!

That's the whole fking point of it.

I think they look fantastic, but BEV doesn't work for me for several reasons - do it in PHEV and I'd seriously consider one.

My car change in 12 months will probably be dictated by which manufacturers are offering a PHEV powertrain, since diesel is gone or going and EV doesn't work for me, rather than what I actually want.

[cj2013]

trumpton7291 said:

I see batteries are not the only expensive part of EV ownership...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/17/rena...

£11k... ouch!

Read that before, and it sounded like the typical consumer "I ignored it until I couldn't".

Obvious problem was obvious, so they didn't push for it to be fixed until it was out of warranty - and didn't chase it up within warranty to be sure it was documented.


Long story short - not to be too harsh to the naive/ignorant folks involved - but the bill exists because they didn't put enough effort into getting it done earlier. Not defending the dealer, but you do have to own your own issues to get them resolved.

[M4cruiser]

It's stories like these that make me want to go back to a 10-year old Corolla.

[DT1975]

cj2013 said:

Read that before, and it sounded like the typical consumer "I ignored it until I couldn't".

Obvious problem was obvious, so they didn't push for it to be fixed until it was out of warranty - and didn't chase it up within warranty to be sure it was documented.


Long story short - not to be too harsh to the naive/ignorant folks involved - but the bill exists because they didn't put enough effort into getting it done earlier. Not defending the dealer, but you do have to own your own issues to get them resolved.

Yes they should have persisted early on. They also probably regret not extending the manufacturers warranty. Having a quick look its £300 a year from Renault and seems a no brainer. This on the Zoe forum on speak EV

"Warranty just paid out on a faulty heater on my extended warranty R110."

[Dave200]

cj2013 said:

trumpton7291 said:

I see batteries are not the only expensive part of EV ownership...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/17/rena...

£11k... ouch!

Read that before, and it sounded like the typical consumer "I ignored it until I couldn't".

Obvious problem was obvious, so they didn't push for it to be fixed until it was out of warranty - and didn't chase it up within warranty to be sure it was documented.


Long story short - not to be too harsh to the naive/ignorant folks involved - but the bill exists because they didn't put enough effort into getting it done earlier. Not defending the dealer, but you do have to own your own issues to get them resolved.

Indeed. Anyone holding up the results of fecklessness as some kind of indictment of EVs is really clutching at straws. A bit like if I were sharing the cost of a new engine for the ice owner who drove 20 miles with their oil light on as a criticism of ice cars.

[740EVTORQUES]

This is 100% user error. Leaving an intermittent fault for a year is just crazy, did they think the car might heal itself in the meantime or something?

Now cooling problems are potentially more expensive to fix in an EV since the system is shared with the battery cooling and so there are more places to shower metal if your compressor explodes and so more labour mainly. But as pointed out it’s similar to driving on with a low oil warning on an ICE engine because the engine ‘seemed to still work’.

A better title for that article would be ‘car drivers stupidity costs them dearly.’

[heebeegeetee]

I'm going to say not really fair on the Zoe owner. Intermittent faults can be difficult to repair, as the fault is almost guaranteed not to be present when the car is in the shop.

Getting an intermittent fault repaired under warranty is harder still. Main dealers are major pains in the ass, they are very adept at screwing the customer.

I used to work in the trade, I had a strong connection to Mercedes-Benz, I used to hear the stories from customers, M-B are absolutely shameless when it comes to all the tricks, they literally have no shame, and they are very good at ensuring the customer does not get to speak to the person who could put things right afterwards. I even had to use the small claims service over a stupid dispute over my parts bill in which they were clearly in the wrong. They are totally shameless. (Other than that, a head office issue, Merc were otherwise of great support to me, particularly the parts department at my local main dealer).

Reports from customers came from Middlesborough to Brussels and all points in between. Both my Middlesborough and Brussels customers ensured their cars came to us in Birmingham for service or repair.

[Unreal]

I was thinking about the issues around EV uptake in terms of transitioning people from diesel and to a lesser extent petrol to EV.

