What they don't tell you about electric cars

[M4cruiser]

1. They are cheap to run until something breaks, then they cost a lot.

Example: Changing your old petrol hatchback for a second-hand EV like a Leaf/Zoe/Corsa/208/Niro/E-Up etc:-
Saves you up to £300 per year road tax;
Saves you up to 20p per mile on "fuel" (depends a lot on previous mpg and electric supplier deal)
Saves you maintenance like oil changes, cambelt changes etc .
But:-
When the battery goes wrong it costs at least £3,000 to repair. Expect 1 repair on average in 10 years.


2. There aren't enough qualified mechanics to cope with the current repair demand.

When the HV system goes wrong, you may find a 3-month wait to book it in.

So: Ask questions on the above things before you buy.
There are examples on the internet, just use Google.

[M4cruiser]

timbo999 said:

Put the £300/annum you're not paying in VED into a high interest account and use it to buy a new battery every 10 years... and you're ahead 'cos you've earned interest on your savings...

What have I missed?

Yes, this is exactly it. You haven't missed it, but I guess many owners will.

[M4cruiser]

Murph7355 said:

The really enlightening thing is though that there are examples on the internet PEOPLE!

That's to save me quoting examples which will become "404 not found".

Murph7355 said:

(Because ICE cars never, ever incur large bills. No sir. Never).

The point is that they do, but the bills tend to be smaller and more frequent, if the car is maintained properly. EVs will give a big bill despite maintenance. (Just like a hard disk failing for no reason, there was no need to oil the bearings ....) Remember that I'm talking about ordinary runabouts here, not JLRs that need a crankshaft due to poor quality, or BMWs timing chain failures for £4,000.

[M4cruiser]

Discombobulate said:

Where did that 3k battery repair bill every 10 years (on average) come from? I struggle to believe that.
You know they are nearly all warranted for 8 years so any repairs are free? Unlike the engines in most ICE cars after 3 years.

^ Not true. Repairs may not be free. In a Leaf, if a battery module goes bad you have to pay for it if the dash display still shows more than 9 bars, and that can happen.

[M4cruiser]

CheesecakeRunner said:

M4cruiser said:

wibble

Nobody cares.

You're right.

[M4cruiser]

trakracer said:

TheDeuce said:

M4cruiser said:

1. They are cheap to run until something breaks, then they cost a lot.

Example: Changing your old petrol hatchback for a second-hand EV like a Leaf/Zoe/Corsa/208/Niro/E-Up etc:-
Saves you up to £300 per year road tax;
Saves you up to 20p per mile on "fuel" (depends a lot on previous mpg and electric supplier deal)
Saves you maintenance like oil changes, cambelt changes etc .
But:-
When the battery goes wrong it costs at least £3,000 to repair. Expect 1 repair on average in 10 years.


2. There aren't enough qualified mechanics to cope with the current repair demand.

When the HV system goes wrong, you may find a 3-month wait to book it in.

So: Ask questions on the above things before you buy.
There are examples on the internet, just use Google.

As per your examples, the EV is overall far cheaper to own.

That's actually great advice for people, thanks for sharing

Umm, £300 per year spread over 10 years to repair the battery
Saves you £300 per year in road tax

So it's cost neutral before you even consider the huge fuel savings (£2,000 per year if you do 10,000 miles pa)

Are you for or against EV's?

No, I'm not for or against EVs.
I'm raising the profile of some information which is out there amongst some unfortunate owners (who thought their EV would be cheaper to run than it's turned out to be).
Yes, on average it should still be cheaper.
Thanks for pointing out what I said!

[M4cruiser]

TheDeuce said:

I'm for EV's

I'm confused by your post. I said the EV was far cheaper overall, you've explained why that's correct as if it wasn't already obvious to me..?

The only surprise is that it somehow wasn't obvious to the OP that their example makes a very strong case for swapping to a used EV immediately. In a ten year period you could easily be £20k up, mileage dependant, and luck plays it's part with all ageing cars I guess.

