Harry's Garage - YouTube

[EddieSteadyGo]

Forester1965 said:

If it was too cheap people wouldn't see it as a premium product and wouldn't buy it.

Is this 'Stella' marketing... reassuringly expensive

In reality, we have seen this type of differential pricing before from Tesla. It doesn't last. The Model 3 switch over to the 'highland' version has been much slower than expected. That has limited RHD supply. They have responded by keeping UK finance rates expensive on the Model 3 (to match supply to demand). And now with this new performance model they have reverted to the same +£10k difference they used previously a few years ago.

However, US finance rates have just been reduced on the Model 3. Production rate on the Model 3 looks now to getting back to normal. Availability is soon not going to be an issue. And when that happens with Tesla, we know what happens next....

Therefore, I'd suggest within a few months we will see UK pricing brought back pretty much into line with everywhere else in Europe.

[Electronicpants]

M4SER said:

Having driven plenty of the latest gen PHEV and EV, I'm also yet to accept you can make a satisfying driver's EV, which is why I find the new Aston Martin Vantage a more interesting car than the latest Porsche Taycan Turbo S. It's interesting to see the almost complete lack of buyer's interest in the recent crop of electric hypercars, for example, which I think are a dead-end in marketing terms

Be interested in a IONIC 5 N review to see if they have cracked it.

[WestyCarl]

SWoll said:

WestyCarl said:

For ICE vehicles I would agree, ultimate efficency is the last thing premium customers consider.

However for EV, "ultimate efficency" means potentially less time at some bland service station outside Reading waiting for the vehicle to charge.

Off course the lack of "efficency" (or range as it used to be refered to) can be offset by a bigger battery, but this just means longer charrging times when you need to.

Range and efficiency are two separate things. One will affect the running costs of the vehicle to every owner, the other will only affect those owners who use the car to drive further than the maximum on a trip and need to stop and charge before continuing.

The time taken charging is also affected by other factors. Maximum charge rate, charge curve etc. As an example our etron 55 had a similar range and efficiency to the Jaguar iPace, but as it could charge considerably quicker and more consistently a lot less time at a charger is needed to add the same additional range to the car.

Range and efficency are seperatre but are linked.

The lotus Eltre has very poor efficency and thus crap ~200m range depsite a huge battery.

The Tesla M3 (different class of car I know) has ~300m range with a better approx 50% the size of the Lotus.

Yes battery charging is affected by many things, not just specifications but also the charger, temp, etc. But as a rough generalistion if you vehicle is more efficient with a smaller battery it'll likely take less time to charge.

I really don't know who is going to Purchase the Lotus except a di hard lotus fan.

[suffolk009]

As Harry points out a few posts above, EVs must get smaller and more effecient. That will require legislation.

A few years ago I wanted to buy/lease a Renault Twizy. It would make perfect sense for the school run and local getting about. I went for a test drive, I thought it was okay, my daughter loved it. I looked at prices. They were insane - apart from the battery rental the lease (£49pcm) prices were absurd. The saleman said that the companies were unsure what the residuals would be, and the Govt didn't give it the then available EV car discounts. Given the outright purchase price, any normal equivalent car would have been leased at c.£130pcm. The Twizy was double that per month. It should have been an easy financial win, a no-brainer - lease a little electric local runaround for the price of two tankfuls of petrol.

I walked away. What a shame.

BTW, miles per kwh on a Twizy are apparently 8.36. The Tesla is considered pretty good, if not the best at 4.5.

[soxboy]

It’s been several years now that Tesla has been in the marketplace with cars that have (relatively) light weight, outstanding straight line performance and very good efficiency, coupled to an unrivalled charging network.

And yet here we are many years later with the legacy manufacturers still miles behind.

Just think if, as a starting point, Stellantis VAG and JLR clubbed together and developed a European network of chargers like Tesla? That could move take-up massively forward.

[732NM]

Dr Interceptor said:

Sway said:

How does Portugal have different import tariffs to the rest of the Customs Union?

Because the Portuguese tax you twice... there isn't just IVA (VAT) at 23%, you have the Imposto sobre Vehiculos (ISV) tax, and then on top of all that you pay the road tax Imposto Único de Circulação (IUC).

