Going electric?

[martt]

Man maths is bringing me round to the idea of going electric.

There's so much info online that i can no longer see the wood for the trees

I can scrape together the purchase price of a basic Model 3 justified by calcs that:
1. slower than average for depreciation based on looking at used models that are coming up to 3 years old with average mileage that are commanding 88% of list. I think take-up of electric cars is obviously increasing meaning used should hold their values well.
2. ongoing fuel costs being much lower (do i pay per kW charge? how does it work), most of my journeys are less than 20 miles
3. Nil annual tax although higher insurance.

Other questions i have are:
- what's the deal with the charger? If i buy new do i also have to schedule a charge to be fitted, presumably before the car arrives?
- do i need a new electricity deal? I'm already with Octopus on a 12 month fixed deal

Finally i am a business owner but don't own 100%, what is the annual cost to the business of buying one vs leasing one on a 3 year lease so i can present my partners with a cost equivalent (ie if i take the car how much should be deducted from my dividend!?) and will it be more cost efficient to buy through the business rather than out of my savings? I'm not a higher rate tax payer at the moment


thanks

[TheDeuce]

Given you do mostly relatively short journeys, then you should be able to quite easily do all your charging at home, and overnight.

The car will come with a 'granny charger', basically a charger brick on a lead that plugs in to the car one end, and then any standard 13a socket the other end. They're slow, maxing out at about 8 miles of charge per hour... Although most people can plug in for 12 hours overnight easily, so that would be 96 miles per day... That's probably enough for you, but I would suggest getting the wall charger installed anyway, it's so much quicker for the odd occasion where you have a low battery and find you need to make a longer than expected journey quite urgently.

So, no rush to get a wall charger fitted ahead of taking delivery, but overall I would recommend one even though you could probably cope indefinitely with the granny charger.

For the tariff, contact Octopus and ask them to move you to the EV tariff (actually I think it's just an add on), and then for 4 hours overnight you can charge at a rate of just 5p per kw/h. In real terms that's a about 1-1.5p per mile for 'fuel' depending on the EV and how you drive it. The car and /or charger will be able to schedule the charge via an app, or in most cases vie the cars infotainment system too.

[48k]

Re point 1, personally I'd be cautious about using current used values as a forecast of future depreciation profile. The second hand market is nuts at the moment due to the chip shortage and covid. The bubble is going to burst at some point. At least at the Tesla end of the market you should see less of a hit than at the cheaper end. You only have to look at the prices of Leafs and Zoes and all the other "first gen" cars to see how quickly prices drop when battery capacity and range get superseded.

Re point 2 if you are home every night then charging from home is a no brainer and will be cheaper than filling a tank of petrol or diesel even at current rates. Leccy prices are soaring at the moment and there may be a government cap coming, but also all main players offer tariffs with a short (eg. 4 hour) overnight period for EV drivers. Worth looking in to and doing the sums. At the moment, for me, just coming off a discount rate its actually cheaper to go on to the standard variable rate than get an EV tariff but YMMV.

Re 3. My insurance actually went down about £100 (10 year old Nissan Xtrail to brand new Volvo XC40 Recharge Twin). Again, YMMV

[Ken Figenus]

You can get a £200 Ohme charger via Octopus and get a spark to fit a matching 32a commando socket outside so you can plug it in and crack on at 7.4kWh rather than 2.4kWh on the 13 amp socket charger. Make sure he knows EV regs though - earths and all that... Then its £400 & job done. Go fancier if you want more from the wall EVSE (for the charger is on the car not the wall - the wall is just a power supply point).

[survivalist]

48k said:

Re point 1, personally I'd be cautious about using current used values as a forecast of future depreciation profile. The second hand market is nuts at the moment due to the chip shortage and covid. The bubble is going to burst at some point. At least at the Tesla end of the market you should see less of a hit than at the cheaper end. You only have to look at the prices of Leafs and Zoes and all the other "first gen" cars to see how quickly prices drop when battery capacity and range get superseded.

