So I went for another ICE - please don't hate me.

peposhi · 22-01-2017 09:36AM

Lochlannach wrote: »

Reading this one with interest...

We're currently looking at a 24KW Leaf for my wife - this should easily handle her 35KM each way commute from Kildare to Maynooth. Outside of that she doesn't do any longer trips usually - they're generally in my car.

I would love to go to an EV but I honestly can't see it happening until range goes well up. My commute would be fine at 50KM each way but that's it. I'm a kayaker and sometimes I need to bring a kayak on my commute and that would kill it. I also can't see an EV being much good for a 58KM trip across the Wicklow Gap on a Sunday morning with a kayak strapped to the roof! Additionally about once a month we do Kildare - West Cork or Kildare - Mayo, again often with a kayak attached for the Cork run.
I don't know what sort of range I'd need to cover that realistically. If it had sufficient range on battery to do my commute I'd consider a PHEV but the compromises aren't great.

My wife was frightened to drive our 24kW Leaf on a long journey (originally she was extremely sceptical towards EVs).
Now she gets the car and does a 120km round trip across 3 counties with no bother. She'd even go to Clonmel (105km each way) with our 2yo. I do genuinely think that until you actually give it a good try, you won't know if it's for you...
We are looking to go for 30kw EV this year and 99.5% of our journeys will be covered. And we have a 1L petrol shopping basket that can cover the 0.5% emergency trips.
I guess each case depends on people's driving habits and range requirements... But I do think even the current EVs are well underestimated by a vast majority of ICE drivers..

pwurple · 22-01-2017 10:03AM

A seven seater is what we are on the lookout for as well, as an addition for our leaf. The children are growing, they have buddies / cousins who we want to bring along to places as well, so we are outgrowing the leaf.

The leaf has been fantastic so far... and our original plan was to buy it and keep it basically forever, as a first car for our kids to drive when it's about ten years old. Should be an ideal car then for them. Will be able to get them going on small trips to get some experience, but not enough to be the "party" car, if ya get me.

We have a diesel as well, and we will probably replace that with either a phev or an ev, but it's the shape/size of the car that matters most to us. Plan was to replace this year, but we are waiting to see if anything comes on the market.

BoatMad · 22-01-2017 02:08PM

NIMAN wrote: »

I commute 50-60 miles per day, straight road, diesel I think is best suited for the task. I could have went petrol probably too but the mpg would work out much better.

I could do it in an EV too if I had bought one.

EV would be ideal for this commute

BoatMad · 22-01-2017 02:11PM

pwurple wrote: »

A seven seater is what we are on the lookout for as well, as an addition for our leaf. The children are growing, they have buddies / cousins who we want to bring along to places as well, so we are outgrowing the leaf.

The leaf has been fantastic so far... and our original plan was to buy it and keep it basically forever, as a first car for our kids to drive when it's about ten years old. Should be an ideal car then for them. Will be able to get them going on small trips to get some experience, but not enough to be the "party" car, if ya get me.

We have a diesel as well, and we will probably replace that with either a phev or an ev, but it's the shape/size of the car that matters most to us. Plan was to replace this year, but we are waiting to see if anything comes on the market.

I think this is the case for many people , pre EV all sorts of " perceived fears " are advanced by people which afterwards most turn out to be false

BoatMad · 22-01-2017 02:11PM

NIMAN wrote: »

I commute 50-60 miles per day, straight road, diesel I think is best suited for the task. I could have went petrol probably too but the mpg would work out much better.

I could do it in an EV too if I had bought one.

EV would be ideal for this commute

listermint · 22-01-2017 02:59PM

Villain wrote: »

I wouldn't even have attempted Carlow to Cork in my 24kw Leaf, if you have all the time in the world and happy to use SCP when FCP are down or blocked then EVs are fine, the main supporter of EVs in Ireland is retired and that says it all imo.

