Electric Cars:what's available?

[bobins]

Now there's a coincidence. It's interesting that they warranty the battery to 8 years as - by some no doubt totally random and unrelated quirk - about 8 years old is the average age of a vehicle on our roads. Wonder if 8 years old is just the sweet spot for what the average car buying public consider is old and replaceable and what the manufacturer can make a profit on.

[CitroJim]

Yes, that 8 years may be quite a popular and significant figure... I believe PSA extend the limited warranty on Adblue tanks until that age on their vehicles in that up to that age they will assist with the cost of replacement. I stress that's a belief as I have not (yet and hopefully never) had to find out if it is actually so...

It seems that Audi may have to never honour a battery warranty claim with all those 'gotchas' but prima-facie it'll sound good to the average punter who doesn't look at the small print...

[Sloppysod]

…So the warranty sounds good but there seems to be lots of "get out" clauses for the manufacturer, but I suppose the battery is a big old unit and VERY expensive, so any get out they will use as usual

Nah, that's Audi being Audi, I have owned a 100 (1976) and VW Passat, and remember being told you need 'special' tools to work on Audis. I think I had more 'special' tools for my GSA!

I agree if the big boys can get out off honouring a warranty they will, but in social media times like these, can they really afford to!

Oh, I just read the Audi and Citroën EV battery warranties and can't see refererence about fast charging. I did see that PHEV battery warranties are not transferable ‐ now thats interesting.

https://www.audi.co.uk/dam/nemo/uk/Owne ... 030723.pdf

https://www.citroen.co.uk/content/dam/c ... _TANDC.pdf

[Gibbo2286]

There is a general mis-understanding of warranties, they are not guarantees they simply cover manufacturing faults for the allotted time they do not guarantee that the car will last that long in all, or any, conditions.
My Zoe has a 144 months corrosion warranty, the rest of the car 8 years but as the battery is on lease (never belongs to me) they guarantee to change it if it falls below 75% state of health which is checked at each scheduled service.
The car's ten years old this year and the battery is still fine the rest is academic.

[ChrisRobin]

@ Sloppysod
Did you also read about the ICE vehicles that come with "TD" on the oddis machines meaning it has been mapped, and giving VW, Audi, CV Skoda and Seat the opt out for engine/gearbox and any suspension warranties, you can also use the "opt out" clause for good will claims on brakes.
TD can only be removed by the manufacturer which they never do, so even after an ECU update which wipes out the mapping, the TD marker always remains, we tried to get one removed from a van which we took in, less than 8 month old the guy went from a VRS Octavia to a Caravelle (which he mapped) to a golf GTi, VW refused to remove the TD marker as it may cause problems later in the vans warranty life.
Back to the Etrons and the ID.5 have monitoring software, we guess that the ID.3/4 also have it onboard also but to be fair VAG as they once were know seem to be one of the few that can have battery cells changed instead of a complete battery pack, we can tell which cell is defective.
Warranty is a funny old thing it is made to look like it's all wonderful but there are so many clauses to it when you come to claim it's a mine field and as a dealership we hate them, we make nothing out of them at all and they will bounce a claim for something as simple as a bolt which at present we change but in a few months time they will discreetly change it in the workshop manual and it will be a nut instead, we change the bolt and leave the nut - claim bounced.

[Sloppysod]

Chris,as I said that's Audi and I'm not Audi bashing but.…

I bought a 4 year old Toyota Aventis, didn't like it so sold it to my Father-in-law. He had trouble with the ignition switch, you know what having too many keys dangling does. So we claimed on the original warranty I got when I bought to car. Anyway, while changing the switch the dipped the engine oil, apparently its had used some since its last service. Not sure what was going on but, the car had only just reached 40,000 miles and they claimed a replacement short block from Toyota. Happy days.

Gibbo, yes warranties are not a guarantees but just a type of insurance cover. As most things it depends it's interpretation by the company that issues it and the relationship you build with them.

Other examples,

• My Sony Bravia TV was replaced last month, within its 5 year guarantee period, it was 4 years and 9 months old, it would not stream the iPlayer of ITVx.

• Last year my Panasonic combination microwave thought it was heating up yo 200°c when actually it was only 160°c, this too was replaced FOC at 11 months old.

• My Brother-in-law bought a 2nd hand Honda Accord and had a engine rebuilt by Honda due to excessive smoking, and this was with an issue with its incomplete service history?.

[ChrisRobin]

"My Sony Bravia TV was replaced last month, within its 5 year guarantee period, it was 4 years and 9 months old, it would not stream the iPlayer of ITVx."