Re point 2 if you are home every night then charging from home is a no brainer and will be cheaper than filling a tank of petrol or diesel even at current rates. Leccy prices are soaring at the moment and there may be a government cap coming, but also all main players offer tariffs with a short (eg. 4 hour) overnight period for EV drivers. Worth looking in to and doing the sums. At the moment, for me, just coming off a discount rate its actually cheaper to go on to the standard variable rate than get an EV tariff but YMMV.

Re 3. My insurance actually went down about £100 (10 year old Nissan Xtrail to brand new Volvo XC40 Recharge Twin). Again, YMMV

I'd agree with point 1. Not a BEV, but purchased a 4 year old fast (fish) estate back in June 2021 and recently got a call from the dealer offering me 5k more than I paid for it. Given that petrol prices have increased since then and people don't like large running costs I'd say that indicates how bonkers the current used car market is.

Would it not be better to look at a lease deal - that way someone else is taking the risk on depreciation. I was considering a Model 3 last year and it made much more sense on PCH - although I don't do massive mileage, which I imagine might skew the numbers.

[TheDeuce]

survivalist said:

Would it not be better to look at a lease deal - that way someone else is taking the risk on depreciation. I was considering a Model 3 last year and it made much more sense on PCH - although I don't do massive mileage, which I imagine might skew the numbers.

I would agree to lease right now. The lease deals are actually very good for most EV's and even if it costs you a few quid more overall... it covers off a lot of risk. EV's are still new and barely past their first generation - at any time, a new technology could extend range and reduce charge times, which could knock 20%+ off the second hand values of existing cars.

Anyway, most times I've looked, the lease deals are better overall regardless. The notion of 'owning' the car at the end of a PCP or whatever is lovely, but 95% of the time, you don't own anymore equity than you still owe, and they've probably done you for more interest revenue than the lease alternative.

[spaceship]

I also think leasing may be the better option to PCP at the moment. EV tech is constantly evolving and it only takes a spike in range to cause the used prices of older EVs to plummet. As others have said, there are some decent deals about for EVs, some even offer free insurance or wall chargers.

[Diderot]

+1 on leasing.

[LordGrover]

Tesla Model 3 is a great car, but is it overkill for your needs?
They're expensive compared to many other options that may suit your requirement.
I'd definitely like to have a model 3, but BMW i3 fitted the bill more than adequately and I'm very happy with it.

[martt]

TheDeuce said:

survivalist said:

Would it not be better to look at a lease deal - that way someone else is taking the risk on depreciation. I was considering a Model 3 last year and it made much more sense on PCH - although I don't do massive mileage, which I imagine might skew the numbers.

I would agree to lease right now. The lease deals are actually very good for most EV's and even if it costs you a few quid more overall... it covers off a lot of risk. EV's are still new and barely past their first generation - at any time, a new technology could extend range and reduce charge times, which could knock 20%+ off the second hand values of existing cars.

Anyway, most times I've looked, the lease deals are better overall regardless. The notion of 'owning' the car at the end of a PCP or whatever is lovely, but 95% of the time, you don't own anymore equity than you still owe, and they've probably done you for more interest revenue than the lease alternative.

I don't see how looking at the overall cost of leasing makes sense:

Total cost over 24 months is approx £20k inc vat (from comparison sites), i can't see a new Model 3 dropping that much in 2 years

I know prices are inflated but the cheapest 2 year old cars have only dropped £6k! Even at £10k down i'd still be quids in

Given the amount of investment in EV and charging and current 'new' tech they won't be bringing out anything new for at least 5 years in my opinion; they have to get the payback on what they have already invested

Or am i missing something obvious!?


Edited to add, a 2 year old 3 series i was looking at has depreciated by approx by 33% vs maybe 15% for the tesla

Edited by martt on Tuesday 4th January 14:54

[martt]

LordGrover said:

Tesla Model 3 is a great car, but is it overkill for your needs?
They're expensive compared to many other options that may suit your requirement.
I'd definitely like to have a model 3, but BMW i3 fitted the bill more than adequately and I'm very happy with it.