So no extra import taxes then. It's the same rate throughout the EU at the point of import.

[Sway]

732NM said:

Dr Interceptor said:

Sway said:

How does Portugal have different import tariffs to the rest of the Customs Union?

Because the Portuguese tax you twice... there isn't just IVA (VAT) at 23%, you have the Imposto sobre Vehiculos (ISV) tax, and then on top of all that you pay the road tax Imposto Único de Circulação (IUC).

So no extra import taxes then. It's the same rate throughout the EU at the point of import.

Yeah, similar in Ireland/Netherlands/few other places in Europe.

[928 GTS]

732NM said:

So no extra import taxes then. It's the same rate throughout the EU at the point of import.

I would be surprised if import into country is actual step when tax is applied. Based on EU rules correct point would be when car is taken into constant use at public roads. That's when Imposto sobre Vehiculos (ISV) tax should kick in. If it is in fact at point when car is brought into Portugal that is wrong time to do it. But on most cases this makes no difference as cars are brought in to be used on the roads.

If one just wants nice garden ornament and brings in Ferrari for such use only local VAT is ok and only if it wasn't already paid to some other EU country or car is newish one. There is under 6 months and under 6k km's driven rule for when VAT needs to be paid on also used imports. If it kicks in VAT paid to source country should be paid back on export to prevent double VAT payments.

Importing cars from one EU country to another is pretty much one way street until they are at least 15+ years old. Cars are sold new on certain countries which only collect VAT and don't have any meaningful registration taxes. VAT is also many times on low side among EU countries. Once car is over 6 months and 6k km's old then its moved more easily to high VAT and possibly high registration tax countries. Depending on local ISV style that tax obviously needs to be paid but for EV's it can be 0.00 euros when tax is based on CO2 emissions. Therefore many fairly new EV's moves around from country to country. For them EU is truly single market when ICE cars have limitations which make moving them around more difficult and expensive.

[SWoll]

WestyCarl said:

Range and efficency are seperatre but are linked.

The lotus Eltre has very poor efficency and thus crap ~200m range depsite a huge battery.

The Tesla M3 (different class of car I know) has ~300m range with a better approx 50% the size of the Lotus.

Yes battery charging is affected by many things, not just specifications but also the charger, temp, etc. But as a rough generalistion if you vehicle is more efficient with a smaller battery it'll likely take less time to charge.

I really don't know who is going to Purchase the Lotus except a di hard lotus fan.

Again though, a 200 mile range is only crap if you intend to do trips of more than that on a regular basis. From a running cost perspective the difference between a car doing 2 miles/kWh (bad) and 4 miles/kWh (good) on an EV home charging tariff works out at £250 or less over 10k miles, so bugger all in the grand scheme of things.

You'll usually find that the EV's with the smaller batteries and higher efficiency numbers take longer to charge as have lower maximum charging speeds and worse charge curves BTW.

[dobly]

ChocolateFrog said:

Most manufacturers won't make what they can't sell.

Look at Honda, they've made some cracking cars like the first Insight and the Honda E but the one they're going to make money on will be that stupidly named one that costs £200pm. ENy.1 or something like that.

I don’t like Honda’s chances of selling many of those - it just isn’t a Jazz or a Civic Type R or a CR-V - it’s a nothing from what I have seen and read, and no better than any of it’s distinctly underwhelming direct competitors. Could be another nail in the coffin for Honda in the UK if there are no follow-up EVs soon. Will probably sell well in parts of Asia and in a few other locations around the globe.

[timrud]

Be really interested to see a video from you Harry on the new Euro 7 regulations

[W124]

M4SER said:

SWoll said:

And as above, if your priority is range you buy the LR. If your priority is cost you buy the RWD. You have choice.

The changes they've made to the performance in order to make it a better drivers car and distinct from the other models have affected efficiency, which seem a fair trade off to me. Assuming it'll still do 3-3.5 miles/kWh in the real world then 250 miles should be achievable, which IME is perfectly acceptable.

Harry's obsession with efficiency has never made any sense to me. Assuming you can charge at home then even the most inefficient EV is a cheap as chips to charge, and very few drivers are doing 200+ mile trips regularly enough for absolute range to be anything more than an occasional nuisance that can easily be planned for.