Um, it was obvious to the OP. I can do basic arithmetic. The risk of those events (probability) are not so easy to compute. I'm adding information to those who quote only the basic costs differential, and never add in the HV repairs.

Also, I'm intrigued that no one has responded to original point number 2.

[M4cruiser]

TheDeuce said:

You haven't presented anything that suggests an EV will actually cost more to repair/maintain than an ICE of the same age, same period of ownership.

The point is the time difference, as well as the cost difference.

TheDeuce said:

As you said yourself a few posts ago, yes ICE cars go wrong too but tend to cost less to repair - but overall the cost just as much and even if you dispute that, they would need to cost thousands of pounds less to repair a year to compare to overall EV savings for an average motorist.

It's very hard to actually compare "like with like". The nearest I can come up with is Nissan Leaf vs Pulsar, or perhaps Corsa-E vs Corsa. But that's not really the point, which is: do you expect to save significant money changing an old ICE for a newer EV? The publicity is yes, the reality is probably, but not as much as stated. Rarely if ever do you see clarity on the HV system repairs, which are real.

TheDeuce said:

I don't see how any of what you have contributed can help anyone.

That's fine, as with all posts on here, some things will help some people, feel free to ignore.

[M4cruiser]

Megaflow said:

To clarify, using your numbers, you save £300 a year on tax, over 10 years is £3000 plus £0.20 per mile, at let’s say 10k a year, is another £20,000 over 10 years, a total saving of £23,000. But they are more expensive to run because I might need a £3000 battery repair… last time I looked £23000 was more than £3000.

I really hope the OP is a troll and this isn’t a true reflection of the general level of intelligence these days!

Edited by Megaflow on Monday 12th February 19:28

Try reading my original post, I didn't say they are more expensive to run than petrol cars. I am saying they are more expensive to run than the "sales force" tell you, because they never tell you about the HV repairs.

[M4cruiser]

Megaflow said:

Oh, and a battery repair shouldn’t cost anything like £3000 at 10 years old.

A battery is made up of a series of modules, these modules are very easy to swap, and a typical module will cost about £1000 for most of the mainstream models.

https://www.secondlife-evbatteries.com/collections...

Yes, as I understand it, the Leaf (for example) has 24 modules. Each module having either 4 or 8 cells, depending on which Nissan "expert" you are hearing it from.
And yes, the module itself doesn't cost £3,000, but the whole job will do (including labour), if it's done my the franchise dealer. Which brings me back to point 2 in the OP, there aren't enough HV repair shops to bring the price down to a sensible level.

[M4cruiser]

Megaflow said:

How the hell can the sales force predict what repairs are going to be required? Do you ask how much it cost to replace the engine when you buy an ICE?

Yes. Or something similar.

[M4cruiser]

TheDeuce said:

How, even without bothering to read up, have you concluded that manufacturers wouldn't have thought about such an obvious problem? That would be ridiculous - you can't really have thought it possible that car makers would put cars out on the road that could brake without signalling can you..?

But the car makers do make cars that brake for no reason. Even with brake lights on, it's stupid. (i.e. ACC getting confused - anyone with a 2022 Golf will know what I mean.)

[M4cruiser]

Zero Fuchs said:

It's bizarre. I'm going out on a limb here but suspect people that question this kind of silly stuff aren't engineers or work anywhere remotely related to engineering.

It's like engineers just don't think about this kind of thing, but have the presence of mind to ensure cars have pre tensioners, airbags, a myriad of other passive and active protections, crumple zones and everything else.

But brake lights, nah.

Not sure if I quite get how satirical you're being, but my point earlier is that despite engineers' clever brains, stupid things do find their way into production, like the way a Golf 8 decelerates after the hazard ahead has gone. Wouldn't be surprised at all if the brake lights are doing stupid things at the same time.

[M4cruiser]

TheDeuce said:

julians said:

G-wiz said:

So what you're saying is that this car come out of the factory in 2020 with theoretical 194 mile range (71 kwh battery), but if you charge this to 100% now, 4 years and 57k miles later, the theoretical range of the car is now 77 miles?