Planning a journey which requires charge in middle is a bloody pain, as a second car an EV is fine and will save you some money if you keep the car for enough years but having said that we don't have much experience of EVs here beyond Warranty years and how expensive servicing etc may be.

The one example of a leaf having a serious issue where it went bang when charging at FCP and caused serious damage to motor wouldn't leave you with much confidence! It took contacting the media to get Nissan to step in with ecars not offering any help!

tbh id be the same attitude as you previously but having read up and looked at videos of the Iconiq and then the new Zoe. I think that previous thinking is now void.

Servicing? expense ? EVs hands down chomp the arm of ICE all on these fronts.

There isnt really a logical argument coming in the next 12-24 months to realistically not consider EV if you are in the market for a new car.

The old range limitations are pretty much shot in the face. With that Zoe someone could drive 4-5 days to and from work and charge on the weekend all for about what 3-4 Euro!!! you just cant expect a ICE to match that.

Then there is all the associated servicing cost of dirty diesels, parts disposables oil changes effort.

I dont see any arguments left not to seriously consider them

who_ru · 22-01-2017 10:11PM

unkel wrote: »

Indeed. So you are saying a normal time from Dublin to Cork is about 2:30 in a normal car without stopping?

I've no business in Cork (and I rarely go more than 200km in one day), but for the craic I looked this up:

Lucan - Cork (Rochestown Road, where the CCS charger is) is 251km. Surely I should be able to do that in an Ioniq at the same speeds with one stop somewhere in the middle taking 45 minutes, so 3:15?

Not anymore. A Leaf is €20k, an Ioniq is €25k. Maybe a few thousand more up front (in the case of the Ioniq) but that's paid back within the first year or two for someone doing average mileage

Love to know where I could pick up an Ioniq for €25k.

unkel · 22-01-2017 10:48PM

who_ru wrote: »

Love to know where I could pick up an Ioniq for €25k.

RRP after €4,000 scrappage (they give on any worthless banger) is €24,495

I should know. I bought one 3 days ago

who_ru · 22-01-2017 11:22PM

unkel wrote: »

RRP after €4,000 scrappage (they give on any worthless banger) is €24,495

I should know. I bought one 3 days ago

I got a quote on one a week before Xmas for approx €30k. Another dealer told me a straight cash deal of €29k would get me in a new BEV Ioniq.

My current motor is an 09 reg. I didn't ask about scrappage. Ultimately decided against anyway. Good luck with yours.

unkel · 23-01-2017 12:07AM

Most of the dealers I talked to did not ask any questions about my scrappage car. If you are serious about buying an Ioniq EV, go and buy yourself a €200 banger with NCT (just to be on the safe side, if you have balls, just buy a €50 "company car"

) and go talk to the Hyundai dealer again. You will find one that will sell you an Ioniq EV for €25k, trust me.

NIMAN · 23-01-2017 11:58AM

listermint wrote: »

I dont see any arguments left not to seriously consider them

There is still the one factor that stopped buying one, and that's resale value.

If I had changed to an EV I would likely be looking to change in 2/3 years time, but if the opinion of EVs in Ireland doesn't change in those years, I would fear for the trade-in value of my car.

Villain · 23-01-2017 12:42PM

listermint wrote: »

tbh id be the same attitude as you previously but having read up and looked at videos of the Iconiq and then the new Zoe. I think that previous thinking is now void.

Servicing? expense ? EVs hands down chomp the arm of ICE all on these fronts.

There isnt really a logical argument coming in the next 12-24 months to realistically not consider EV if you are in the market for a new car.

The old range limitations are pretty much shot in the face. With that Zoe someone could drive 4-5 days to and from work and charge on the weekend all for about what 3-4 Euro!!! you just cant expect a ICE to match that.

Then there is all the associated servicing cost of dirty diesels, parts disposables oil changes effort.

I dont see any arguments left not to seriously consider them

The servicing savings in the short term might be better but in the longer term it may be a different story, that is part of the unknown here.