Wow, Tesla Model 3 review has stoked up plenty of interesting debate, both on the channel and on here!

Regarding my focus on efficiency when reviewing the occasional EV, I do it because the sole reason behind the push to EV was to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions but the marketing focus on today's EVs seems to be all about performance, hence why we've ended up with 900bhp family SUVs like the Lotus Eletre. I don't see such vehicles as a great way to reverse climate change, it's time legislators stepped in with targets for EV efficiency, instead of pretending if it's powered solely by electric, that's all that's needed.

Having driven plenty of the latest gen PHEV and EV, I'm also yet to accept you can make a satisfying driver's EV, which is why I find the new Aston Martin Vantage a more interesting car than the latest Porsche Taycan Turbo S. It's interesting to see the almost complete lack of buyer's interest in the recent crop of electric hypercars, for example, which I think are a dead-end in marketing terms.

What I look for in an EV is clever engineering, as that translates into efficiency over general use. It's dead easy to make an EV fast (simply add more powerful motors) or have a decent range (fit a bigger battery) but efficiency in the form of miles per kWh travelled is much harder to do. One of the main reasons we ended up driving SUVs in the UK was because diesel made them affordable to run. I now want to see manufactures do the same for electric SUVs with clever engineering and I think styling might have to radically change as a Defender or G-Wagon body style is not a good starting point.

All of which brings us back to the Model 3, which I wanted to review because it is surprisingly efficient. Add in the Tesla Supercharger network and it's very easy to see why they are so popular in the marketplace. Legacy manufacturers are using their styling heritage to sell EVs but I think we still need a major efficiency breakthrough before sales really start to take off.

I think decent EV drivers cars are imminent. But it’ll come from cheap cars up - rather than high end cars down.

Apologies for the long quote, I’m hungover on a train and can’t work it out.

[DonkeyApple]

WestyCarl said:

For ICE vehicles I would agree, ultimate efficency is the last thing premium customers consider.

However for EV, "ultimate efficency" means potentially less time at some bland service station outside Reading waiting for the vehicle to charge.

Off course the lack of "efficency" (or range as it used to be refered to) can be offset by a bigger battery, but this just means longer charrging times when you need to.

Yup but the folks who pay big money so they have to hang out at the services must want that in their life. For everyone else we just use a different car to eliminate such horrors. As a general rule, these cars will do 100 miles at speed so as long as the destination has a charger and a good menu then it's not an issue anyway.

[Dr Interceptor]

I've ordered one of the new Electric MINIs, one of the J01 Cooper SE's that have just come out (yes, the ones built in China).

I do around 150-200 miles a week, mostly short trips around town. I'm currently running around in my 1998 Mercedes SL500, and despite its large fuel tank, it's only getting around 15mpg around town, so only 200 miles per tank - so I'm putting £110 of V-Power in it every week ( don't trust E10 fuel in it), plus I don't think all the short trips are good for the car.

The new MINIs have a WLTP range of around 250 miles, so I'm guessing it should get close to 200ish, which means I can get away with just one or two charges a week - which I can do at work.

For running around town, they seem ideal.

[smithyithy]

WestyCarl said:

The Tesla M3 .

[otolith]

Yes, very confusing and difficult to know when someone says "Tesla M3" whether they are talking about a Tesla Model 3 or a BMW M3. Almost impossible to be sure.

[smithyithy]

More the fact that there's a Tesla Model 3, and there's a BMW M3. Two brands, two models. There is no Tesla M3 and it saves milliseconds at best typing it instead of Model 3

ETA: It definitely feels like an American thing that's spread out, though. On the main cars Subreddits, the Americans absolutely love their abbreviations, eg. a Focus RS is a FoRS, a Fiesta ST is a FiST etc..

I'm letting this bother me more than it should

Edited by smithyithy on Thursday 25th April 11:55

[greenarrow]

Dr Interceptor said:

I've ordered one of the new Electric MINIs, one of the J01 Cooper SE's that have just come out (yes, the ones built in China).

