Automatic for city driving

[freeman3030]

Hi all,
Little bit of background... We have just moved to a small area called Peacehaven just outside of Brighton (we work in Brighton). We used to live in Eastbourne and currently drive a astra k diesel. However, now living so close we've pretty much halved our mileage but we barely go above 30mph and mostly sat in stop/start traffic. Now when I'm crawling home at a few mph I dream of an automatic and would make for a much easier commute. I like the economy I get out of the astra on a run, but they're few and far between now. But I'm a bit stumped, I originally thought a petrol auto would be the way to go, but then I thought about it a bit more and considered something like a Renault Zoe as we don't go that far. Occasionally we drive to Alton towers or somewhere like that to get away for a couple of days, but we could always get the train. Equally, charging points are popping up around so I'm sure it wouldn't be that difficult to top up the batteries. Or should we just stick with a petrol auto?
We have about 8k plus our current car which we could probably get 7k for, so 15k budget. Obviously, if we can spend less, even better!

[Haltamer]

In Brighton especially, I'd opt for a cheap electric (Green incumbent!)

Depending on practicality, you could always keep the astra around for long distances.

[S54Love]

Why not get a plug-in hybrid? Best of both worlds - charge it up for shorter journeys and let it run on petrol for longer distances. Depending on how far your commute is, you might be able to do it all in EV mode

[Jag_NE]

If you are doing low miles stop start id forget about EV as they are either very expensive or crap, the saving vs petrol won’t be that high for you. 15k would get you a plethora of fairly new petrol auto options.

[SWoll]

I can thoroughly recommend an EV for those sort of duties. We've had an i3 for 2 months now and it's brilliant around town and does a decent job on a run also.

Do you have the ability to charge at home or will you be 100% reliant on public charging?

[GreatGranny]

Jag_NE said:

If you are doing low miles stop start id forget about EV as they are either very expensive or crap, the saving vs petrol won’t be that high for you. 15k would get you a plethora of fairly new petrol auto options.

Christ! Have you driven or owned an EV?

For £15k you could get a 30KWh Leaf which will do a real world 90 miles on one charge.
Works out at 2p per mile!
Huge saving over petrol auto.

They are very refined, well equipped and very reliable.

A lot of Zoe's have the battery lease.
Not sure how much it is.

[ElectricSoup]

GreatGranny said:

Jag_NE said:

If you are doing low miles stop start id forget about EV as they are either very expensive or crap, the saving vs petrol won’t be that high for you. 15k would get you a plethora of fairly new petrol auto options.

Christ! Have you driven or owned an EV?

For £15k you could get a 30KWh Leaf which will do a real world 90 miles on one charge.
Works out at 2p per mile!
Huge saving over petrol auto.

They are very refined, well equipped and very reliable.

A lot of Zoe's have the battery lease.
Not sure how much it is.

This exactly. I've got a 24kwh Leaf and even that gives me a real world 90 mile range in the summer (70 in winter). I've had it nearly 2 years and it's been brilliant, we've kept an old diesel estate car also as the family needs 2 cars, and that gets deployed for longer journeys, but it's barely ever used. The Leaf does pretty much everything. It was 2 years old when I bought it and it was £10k.

[GreatGranny]

ElectricSoup said:

This exactly. I've got a 24kwh Leaf and even that gives me a real world 90 mile range in the summer (70 in winter). I've had it nearly 2 years and it's been brilliant, we've kept an old diesel estate car also as the family needs 2 cars, and that gets deployed for longer journeys, but it's barely ever used. The Leaf does pretty much everything. It was 2 years old when I bought it and it was £10k.

I was doing 60 mile commute each way in mine on A roads and m/ways so around town I would expect 100+ for the 30Kwh.

[ElectricSoup]

GreatGranny said:

ElectricSoup said:

This exactly. I've got a 24kwh Leaf and even that gives me a real world 90 mile range in the summer (70 in winter). I've had it nearly 2 years and it's been brilliant, we've kept an old diesel estate car also as the family needs 2 cars, and that gets deployed for longer journeys, but it's barely ever used. The Leaf does pretty much everything. It was 2 years old when I bought it and it was £10k.

I was doing 60 mile commute each way in mine on A roads and m/ways so around town I would expect 100+ for the 30Kwh.

That's good going. The bonus of ownership for me is that we've got free to use chargers at work (fed from solar panels too for extra green points), so I don't have any fuel costs any more. MOT, tyres, insurance - These are my only running costs (got a service package when I bought it so that's built in already too).