I wonder if one way to help this would be to shift all the benefits and incentives to the opposite end of the market with generous scrappage schemes and discounts for people with cheap old ICE cars. Those company directors don't need the money and aren't as numerous as the poorer members of society. Those poorer people get into newer, more reliable and environmentally friendly vehicles which are much cheaper to run and rich people can afford the EVs without subsidies anyway. Couple that with building the EV equivalent of the people's car and job done.

[tamore]

Unreal said:

I was thinking about the issues around EV uptake in terms of transitioning people from diesel and to a lesser extent petrol to EV.

I wonder if one way to help this would be to shift all the benefits and incentives to the opposite end of the market with generous scrappage schemes and discounts for people with cheap old ICE cars. Those company directors don't need the money and aren't as numerous as the poorer members of society. Those poorer people get into newer, more reliable and environmentally friendly vehicles which are much cheaper to run and rich people can afford the EVs without subsidies anyway. Couple that with building the EV equivalent of the people's car and job done.

need more affordable models before you can do that. RRP, not the 100 or so heavily discounted models on AT. before someone pipes up.

they are coming in the next 12 months. hope the article i saw yesterday about tesla pressing on with the model 2 at $25k is right.

[Unreal]

tamore said:

Unreal said:

I was thinking about the issues around EV uptake in terms of transitioning people from diesel and to a lesser extent petrol to EV.

I wonder if one way to help this would be to shift all the benefits and incentives to the opposite end of the market with generous scrappage schemes and discounts for people with cheap old ICE cars. Those company directors don't need the money and aren't as numerous as the poorer members of society. Those poorer people get into newer, more reliable and environmentally friendly vehicles which are much cheaper to run and rich people can afford the EVs without subsidies anyway. Couple that with building the EV equivalent of the people's car and job done.

need more affordable models before you can do that. RRP, not the 100 or so heavily discounted models on AT. before someone pipes up.

they are coming in the next 12 months. hope the article i saw yesterday about tesla pressing on with the model 2 at $25k is right.

Yes, hence the people's car reference. Maybe Labour would do it, given their stated green credentials.

[Oilchange]

Dave200 said:

cj2013 said:

trumpton7291 said:

I see batteries are not the only expensive part of EV ownership...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/17/rena...

£11k... ouch!

Read that before, and it sounded like the typical consumer "I ignored it until I couldn't".

Obvious problem was obvious, so they didn't push for it to be fixed until it was out of warranty - and didn't chase it up within warranty to be sure it was documented.


Long story short - not to be too harsh to the naive/ignorant folks involved - but the bill exists because they didn't put enough effort into getting it done earlier. Not defending the dealer, but you do have to own your own issues to get them resolved.

Indeed. Anyone holding up the results of fecklessness as some kind of indictment of EVs is really clutching at straws. A bit like if I were sharing the cost of a new engine for the ice owner who drove 20 miles with their oil light on as a criticism of ice cars.

I don’t think it’s indicative of an electric car specifically but a bill of 11k to fix a heater on any car, wether you leave it until it’s ‘too late’ or not, is grossly exorbitant and frankly taking the piss.
It’s only a heater and they shouldn’t cost that much.

[Ankh87]

tamore said:

Unreal said:

I was thinking about the issues around EV uptake in terms of transitioning people from diesel and to a lesser extent petrol to EV.

I wonder if one way to help this would be to shift all the benefits and incentives to the opposite end of the market with generous scrappage schemes and discounts for people with cheap old ICE cars. Those company directors don't need the money and aren't as numerous as the poorer members of society. Those poorer people get into newer, more reliable and environmentally friendly vehicles which are much cheaper to run and rich people can afford the EVs without subsidies anyway. Couple that with building the EV equivalent of the people's car and job done.

need more affordable models before you can do that. RRP, not the 100 or so heavily discounted models on AT. before someone pipes up.

they are coming in the next 12 months. hope the article i saw yesterday about tesla pressing on with the model 2 at $25k is right.

I've mentioned this before about affordable and reliable EVs for the masses. The people driving around in the most polluting cars are mostly on the poorer end. They can't afford a £20k car let alone a £25k car that's small. This is why manufacturers need to look at family size EV hatchbacks to be sub £20k if anything, sub £15k.