I think your maths is off a little, it's hard to tell the exact percentage in that screenshot, but let's assume it's 40% that makes the range at 100% to be 125 miles, which is about right for a etron 50 on a cold day - which I assume this is.

Yea the e-tron 50's have very low range, hence their value has plummeted - there's a thread full of people that don't need much range happily taking them as used car bargains though.

I've no idea what that has to do with this thread though

Actually it has quite a lot to do with this thread.
The thread was started as a result of a friend's Leaf showing "full health" 12 bars yet having a faulty battery giving a range of only 40 miles. One cell was dud, causing a £2,900 repair bill. That Audi could be in the same situation, but I don't know how to read the dashboard of an E-Audi. And that's part of the problem, many people (including me) have decades of experience listening to a petrol engine (and looking at the warning lights, particularly the oil light) before deciding to buy, but have no idea how to "listen to" a battery.

[M4cruiser]

TheDeuce said:

ou're right. A big part of the problem is people not being willing to learn about and appreciate something that is new.

I don't know how to fix that problem - those afflicted with it seem perfectly happy, in a simple way.

Yes, willing to learn, and most people are. But you can't learn decades of experience in a short time.
With BEVs I'm about where I was when I bought my third ICE car (about 30 years ago), which turned out to be a dud, but afterwards I realised the signs were there, and I learnt from it.

[M4cruiser]

Megaflow said:

a second hand module only cost £90 (see link below) and shouldn’t take much more than a few hundred quid in labour to swap.

You can buy an entire battery for £1500!

Show me where you can buy an entire battery for £1,500. Is that new or used?
Yes the module was replaced, my understanding is that only one cell in the module was dud but you're right the whole module had to be replaced.

Show me a garage that will do the work! He looked around for a HEVRA registered garage and they said what it means is they can do things like brake pipes on an EV, but won't touch the HV systems.

[M4cruiser]

Megaflow said:

30 seconds of research shows the OP's friend was completely taken for a ride. Many people have been ripped of by garages when fixing ICE cars, they don't complain it is the fault of the internal combustion engine when it happens.

I don't call it being taken for a ride if a brand new warranted module was fitted by the franchised garage, and all other modules were tested and replaced if necessary. That's a better repair then using Joe Bloggs' garage to fit a used module off Ebay, or a knackered 12-year old battery that's actually older than the car he has.

[M4cruiser]

ATG said:

TheDeuce said:

Wing mirrors are now roughly as expensive as new headlights too. Yet suggest there might be some wisdom in using slim cameras to see down the side of the car, rather than an 8" protuberance, and the clowns will be up in arms "Camera's! Yea, that'll be cheap to replace when it goes wrong won't it!" The answer being yes, vastly cheaper - and in fact vastly less likely to get damaged in the first place.

But a mirror was invented first so obviously it's just better.

A mirror is vastly better because of its optical behaviour. If the camera could produce a high resolution realtime hologram, then it would be equally good. If you can produce one of those for the price of a piece of silvered glass, hurray. At the moment though, you can't even make one of those in a lab.

A camera just can't give me a different perspective when I move my head. Unless you make the camera swivel because it sees my head move. Not going to happen.

[M4cruiser]

TheDeuce said:

American regulators are famously conservative and slow to consider new solutions and have so far said no - thus killing the idea for any manufacturers that consider north America a significant marketplace for their cars.

If the Americans do change their stance, I think cameras will be quick to replace mirrors - and people will simply get used to them.

Strange approach to cars by the Americans, when with airplanes they're quite happy to accept major safety related changes like what was in the 737Max.

[M4cruiser]

With the raised awareness of battery fire risk, perhaps it's time the manufacturers came up with a solution, i.e. the self-extinguishing battery.
The concept isn't new, it happens with building materials already. For example, generating CO2 when it catches fire.
I recognise it's not an easy solution to build in, given the amount of heat generated, but a better balance of risk vs cost is needed before something even more disastrous happens.
https://www.bravarooftile.com/homeowners/fire-safe...