Electric cars

Frontstep

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I should buy myself a new Tesla but I am so stuck in my old fashioned ways amusing my neighbours with my "classic MB".

Mind you yesterday my neighbour told me her friend liked our gardener and his old car,

so I better keep the old gem for my tools :)
 

brandwooddixon

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I don't deny that electric vehicles will ultimately replace the internal combustion engine, but I think that the fuel cell is the way to go.

Far cheaper to install a proper hydrogen storage and transport network than to upgrade the national grid and local supply lines to cope with everyone running a fast charge point when they get in from work.
 

JBell

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Any electric car worth buying has to be desirable and of high performance for me to take a second glance. These kind of electric cars (Porsche Panamera for example) are very heavily priced compared to the petrol turbo variants so a false economy in my opinion unless you keep it for life.

You mean Porsche Taycan
 

badger_wazzala

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Nice. Instead of rational discussion you make references to my sexuality.
Nice person.


So rather than be dragged kicking and screaming into the future I'm happy to embrace it and look for ways to mitigate the shortcomings.

Haha, just seen this comeback. Not being arsey, I just have a dry sense of humor and it's hard to read that over written words. Also I very much like sexuality ;-)
I'm not ready for electric myself, I like the rumble of an engine and exhaust, and the rocking of the car on its springs when revved as well as the volume when being driven hard. It costs big pennies, but things worth doing do and I have no intentions of leaving money in the bank should I die again.
My own car was listed at £78k and I paid nowhere near that figure as I had delivery mileage on from dealership and covid has destroyed car sales. I saw an opportunity so parted with a big hairy shouting V8 and came out with a much better car that I normally couldn't justify the cost of. That's also a V8 :)
 
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Severnless

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Collection time!
Finally had a go myself, very impressed with the nippyness of the car, the only thing that takes a bit of getting used to is the technology, especially with the auto pilot On the motorway.
Then there’s the re-gen on the throttle, at first it’s very disconcerting, but after 1/2 hour or so driving in town, it really becomes second nature
All told very glad she went for this car and electric.
 

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Severnless

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Thanks LK, Its a very nice place to to be, we are very chuffed with it! The Silence is deafening!:cool:
 
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Well as I’ve got nowt to do today, thought I would update this thread as promised

So after almost four months and 3453 miles...... better let you know our thoughts!
I asked Mrs ‘S’ if she missed the ‘Touran’ we traded in (as she used the large boot area a lot!)
She suddenly realised she hadn’t given it a thought at all!

We mainly charge at home unless out and about and since changing our leccy to octopus’s Agile tariff the charge rate has significantly dropped.

To give an example last night we plugged in to our Ohme’ charge box, gave it a limit of 4p/kWh and we woke up to a bill of 48p for 14.3 kWh extra on the GOM.
The total bill from 9th August to 1st September was £15, that’s with charging it once a week, using about 28 miles a day for 5days a week. Also includes the house usage.

The car itself does everything we need, goes like stink (when I drive!) is reasonably comfortable, although not as comfy as my S211!
The ride takes a bit of getting used too, I’ve heard a description online comparing it to a camel !
But as I’ve never ridden one I can’t comment.

As for cons for a leccy car, there are a couple that come to mind and since owning one for a few months I feel I’m a bit more confident with commenting on living with one, more than most that don’t!:rolleyes:

Although the car and engineering are so simple ie hardly any moving parts when compared to an ice car, the software is where the spanner’s need to be, we are 3 software updates short atm, one of them is a recall for the high voltage fuse software! As there’s been reports of it blowing for no reason.
We need to get it updated but has to be done at the dealers service centre, So might wait till the first service.
As you can hopefully see there’s next to nowt to service on the car, (that’s a screen shot of MG’s service schedule)

There is an elephant in the room with the cons and that for me is the range angst, even though we have gone all the way to Tenby on one charge, from the midlands, it still nags at me.
There are charge points everywhere (when you know where to look! Especially in supermarkets (normally free!)) BUT the infrastructure is tooooo broken up, to many different companies, different apps needed and normally only 1or2 charge points, also the ‘is it working!’ Angst, you could be waiting for someone to finish charging, there’s the thing that if you need it, there’s no driving to another point as you might not have the range.
I will admit that this country needs to sort out the charging infrastructure so it’s more like Tesla or like a normal forecourt.

We haven’t been affected by the above because we live and work comfortably within the GOMs range, but I could see I could be.
I just need to change my mindset more than anything!

So would I swap my E Class for one?........
At the moment I honestly don’t know, the car and the idea are very easy to live with and make sense.
But it’s the initial cost thats a poke in the ribs, especially when comparing to ice cars.

If I had a spare £20k then yes no problem I would go for one, but as the most expensive car I’ve ever purchased was my vx220 turbo for £13k, when I sold it 6 years and 50k miles later only lost £2k!

If I could get over the depreciation on a new car then yes I would have one in a heart beat.:)
 

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badger_wazzala

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Great info regarding the pittance it actually costs to run, against the panic of range remaining and not so available suitable charge points.
I’m currently looking for a hybrid myself as a commuter option as I don’t currently have the confidence to jump in to full electric as of yet. Thanks for the update it’s helpful on many levels. I wouldn’t be without my V8, but just over £500pcm in fuel is getting silly now. The AMG will have to sit under cover for the most part I fear, the government are throwing sand on to the petrol heads from every direction.
 

d215yq

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That's a great price and with 7 years warranty too! I can't help thinking that a pure elctric will be much more reliable than all this hybrid stuff which gives you all the disadvantages and potential costs of a modern engine with the added pleasure of battery pack worries too - and of course even the premium manufacturers will offer only a 3 year warranty on the whole thing.

Say at 10 years and 130k the battery pack goes completely (and there's no eveidence to suggest it will) and you have to spend 5k on a new one - what could a new C300h or even conventional c220d cost to run in that time - yearly oil change at mercedes and other consumables the motors don't need , new turbo, and a couple of injectors, a few MAFS and a gearbox ECU, and some DPF issue...all things we see all the time on here and add them up and at under 130k miles and you could easily have spent 6k on maintianing the drivetrain already before the MG's warranty even expires!

Although a 5k one-off repair bill on a drivetrain sounds crazy, as long as it is the only drivetrain repair (which the evidence suggests it will be) and will happen once every 8-10 years it actually works out very cheap when correctly amorticised
 
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