I've looked at the i3 albeit only fleetingly - not overly keen on the shape of them and the lack of boot space isn't ideal and personally i'm not too keen on the interior either

[TheDeuce]

martt said:

TheDeuce said:

survivalist said:

Would it not be better to look at a lease deal - that way someone else is taking the risk on depreciation. I was considering a Model 3 last year and it made much more sense on PCH - although I don't do massive mileage, which I imagine might skew the numbers.

I would agree to lease right now. The lease deals are actually very good for most EV's and even if it costs you a few quid more overall... it covers off a lot of risk. EV's are still new and barely past their first generation - at any time, a new technology could extend range and reduce charge times, which could knock 20%+ off the second hand values of existing cars.

Anyway, most times I've looked, the lease deals are better overall regardless. The notion of 'owning' the car at the end of a PCP or whatever is lovely, but 95% of the time, you don't own anymore equity than you still owe, and they've probably done you for more interest revenue than the lease alternative.

I don't see how looking at the overall cost of leasing makes sense:

Total cost over 24 months is approx £20k inc vat (from comparison sites), i can't see a new Model 3 dropping that much in 2 years

I know prices are inflated but the cheapest 2 year old cars have only dropped £6k! Even at £10k down i'd still be quids in

Given the amount of investment in EV and charging and current 'new' tech they won't be bringing out anything new for at least 5 years in my opinion; they have to get the payback on what they have already invested

Or am i missing something obvious!?


Edited to add, a 2 year old 3 series i was looking at has depreciated by approx by 33% vs maybe 15% for the tesla

Edited by martt on Tuesday 4th January 14:54

Shop around for a better lease! Most lease customers will go over a three year period as it's generally cheaper - and it's the period of time the cars are covered by full warranty, and for many people they'll make the tyres and brakes last that long too.

Also many lease customers tend to head off looking for a decent price for a specific car they want to find the best deal on... and in going through all the various leasing sites looking for that deal, they find a stupidly good deal on another, often more expensive car which they end up with.

My 80k+ iPace is under 500pm incl vat and with 6 months upfront total is 19k. Would an 80k jag lose 25% of it's value from new after 3 years/30k miles...? I think so!

Around the time we plumped for the Jag, the M3 LR was even cheaper but for us not as appealing. I would expect at that time it was probably more like £400pm for the M3, I do remember the potential saving being quite tempting whatever it was.

On another occasion I looked in to a cheap lease deal on a GOLF GTD, £275pm - did a bit of digging and ended up selecting an in-stock with great spec Golf R for less than £250pm.. so there is definitely luck/timing involved as to how good, and therefore how competitive leasing can be vs purchase.

[LordGrover]

martt said:

I've looked at the i3 albeit only fleetingly - not overly keen on the shape of them and the lack of boot space isn't ideal and personally i'm not too keen on the interior either

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

Didn't mean to suggest i3 for you, just that it works for me.
Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, VW ID.3, etc... - all substantially cheaper

[SWoll]

LordGrover said:

martt said:

I've looked at the i3 albeit only fleetingly - not overly keen on the shape of them and the lack of boot space isn't ideal and personally i'm not too keen on the interior either

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

Didn't mean to suggest i3 for you, just that it works for me.
Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, VW ID.3, etc... - all substantially cheaper

All substantially cheaper?

Model 3 SR - £43k
Ioniq 5 - £39k
EV6 - £41k

And that's for base spec Hyundai/Kia cars with less range/performance/kit than the Tesla. The ID3 is cheaper dependent on spec but in a completely different class of vehicle size wise.

Agree on the i3 though, cracking little car and miss it a lot more than we do the Tesla.

Edited by SWoll on Tuesday 4th January 15:59

[survivalist]

martt said:

TheDeuce said:

survivalist said:

Would it not be better to look at a lease deal - that way someone else is taking the risk on depreciation. I was considering a Model 3 last year and it made much more sense on PCH - although I don't do massive mileage, which I imagine might skew the numbers.