You were lucky, you should of been offered a repair, before a replacement which is the standard route, 2 repairs before a replacement, especially at that age, Our Panasonic TV kept freezing on streaming apps, 8 months old, Panasonic sent an engineer he changed the motherboard processor, Still kept freezing and taking down our Wifi now, still no replacement offered but another repair, this time they changed the motherboard and processor for an 8k one, a bit better, crakin picture but started to freeze again and jam up Wifi, sent out a 3rd engineer who confirmed either a replacement or refund.
Cannon Gas cooker 12 months old top oven not working at all, sent out engineer repaired top oven and fitted new grill circuit board, 2 moth later grill stopped working and dig display missing numbers, sent out engineer (repair2) fitted another grill circuit board and a new display, 3 month later grill not working again, engineer back out grill circuit board again confirmed replacement oven.

A lot of vehicle repairs are done as Good Will Gesture and different manufactures have different processes, they had to ease up on them some what after block exemption came in and you no longer had to use the dealership as long as you used Gen Parts you warranty still stood, we had a Honda dealership for a while and they were really lenient, I mean who guaranteed from a new car purchase to an MOT pass other wise we will pay for the repairs - Honda did, and they did pay as well, Yet Renault another of our Dealerships many years back were terrible on warranty and Customer care, they would tell us NO they can't have that, no chance customer will pay for it, customer then rings up Customer care and they say Yes no problem we will pay for that, making us as dealer look really shabby which was one of the many reasons we binned them. VAG these days well you can never tell sometimes they are really helpful other times NO! and that's it, But from our side they are super strict like I said miss a bolt and they will kick that claim or worse at warranty audit claim back thousands of pounds off us for missing bolts, signatures, clock-ins not quite right, What a lot of people didn't realise with the EOS if you had the roof service done over 2 times in your ownership VW would pay anything from 50% to 85% of any roof problems it had, but I think that has fell by the road side now since diesel gate as of a lot of "other" things they did.

[ChrisRobin]

Oh Dear.
This morning Sales have been telling us of a major impact to EV owners which may affect sales, it seems as of 2025 EV will be charged Road tax in the region of £180. new EV's you pay 1st year £10, 2nd year on £180 plus the additional premium fee for vehicles over £40K is also being dropped.
Sounds to me like our Government have looked up and thought, Oh hello, we are going to lose a stack of money on EV's, Mmm road tax em, bit like the manufactures are flapping a little now over service cost losses and are starting to look at ways of reducing overheads including staff.

[Gibbo2286]

You would have had to be pretty naive to think that free VED would continue forever.

[ChrisRobin]

These people did, when this first came to light a few months before Christmas we had a two month drop in EV sales, follow up calls to prospective buyers in other words those that came in and expressed a real interest in purchasing a new EV during that 2 month period result in no sale because its an EV and no emissions and road tax is emissions based, which to be fair it actually is these days, so yes people do believe in free VED.
It was a big sales pitch for us in the beginning, no fuel cost, no road tax as completely emissions free, a lot of your sales pitch now comes from the manufacturer.
On an internet search the numbers given are not clear one site £165, another £170 and our manufacturer news letter £180.

[Sloppysod]

Interesting

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -from-2025

But an EV owners will not pay fuel tax of about £0.90p (fixed at £52.95p per litre + 20% vat), until the government work ot a way to tax electricity for transport, they can't even dye it red…or can they?

[ChrisRobin]

Isn't it just, considering our manufacturer sales pitch contained No fuel costs at the pump and no road tax as it produces NO emissions and no ULEZ costs.... that what our sales teams were told to fit into the sales chat at some point.
Interesting to see of this affects us again sales wise.

[Gibbo2286]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/new ... 688&ei=221

[ChrisRobin]

The DeLorean Alpha5

On its way towards the production line it seems pricing in at around £120,000 with a allegeid 300+ range
Wiki says:
The DeLorean Alpha5 is an upcoming battery electric sports car produced by Italdesign Giugiaro for the American DeLorean Motor Company.
It will go from 0 to 60 mph (0 to 97 km/h) in 2.99 seconds, 0 to 88 mph (0 to 142 km/h) in an estimated 4.35 seconds and have a projected top speed of 155 mph (249 km/h)

Wonder What Doc and Marty Would make of this!

Nice Eh

You wouldn't want to attach a lightning rod to it really would you.

OR
Apples EV...... MMMmm let me think DeLorean, Apple...... tough choice..... NOT!

Ew!

[Gibbo2286]