[740EVTORQUES]

Oilchange said:

Dave200 said:

cj2013 said:

trumpton7291 said:

I see batteries are not the only expensive part of EV ownership...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/17/rena...

£11k... ouch!

Read that before, and it sounded like the typical consumer "I ignored it until I couldn't".

Obvious problem was obvious, so they didn't push for it to be fixed until it was out of warranty - and didn't chase it up within warranty to be sure it was documented.


Long story short - not to be too harsh to the naive/ignorant folks involved - but the bill exists because they didn't put enough effort into getting it done earlier. Not defending the dealer, but you do have to own your own issues to get them resolved.

Indeed. Anyone holding up the results of fecklessness as some kind of indictment of EVs is really clutching at straws. A bit like if I were sharing the cost of a new engine for the ice owner who drove 20 miles with their oil light on as a criticism of ice cars.

I don’t think it’s indicative of an electric car specifically but a bill of 11k to fix a heater on any car, wether you leave it until it’s ‘too late’ or not, is grossly exorbitant and frankly taking the piss.
It’s only a heater and they shouldn’t cost that much.

It was the air con compressor not the heater that failed, it’s a very different thing.

The issue is when an ac compressor fails catastrophically it showers metal through the system. This requires draining and in some cases replacing all of the pipes. That is expensive and why you should NEVER ignore a noisy potentially failing AC system as it turns an expensive repair into a very expensive one.

The additional problem with an EV is that the pipes also run through the battery and so you have to drop and open the battery case.

So the bill is almost certainly not exorbitant. You could probably get one of a small but growing number of EV battery specialists to do this for half the cost but still it’s not cheap.

Early BMW i3 and i8 owners had similar problems till BMW changed the design of the compressors IIRC. Some owners also went DIY and fitted inline filters but I imagine that affected flow etc or BMW would have done that originally.

It does raise an issue though when EVs get into the realm of 2nd or 3rd owners who might well skimp on maintenance or leave apparently minor faults rather than pay to get them fixed (and we’ve all been there haven’t we?)

It’s no different to ICE cars though and is more an issue of education and more availability of independent garages who can fix this sort of thing more cheaply.

[djc206]

Ankh87 said:

I've mentioned this before about affordable and reliable EVs for the masses. The people driving around in the most polluting cars are mostly on the poorer end. They can't afford a £20k car let alone a £25k car that's small. This is why manufacturers need to look at family size EV hatchbacks to be sub £20k if anything, sub £15k.

Why would manufacturers need to look at that? The people you mention aren’t buying brand new ICE now so why would we task manufacturers with making brand new BEV’s they can afford? They always have and always will be shopping in the second hand car market.

Besides which is a family sized hatch back for sub £20k still a thing? A bog standard Astra is £27k these days.

[otolith]

Getting used car buyers onto new EVs would be a far more radical step than what we are doing now, which is incentivising those people who do buy new cars to choose electric rather than petrol or diesel ones. We're making the transition through natural wastage.

If the loathing of giving something to those people is too great, we should stop subsidising new EVs and simply tax new ICEs off the market. Happy with that?

[Unreal]

djc206 said:

Ankh87 said:

I've mentioned this before about affordable and reliable EVs for the masses. The people driving around in the most polluting cars are mostly on the poorer end. They can't afford a £20k car let alone a £25k car that's small. This is why manufacturers need to look at family size EV hatchbacks to be sub £20k if anything, sub £15k.

Why would manufacturers need to look at that? The people you mention aren’t buying brand new ICE now so why would we task manufacturers with making brand new BEV’s they can afford? They always have and always will be shopping in the second hand car market.

Besides which is a family sized hatch back for sub £20k still a thing? A bog standard Astra is £27k these days.

Maybe they should be made to look at it? Governments have often influenced what car manufacturers make. Maybe there's a much greater case for using taxpayer's money to get poorer people into cheap, new, efficient cars than subsidising the richer element of society who can afford expensive cars regardless?