Electric Cars:what's available?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Maybe you could start an Electric car for under ten grand thread Neil. I note that Ebay have Nissan Leafs for around £5/6k now.

Do have a sister thread Bargain Basement Electric kicked of in the embryonic couple of days when I first plumped for the Leaf. The screen price was something like £9,995 although that first ad on P1 Post 1 of the thread showed this..

viewtopic.php?t=63910



I might see if a title tweak to "Bargain Basement Electric under £10K" is possible. I'm ahead of the tab packet calcs at the moment, and literally each month put away to where I cant get at it too easily, what I would have spend on petrol had I done the miles in the Micra. Petrol's getting pricy and in excess of the assumptions by around 7-9p per litre.

Regards Neil

[c.morewood]

EVM on youtube has a twizzy for sale with doors and windows for £7k.

[mickthemaverick]

What do you knowledgeable Leaf drivers make of this?:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234154320157 ... SwsHlgx3Vr

[NewcastleFalcon]

What do you knowledgeable Leaf drivers make of this?:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234154320157 ... SwsHlgx3Vr

The Visia is the entry spec and one of the key features it doesnt have is 6.6kW on board charger, the Acenta spec and the Tenka top spec do. The 3.3 kW Charger would be a proper overnight job to charge up at home, either with the Granny Charger (3-pin plug) or a Home Charging point. The Chademo DC plug on on the road rapid chargers will do 20% to 80% in 30-45mins.

The other advantage with the Acenta and Tenka Spec is they are likely to have the "Heat pump" which saves a bit of range in the winter months. Not sure if the 2017 Visia has that.

The ad is a bit "Shouty" for my liking. Low mileage and 12 bars of battery state of health, which you would expect at that low mileage. Mine recently lost the 12th bar at 43,000 miles ish roughly equating to 85% of original usable capacity when new.

Its 24 kW battery like mine, so its a low range EV. I operate between 20% and 80% charge never run it down to 0 and just occasionally charge it to 100%. Nissan build in a safety margin so the usable capacity is round about 22kWh when new and reducing over time and number of charging cycles.

I drive mine in a manner which wouldn't suit everyone. Maximum economy/range preservation. Things that reduce range are doing normal motorway speeds, a heavy right foot, and cold weather especially with the heating on even if you have the heat pump. Its capable enough, its acceleration is more than fast enough, but you pay in reduced range.

For me the car as it stands at face value would be a decent entry to EV's, with a capacity to do a lot of round the immediate locality journeys, but you would have to accept the slow charging from the 3.3 kW charger and a bit of a nightly routine if its used every day.

Just assume on the road charging at rapid Chargers will be the same price roughly as Petrol, its still a bit less for me but not much, and petrol does appear to be going up. Cheapest £1.31 at ASDA round here.

I have never bought anything off E-Bay. I'm afraid that however good the car the "shouty" presentation puts me off!

Regards Neil

[myglaren]

Under 8,000 miles since 2017?
Looks rather suspect to me - even I do more than that.

[mickthemaverick]

Under 8,000 miles since 2017?
Looks rather suspect to me - even I do more than that.

That is low I agree Steve, but it can be realistic if you only use it locally to shop once a week. Our neighbour has a 2000 W reg BMW 318i which was her father's until he died a few years ago and it still has only 13000 miles on it!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Low mileage and 12 bars of battery state of health which you would expect. Mine recently lost the 12th bar at 43,000 miles ish.

There is an inexpensive tool called "Leaf Spy", which can verify the State of Health of the traction battery and prove the validity of the 12 bars state of health. Lithium Ion Batteries don't defy the laws of physics, a combination of time, and number of charging cycles degrade battery capacity.

It is possible to "reinstate" the 12 SOH bars according to several posts on Speak EV, and many would recommend verifying the State of Health number of bars to the measured state of health via Leaf Spy when buying a second hand Leaf. I didn't but I did know the total history of the car, it was a sale from the local main dealer who had originally supplied the car, and as it turned out I knew the previous owner.

REgards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

I'd HPI that before going any further, low mileage could be because it's been standing in a body shop for some time waiting to be repaired from accident or flood damage.
Why does the seller only keep it 8 months, back yard trader maybe?

[mickthemaverick]

I'd HPI that before going any further, low mileage could be because it's been standing in a body shop for some time waiting to be repaired from accident or flood damage.
Why does the seller only keep it 8 months, back yard trader maybe?

I'd have to agree there Gibbo but in my case it matters no more - idea rejected by SWMBO - " I love my Celerio!"

[NewcastleFalcon]

See what the Leaf goes for, its just moving out of scrap value territory on the bidding. A battery pack with a genuine 8,000 miles on it is going to be worth a few grand on its own, and Simon's experience shows the reduction drive isn't cheap secondhand.
--------------------
These sort of addons are likely to become standard, as well as V2G capability. BMW i3 is going to have a little plug you can fire up your cheese-slicer at the local market.



Regards Neil

[myglaren]

Just been reading this:-

I had a 2014 BMW i3 that came with a 4 year bumper to bumper warranty. In the 5th year, my AC went out. The BMW dealer said the compressor self destructed and spewed shrapnel throughout the AC system, requiring every line and valve and condenser, etc. to be replaced. This is an all-electric car with two heat pumps driven by the AC compressor, one for the cabin and one for the battery/motor. BMW did not include a trap in the drier as is usually done to prevent exactly this problem, even though the problem is horribly worse in such an otherwise over-designed and horribly complex system. Even the battery had to be torn down to replace the cooling lines that ran through it. I called other dealers who agreed that this was a problem with this car and that was the only proper repair. At this point, the book value on the car with a working AC was about $16K.

The repair quote was over $22K. BMW felt bad, and therefore offered me a goodwill gesture of $2K towards a new BMW (plus whatever the dealer would give). I traded the car in as salvage and got $8K in trade for it. Did I mention that BMW forever lost me as a customer?

Encouraging!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Compulsory wallet emptying is a risk which many car owners have to accept every time they walk through the door at the main dealers! Just so happens this is also a BMWi3 tale...

Of course scratch the surface of the internet, and the odd cautionary tale pops out. Petrol flap day on the FCF!
https://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/ ... 49#p687149

Beware if your Petrol flap on the REX doesn't open when you push the button....although from the comments may have been fixed in newer models, and non-use over extended periods never helps. One of the comments may have had a simpler solution

"You did not hold the button on the (fuel) door long enough I hold mine for 10 to 20 seconds and the tank depresses. You just pressed the button but the system needs time to depressurise."



The other slight negative by no means exclusive to BMW, is that the normal general public driver of a BMWI3 might have to step into a BMW service centre from time to time for compulsory wallet emptying to maintain the service history or correct trivial niggles.

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

What do you knowledgeable Leaf drivers make of this?:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/234154320157 ... SwsHlgx3Vr

Follow up on the Leaf Mick put the link up for

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

That would seem to have been a bargain to me, given that it wasn't the best colour!!

[NewcastleFalcon]

BMW i3's are still not in the bargain basement of used electric, so I'll shove this video here if the last couple of tales havent put potential used BMWi3 customers off.

I learned something from it which I wasn't aware of so the vid starts at that revelation. Maybe one of the reasons apart from the badge that they havent entered BB territory and cost a few arms and legs when new.

Later on in the film one of the disadvantages of the innovation was cited that repairing should damage occur to that particular feature were described as "virtually impossible". To be fair the panels as pointed out in the comments are "plastic" and the tapping on the roof panel....plastic, and if damage gets through to the structural cell of any car you are not looking at economical repairing anyway.

One of the better reviews I have come across


REgards Neil