[freeman3030]

Thanks for all the replies. I really think it should be an avenue we properly explore.
The main concerns I have with regards to the cars batteries:
1) How long the batteries typically last?
2)The cost in replacing said batteries.
This is obviously going to vary between each EV. But really need to crunch the numbers. I did a quick calculator and would save around £400 per year on fuel, so there's quite a saving to be had if the battery costs aren't phenomenal.That said, the DPF filter on the Astra is probably going to clog up far quicker by doing short journeys, so I guess its 6 of one and half a dozen of the other! But it is something to consider I suppose.
Also, is servicing similarly priced to a petrol/diesel? I'm assuming the motor requires some sort of oil to keep it lubricated. Likewise, the brakes are going to need the same usual attention.

[Haltamer]

freeman3030 said:

Also, is servicing similarly priced to a petrol/diesel? I'm assuming the motor requires some sort of oil to keep it lubricated. Likewise, the brakes are going to need the same usual attention.

Especially for small in town journeys, I wouldn't worry about battery replacement for a very long time. They don't fail, they just lose a little range off the top - Doesn't matter if you're only driving 6 miles a day!

To my knowledge, no electric motors require oil or anything else; to give you an idea, the VW EV service only mentions additional inspection of HV Cables / charging components.

Brakes will also last a great deal longer, as regenerative braking will do most of the work for them - EV owners that I know of go out of their way to brake to prevent rust building up on the discs!

[ElectricSoup]

freeman3030 said:

Thanks for all the replies. I really think it should be an avenue we properly explore.
The main concerns I have with regards to the cars batteries:
1) How long the batteries typically last?
2)The cost in replacing said batteries.
This is obviously going to vary between each EV. But really need to crunch the numbers. I did a quick calculator and would save around £400 per year on fuel, so there's quite a saving to be had if the battery costs aren't phenomenal.That said, the DPF filter on the Astra is probably going to clog up far quicker by doing short journeys, so I guess its 6 of one and half a dozen of the other! But it is something to consider I suppose.
Also, is servicing similarly priced to a petrol/diesel? I'm assuming the motor requires some sort of oil to keep it lubricated. Likewise, the brakes are going to need the same usual attention.

It's not that much of a worry:

https://www.driving.co.uk/car-clinic/what-do-you-n...

Extract: "long-term owners have found that, as long as a battery pack is recharged and discharged regularly, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t rack up a decade’s use and 150,000 miles or more before it has to be replaced or repaired, even if it loses some capacity."

I believe a replacement pack for a 24kwh Leaf is down to about £2500 now. So that's the sort of bill you could get from any 150,000 mile car - gearbox failure, engine failure etc.

It certainly doesn't worry me in the slightest, I'm probably going to change the car before it's that age/mileage anyway.

[dmsims]

Golf GTE

[ElectricSoup]

dmsims said:

Golf GTE

Also, BMW i3 electric with petrol range extender (although OPs would probably get away with a straight BEV car) can be had for under £15k now, around 64 reg.

[Mo28]

An EV or hybrid would be the way to go. The new Corolla hybrid looks really good but is out of your budget.

Edited by Mo28 on Monday 20th May 15:02

[Pica-Pica]

Mo28 said:

An EV or hybrid would be the way to go. The new Corolla hybrid looks really good but is out of your budget.

Edited by Mo28 on Monday 20th May 15:02

I have my eye on the Corolla, and although we could afford it, I just think it is too expensive.

[dmsims]

Pica-Pica said:

I have my eye on the Corolla, and although we could afford it, I just think it is too expensive.

20K for a demo with 1200 miles .......

[anonymous-user]

A used leaf is a superb buy but if you aren't doing the miles I'm not sure you'd save much in petrol.

How long is your commute? AHH just checked 6 miles each way. A used leaf for 8ish and a small diesel for 4ish grand for long journeys might to the trick.

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 20th May 18:36

[ZX10R NIN]

Hyundai Ioniq

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

EV Version with a fair amount of warranty left

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

Lexus CT200

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

[ElectricSoup]

Pappyjohn said:

A used leaf is a superb buy but if you aren't doing the miles I'm not sure you'd save much in petrol.

How long is your commute? AHH just checked 6 miles each way. A used leaf for 8ish and a small diesel for 4ish grand for long journeys might to the trick.

Edited by Pappyjohn on Monday 20th May 18:36

This is why I suggested an i3 REX, or any plug in hybrid come to that, as a one-car option, which could squeeze in under £15k.

Here's a leftfield one people seem to have forgotten about - Vauxhall Ampera/Chevrolet Volt. Darned good cars I'm given to believe.