I would agree to lease right now. The lease deals are actually very good for most EV's and even if it costs you a few quid more overall... it covers off a lot of risk. EV's are still new and barely past their first generation - at any time, a new technology could extend range and reduce charge times, which could knock 20%+ off the second hand values of existing cars.

Anyway, most times I've looked, the lease deals are better overall regardless. The notion of 'owning' the car at the end of a PCP or whatever is lovely, but 95% of the time, you don't own anymore equity than you still owe, and they've probably done you for more interest revenue than the lease alternative.

I don't see how looking at the overall cost of leasing makes sense:

Total cost over 24 months is approx £20k inc vat (from comparison sites), i can't see a new Model 3 dropping that much in 2 years

I know prices are inflated but the cheapest 2 year old cars have only dropped £6k! Even at £10k down i'd still be quids in

Given the amount of investment in EV and charging and current 'new' tech they won't be bringing out anything new for at least 5 years in my opinion; they have to get the payback on what they have already invested

Or am i missing something obvious!?


Edited to add, a 2 year old 3 series i was looking at has depreciated by approx by 33% vs maybe 15% for the tesla

Edited by martt on Tuesday 4th January 14:54

The lease deals at the moment don’t seem to be great, much better when I had a look back in June.

Also, bear in mind that the advertised prices will factor in a dealer margin of 5/6k and the pool of price buyers looking to spend 30k plus on a car are few and far between.

[TheDeuce]

survivalist said:

martt said:

TheDeuce said:

survivalist said:

Would it not be better to look at a lease deal - that way someone else is taking the risk on depreciation. I was considering a Model 3 last year and it made much more sense on PCH - although I don't do massive mileage, which I imagine might skew the numbers.

I would agree to lease right now. The lease deals are actually very good for most EV's and even if it costs you a few quid more overall... it covers off a lot of risk. EV's are still new and barely past their first generation - at any time, a new technology could extend range and reduce charge times, which could knock 20%+ off the second hand values of existing cars.

Anyway, most times I've looked, the lease deals are better overall regardless. The notion of 'owning' the car at the end of a PCP or whatever is lovely, but 95% of the time, you don't own anymore equity than you still owe, and they've probably done you for more interest revenue than the lease alternative.

I don't see how looking at the overall cost of leasing makes sense:

Total cost over 24 months is approx £20k inc vat (from comparison sites), i can't see a new Model 3 dropping that much in 2 years

I know prices are inflated but the cheapest 2 year old cars have only dropped £6k! Even at £10k down i'd still be quids in

Given the amount of investment in EV and charging and current 'new' tech they won't be bringing out anything new for at least 5 years in my opinion; they have to get the payback on what they have already invested

Or am i missing something obvious!?


Edited to add, a 2 year old 3 series i was looking at has depreciated by approx by 33% vs maybe 15% for the tesla

Edited by martt on Tuesday 4th January 14:54

The lease deals at the moment don’t seem to be great, much better when I had a look back in June.

Also, bear in mind that the advertised prices will factor in a dealer margin of 5/6k and the pool of price buyers looking to spend 30k plus on a car are few and far between.

I'm not sure that's true of Tesla though. Do they actually have 'dealers' selling their new cars, or is it all direct employees of Tesla corp selling cars with zero negotiation, static RRP's.

I might be wrong as I've never actually bought a Tesla, but I think you pay the retail as listed on their website or you don't get the car. If so I'd say that only place their is negotiation is between Tesla and the big leasing companies, who will hammer out a deal at times when Tesla need to either balance out production and/or promote a new model by getting cheap lease units on the road ASAP.

[survivalist]

TheDeuce said:

survivalist said:

martt said:

TheDeuce said:

survivalist said:

Would it not be better to look at a lease deal - that way someone else is taking the risk on depreciation. I was considering a Model 3 last year and it made much more sense on PCH - although I don't do massive mileage, which I imagine might skew the numbers.

I would agree to lease right now. The lease deals are actually very good for most EV's and even if it costs you a few quid more overall... it covers off a lot of risk. EV's are still new and barely past their first generation - at any time, a new technology could extend range and reduce charge times, which could knock 20%+ off the second hand values of existing cars.