I do around 150-200 miles a week, mostly short trips around town. I'm currently running around in my 1998 Mercedes SL500, and despite its large fuel tank, it's only getting around 15mpg around town, so only 200 miles per tank - so I'm putting £110 of V-Power in it every week ( don't trust E10 fuel in it), plus I don't think all the short trips are good for the car.

The new MINIs have a WLTP range of around 250 miles, so I'm guessing it should get close to 200ish, which means I can get away with just one or two charges a week - which I can do at work.

For running around town, they seem ideal.

Totally agree with you and the electric Mini appeals to me. Much better to have an EV for short urban journeys where the engine never gets the chance to properly warm up. I'm sure EVs are brilliant for zipping into gaps too, something lag ridden turbo diesels for example, struggle with in town driving.

[DonkeyApple]

Dr Interceptor said:

I've ordered one of the new Electric MINIs, one of the J01 Cooper SE's that have just come out (yes, the ones built in China).

I do around 150-200 miles a week, mostly short trips around town. I'm currently running around in my 1998 Mercedes SL500, and despite its large fuel tank, it's only getting around 15mpg around town, so only 200 miles per tank - so I'm putting £110 of V-Power in it every week ( don't trust E10 fuel in it), plus I don't think all the short trips are good for the car.

The new MINIs have a WLTP range of around 250 miles, so I'm guessing it should get close to 200ish, which means I can get away with just one or two charges a week - which I can do at work.

For running around town, they seem ideal.

I think that if you have a driveway, another car, lots of your daily driving is sub 50 miles and in the market for new or nearly new then the EV has already passed the point of being the better solution. And given the vast number of such households then the ZEV mandate for the next 5/6 years just isn't any kind of hurdle for a competitive manufacturer. Even the sub 200 mile intra day round trip isn't an issue and the cost savings presented are manifest.

For the U.K. the jog in to 2035 really is pretty flat ground and will see the third party plug points being added that the post 2035 switchers are more likely to be reliant on.

The key is to not go sprinting early nor think that you don't even you have to partake of under 60.

We even have the option in the U.K. to slip on 2035 if the economic mobility of some transpires to be hindered too much with temporary exemptions on say the cheapest and most efficient ICE. We don't, after all need everyone to switch as the target is for a net result not gross.

And we have electricity ubiquity, a small land mass and targets for renewable energy are ticking along well with our absolutely prime coastline, it's geology and our geography being off the west coast of the Asian peninsula and a massive ocean to the west.

A final big bonus is that we have already deindustrialised and paid that heavy cost at a time when the developing nations were expanding massively economically and whether any car manufacturers fail is just not our problem and we will just import from another supplier.

Compared to our direct economic peers and competitors we're laughing and the switch will be a huge economic advantage over them. But because were great neighbours we will help them out with their troubles and take a clip on every euro and yen as we help with lending, accounting and consulting.

[ntiz]

soxboy said:

It’s been several years now that Tesla has been in the marketplace with cars that have (relatively) light weight, outstanding straight line performance and very good efficiency, coupled to an unrivalled charging network.

And yet here we are many years later with the legacy manufacturers still miles behind.

Just think if, as a starting point, Stellantis VAG and JLR clubbed together and developed a European network of chargers like Tesla? That could move take-up massively forward.

They have, pretty much all the big players except JLR are involved in IONITY network which is as big if not bigger in Europe than Tesla. All 350kw chargers so faster than Tesla as well.

For me the major difference between Tesla and the rest which is quite under rated is their mapping software is miles ahead. I have had Tesla for 10 years, have 3 at the moment, my dad just got Taycan. I can get in my wife’s Model Y put anywhere you want in the sat nav and it will work it out exactly which charges, how long to charge with spooky accuracy. The Taycan on the other hand tries but regularly fails to map decent routes using the network effectively. Like it has tried to take my Dad to 50kw chargers on long trips before.

Also the Tesla network is very reliable between my father and I we must have done thousands of charges across Europe and UK. We have only come across one stall not working and that was fixed while we were there. It’s been 4 months with the Taycan already had issues with chargers not working.

I probably sound like i really like EVs I don’t means to an end that I am trying to get away from. I daily drive a GT4 while the rest of my family has EVs.