Advice on buying an electric car

tickingclock

Can I ask for advice please? I need to change my car and have read numerous articles on electric and hybrid cars. My sister in Cork is telling me all the horror stories but I'm determined to investigate more!! From my reading electric cars are cheaper to run, am I right?
I've a budget of around 10k. I can install a home charge point at home as I have the space. My drive to work is 15 minutes on secondary roads. It's the second car in the house so I don't need a big car. I'm not mad about the appearance of the Leaf!
My understanding is the tax is €120 per year. Stupid question do electric cars have to have NCTs? I've read about the cheaper running costs and how servicing is less. Is this true? There are only a handful for sale in the county I live in and surrounding counties.
If any of you have any advice I'd appreciate it please?

Black_Knight

tickingclock wrote: »

Can I ask for advice please? I need to change my car and have read numerous articles on electric and hybrid cars. My sister in Cork is telling me all the horror stories but I'm determined to investigate more!! From my reading electric cars are cheaper to run, am I right?
I've a budget of around 10k. I can install a home charge point at home as I have the space. My drive to work is 15 minutes on secondary roads. It's the second car in the house so I don't need a big car. I'm not mad about the appearance of the Leaf!
My understanding is the tax is €120 per year. Stupid question do electric cars have to have NCTs? I've read about the cheaper running costs and how servicing is less. Is this true? There are only a handful for sale in the county I live in and surrounding counties.
If any of you have any advice I'd appreciate it please?

Of course you can ask for advice. We're happy to help.

Electric cars are cheaper to run. About 1/5 to 1/8th cheaper fuel wise. My fuel last year was €869, this year it'll be around €150 or even less.

I assume your commute is around 10-15km each way. Any ev will do that all year round.
10k won't get you much though, especially if you don't like the old leaf. Others will chime in, but I think at 10k a leaf is really your only option. I'd suggest driving one, EVs are actually quite fun to drive. Lots of torque.

Tax is 120 yes, and they do need NCT, just no emissions test.

Advice would be to drive one. Head to a Nissan dealer (even if it's out of budget) and give it a spin.

Black_Knight

Can keep an eye out here too.
https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057599743/36/#post111061959

There's even a 9500 euro leaf with the faster 6.6kwh charger just gone up for sale. The lack of EVs for sale around the country means you may end up having to either wait or travel to pick one up.

tickingclock

Thank you for the reply. From my research I figured with my budget leaf would be my only option too! How does the faster charge work? From a practical point of view if I bought the car and charged it in town for a few weeks as I applied for the grant for the home charger, how long would the battery last? I know its how long is a piece of string! If I was driving 30km per day for example?
Thanks for the link. I'm rethinking the leaf!

unkel

An EV for you as a second car is ideal as the cost of ownership of them is so low and you still have another car if you have to travel long distances. Yes, EVs have to have an NCT, same as other cars.

If you don't like the look of the Leaf, then you're stuck, unless you up your budget. But go drive one, the are very reliable and decent value for money. You might be pleasantly surprised and learn to live with the looks

And yes you do get the €600 grant for a home charger when buying a second hand EV. Even if you buy it in the UK!

There is also the Mitsubishi i-Miev but I doubt you like the looks of that :pac:

unkel

tickingclock wrote: »

Thank you for the reply. From my research I figured with my budget leaf would be my only option too! How does the faster charge work? From a practical point of view if I bought the car and charged it in town for a few weeks as I applied for the grant for the home charger, how long would the battery last?

I see you changed your mind already

If you buy a Leaf with a granny charger (not all of them come with one, but you could buy one online or borrow one) then you can just plug the car into any good socket in your home. Not ideal but fine for a few weeks

No matter where you charge or how fast you charge, but a €10k Leaf will have a range of about 100km. It will take 12 hours to charge on the granny cable, and either 8 hours or 4 hours on a home charger, depending on the Leaf model you get. And about half an hour on a CHAdeMO public fast charger (to 80%)

Have a read of the Nissan Leaf thread here and keep an eye out on the bargains thread! And switch to night rate electricity, it's free to switch and will save you money and is better for the environment

tickingclock

Thanks your right definitely not mad about the Mitsubishi!
I've just been looking on done deal. Does mileage on the electric cars make a huge difference? How often would they need to be serviced on about 10,000-15,000kms per year?

Does it take ages from applying for the grant to getting the home charge point installed?


Appreciate the help from all of you

Black_Knight

tickingclock wrote: »

Thank you for the reply. From my research I figured with my budget leaf would be my only option too! How does the faster charge work? From a practical point of view if I bought the car and charged it in town for a few weeks as I applied for the grant for the home charger, how long would the battery last? I know its how long is a piece of string! If I was driving 30km per day for example?
Thanks for the link. I'm rethinking the leaf!

Depends on the range of the car, but as Unkel says they'd likely have range of 100km. The one I linked suggests a range of 120km or more, and would charge in 4 hours at home. So.. you'd need to charge every 3 days really.
Granny cable will get you by for a while though, assuming you have a socket outside, a garage for the car, or some means of not freezing your house with a window open at night while getting power to the car.

A leaf has 2 charge ports. One is for Fast charge, it's called CHAdeMO. The other is for home charging/slow charging. All the E-cars fast chargers, and the few EasyGo chargers that are popping up have this CHAdeMO plug type. It puts in electricity at a rate of ~50kw/hr up to when your battery gets to 80%, so a 24KW battery leaf will charge up in about half an hour at one of these. They're operated using a contactless swipe card which you can apply for once you have your car. Up until then you can just ring e-Cars and they'll initiate the charge for you. Not sure how this will work once fees come in.