Anyway, most times I've looked, the lease deals are better overall regardless. The notion of 'owning' the car at the end of a PCP or whatever is lovely, but 95% of the time, you don't own anymore equity than you still owe, and they've probably done you for more interest revenue than the lease alternative.

I don't see how looking at the overall cost of leasing makes sense:

Total cost over 24 months is approx £20k inc vat (from comparison sites), i can't see a new Model 3 dropping that much in 2 years

I know prices are inflated but the cheapest 2 year old cars have only dropped £6k! Even at £10k down i'd still be quids in

Given the amount of investment in EV and charging and current 'new' tech they won't be bringing out anything new for at least 5 years in my opinion; they have to get the payback on what they have already invested

Or am i missing something obvious!?


Edited to add, a 2 year old 3 series i was looking at has depreciated by approx by 33% vs maybe 15% for the tesla

Edited by martt on Tuesday 4th January 14:54

The lease deals at the moment don’t seem to be great, much better when I had a look back in June.

Also, bear in mind that the advertised prices will factor in a dealer margin of 5/6k and the pool of price buyers looking to spend 30k plus on a car are few and far between.

I'm not sure that's true of Tesla though. Do they actually have 'dealers' selling their new cars, or is it all direct employees of Tesla corp selling cars with zero negotiation, static RRP's.

I might be wrong as I've never actually bought a Tesla, but I think you pay the retail as listed on their website or you don't get the car. If so I'd say that only place their is negotiation is between Tesla and the big leasing companies, who will hammer out a deal at times when Tesla need to either balance out production and/or promote a new model by getting cheap lease units on the road ASAP.

I was referring to the second hand ones, many of which are selling at ‘normal’ car dealerships. I was just making the point that just because 2 year old cars are advertised at their new price, doesn’t mean that they are selling fit that price. Also, if you trading in or selling privately you’re not likely to achieve those numbers.

[Bannock]

TheDeuce said:

So, no rush to get a wall charger fitted ahead of taking delivery, but overall I would recommend one even though you could probably cope indefinitely with the granny charger.

Please do not cope indefinitely with a granny charger. They are for occasional use only (hence the name, to be used for charging at granny's house when you visit). If you use them regualrly in the same socket, the socket will suffer degradation over time and this can lead to fire.

You must get a proper charger installed for regular domestic charging.

[SWoll]

Bannock said:

TheDeuce said:

So, no rush to get a wall charger fitted ahead of taking delivery, but overall I would recommend one even though you could probably cope indefinitely with the granny charger.

Please do not cope indefinitely with a granny charger. They are for occasional use only (hence the name, to be used for charging at granny's house when you visit). If you use them regualrly in the same socket, the socket will suffer degradation over time and this can lead to fire.

You must get a proper charger installed for regular domestic charging.

3 years of pretty much nightly 3 pin charging here using the same socket and zero issues despite regular checks.

And I believe the reason it's called a "granny charger" is due to it being very slow.

[TheDeuce]

Bannock said:

TheDeuce said:

So, no rush to get a wall charger fitted ahead of taking delivery, but overall I would recommend one even though you could probably cope indefinitely with the granny charger.

Please do not cope indefinitely with a granny charger. They are for occasional use only (hence the name, to be used for charging at granny's house when you visit). If you use them regualrly in the same socket, the socket will suffer degradation over time and this can lead to fire.

You must get a proper charger installed for regular domestic charging.

Granny charger refers to their speed, not the likelihood of you being at grans house when you plug it in!

I also don't buy the socket degradation one bit. They draw less than the socket is designed to deliver, and that design is based on its own factor of safety too. At work we will plug highly inductive loads such as 2kw water pumps in to sockets endlessly, the inrush they generate will place a far higher load on the socket.

Ultimately any use of a socket will over time degrade it and make it less safe. But in reality, even the most heavily used sockets should last until they're replaced for reasons of change in décor, house re-wiring or cracked fronts etc.