Gumbo

tickingclock wrote: »

Thanks your right definitely not mad about the Mitsubishi!
I've just been looking on done deal. Does mileage on the electric cars make a huge difference? How often would they need to be serviced on about 10,000-15,000kms per year?

Does it take ages from applying for the grant to getting the home charge point installed?


Appreciate the help from all of you

Service every year buts it’s a glorified nct by Nissan.
6 weeks from submitting the required paperwork when installed to gett8mgbthe money in your account. Apply online now and get the reference number and ball started. All you need is the MPRN and give them a make and model of car.

Black_Knight

tickingclock wrote: »

Thanks your right definitely not mad about the Mitsubishi!
I've just been looking on done deal. Does mileage on the electric cars make a huge difference? How often would they need to be serviced on about 10,000-15,000kms per year?

Does it take ages from applying for the grant to getting the home charge point installed?


Appreciate the help from all of you

Unkel will know better about the mileage, but I guess from what I know, the answer is... not really... but.... The more mileage you do, the more chances you would of used a fast charger. I believe the more fast charges you do, the more wear on the battery cells and thus you'll see Leafs mention "battery health" from time to time. And 10 our of 12 bars etc. The less bars, the less health, the less range you'll get.

As for the grant, applying for the grant was very quick for me. A week maybe. Getting payment after the work is complete has taken me a bit longer. 4 weeks and counting now, but they say payment is due between 4-6 weeks, so it's expected... if not excessively long. There's another thread on this forum all about home chargers. I'd suggest having a read through there closer to when you're buying a car.

unkel

There is a lot less to go wrong, so higher mileage doesn't matter as much. They do need servicing, but it's more just an inspection and changing brake fluid and pollen filter every two years. Most people pay about €100 for a yearly service from the main dealer.

Have a daily look at electricautos.ie too

Phil is a well respected dealer in EVs who can often sell a car for not much more than private sale value. He will have tested the car and he will stand over it if something goes wrong. I would recommend getting a 141 or 142 Leaf from about €9-10k. More for the higher spec models

Just looked for you and he has a 151 Leaf SV (mid level spec) for €11k which is quite reasonable

Linky

tickingclock

Thanks for all the advice. I've a test drive booked in a local garage so will let you all know what I thought

Zenith74

tickingclock wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice. I've a test drive booked in a local garage so will let you all know what I thought

Definitely come back and give your verdict, lots of people in a very similar scenario to you that would benefit from the insight.

FWIW I also hated the look of the Leaf, but decided to do a test drive as I had an interest in EVs and a €10k one seemed like a low-risk way to try it out. Was driving a high-end BMW at the time, but absolutely loved the Leaf test drive and bought one a few weeks later. Wife loved it so much we ended up changing her car a few weeks after that.

I would try and stretch to the Tekna/SVE spec of the Leaf if at all possible, it's very different internally to the S/SV specs with leather etc. and has quite a 'premium' driving experience that will have you forgetting about the outside looks of it very quickly.

A €10k Leaf is absolutely perfect for you and I have no doubt you'll love it. Even if you don't though, they're losing little to no value at the moment anyway, so you could flip it if you're not happy - zero risk.

Leaf is a good car with good spec for the Gen I 2011-2014. After that they came in XE, SV and SVE trim.

With that kind of a short commute and if you live and travel in more of a rural environment then seriously think about converting a bicycle to electric, save a fortune, just an idea.

Gen I leaf should do 80-100 Kms at slower speeds.

You can set the timer for heat in Winter too, no more defrosting and no more scraping ice especially in Ireland's extremely high humidity environment you won't have water on the inside either !

Servicing is every 30,000 kms or ever year regardless of mileage. Nissan Kilkenny were putting next service stickers at 15,000 Km intervals the snakes !

Service includes, inspection and brake fluid every 2 years, pollen filter, wipers, tyres etc as normal.

tickingclock

So I had interesting test drive. I liked the car up close. I absolutely loved how it drove. I'm sold on everything except the boot size. For my current needs it's too small for me. I completely forgot about the boot size as I focussed on everything else to do with the car.
What I found disappointing was the garage. Both sales men I met knew absolutely nothing about electric cars. I knew way more from this thread and my own research. If a customer hadn't done there research and approached the garage there's no way they'd buy the car.
For now I'm holding off on the idea purely because off the boot and my current needs for a big boot. They are a great price and the cost saving is excellent.
For anyone reading I'd recommend a test drive just like I was advised. It's the way forward and I appreciate the advice I got here. Thanks for the help.

Black_Knight

Folding the seats down doesn't help your boot situation, no?

When I was buying I considered the leaf, briefly. Boot was a concern of mine too. We've a 1 year old, so when we travel, so does everything we own!

Ioniq ended up being the right choice for me, though my budget was more like 20+.

You'd think Nissan dealers would be clued in at this stage. I had a similar experience with Hyundai. Zero knowledge, zero care. It's like if you're interested in buying electric, they assume you've done your own research. Probably true for a long while now, but with EVs being more mainstream John and Mary won't be so knowledgeable.

charlieIRL

Go talk to a VW salesman!!! Some of them haven’t a clue!!

unkel

Black_Knight wrote: »

You'd think Nissan dealers would be clued in at this stage. I had a similar experience with Hyundai. Zero knowledge, zero care.

charlieIRL wrote: »

Go talk to a VW salesman!!! Some of them haven’t a clue!!

Most salesmen know almost nothing about the EVs they have for sale. I'm sure there are some exceptions. The only exception I have personally come across was the Tesla salesman in Sandyford and that was well over 2 years ago very soon after Tesla began selling cars in Ireland.