Mind you Nissan like to bloody charge, €55 for Brake fluid after two years and €45 for a pollen filter and I can't even remember the price they wanted for wipers but it was bloody crazy!

unkel · 23-01-2017 12:48PM

NIMAN wrote: »

There is still the one factor that stopped buying one, and that's resale value.

If I had changed to an EV I would likely be looking to change in 2/3 years time, but if the opinion of EVs in Ireland doesn't change in those years, I would fear for the trade-in value of my car.

Yes the depreciation is an unknown. So far the values of the Leaf have kept up remarkably well, but nobody knows what's going to happen

I intend to hold onto my Ioniq for 6 years, so depreciation doesn't matter much over such a long period.

Villain · 23-01-2017 12:54PM

unkel wrote: »

Yes the depreciation is an unknown. So far the values of the Leaf have kept up remarkably well, but nobody knows what's going to happen

Abuh!! How would you have come to that conclusion??

The drop in Leaf values has been awful

KCross · 23-01-2017 12:58PM

Villain wrote: »

The servicing savings in the short term might be better but in the longer term it may be a different story, that is part of the unknown here.

Mind you Nissan like to bloody charge, €55 for Brake fluid after two years and €45 for a pollen filter and I can't even remember the price they wanted for wipers but it was bloody crazy!

There isnt anything new about dealers charging ridiculous money!

I agree the tech is unknown and there could be expensive repairs outside warranty... but I dont think thats significantly different to ICE.... look at all the new emissions stuff that was added over the years to ICE (catalytic converters, DPF, air mass meters etc). These regularly give trouble in ICE outside warranty and are quite expensive to fix.... plus dual mass flywheels etc.... One thing about EV is that it might be expensive to fix outside warranty but there are less wearing parts and should be more reliable. Time will tell.

By the time they are out of warranty there will be more EV's scrapped and some folks in the UK are already fixing EV's (chargers etc) from scrapped/crashed cars etc.

If you wait for EV to be a known quantity you'll be waiting a long time.

DrPhilG · 23-01-2017 01:42PM

unkel wrote: »

Yes the depreciation is an unknown. So far the values of the Leaf have kept up remarkably well, but nobody knows what's going to happen

I intend to hold onto my Ioniq for 6 years, so depreciation doesn't matter much over such a long period.

Not sure how you reckon they're holding well, Leaf values are pretty poop.

That said they are offset by the fuel savings so it's not so bad.

unkel · 23-01-2017 01:56PM

Cheapest Leaf on donedeal is about €7k and is 6 years old. Surely that's not so bad? Obviously if you buy a high spec Leaf with the 30kWh battery (€30k), you will lose €10k in the first year alone. If you buy a base model (€20k), you won't...

KCross wrote: »

I agree the tech is unknown and there could be expensive repairs outside warranty...

Not so sure about that. Watched a video of a Tesla model S with 300k km on it the other day and the original brake discs were only half worn

On a car that is 50% heavier than my 6 cylinder BMW 5-series was!

The Tesla was only serviced once every 80k km and never needed anything apart from brake fluid once iirc

Batteries are a bit of an unknown but most manufacturers give 8 years warranty on them (by which time the value of the car is probably only a few k) and it's starting to look like batteries can be fixed / refurbished / partially replaced for very reasonable money, even as DIY jobs

KCross · 23-01-2017 02:06PM

unkel wrote: »

Not so sure about that. Watched a video of a Tesla model S with 300k km on it the other day and the original brake discs were only half worn
On a car that is 50% heavier than my 6 cylinder BMW 5-series was!

The Tesla was only serviced once every 80k km and never needed anything apart from brake fluid once iirc

Batteries are a bit of an unknown but most manufacturers give 8 years warranty on them (by which time the value of the car is probably only a few k) and it's starting to look like batteries can be fixed / refurbished / partially replaced for very reasonable money, even as DIY jobs

The general service items like fluids and brakes etc are negligible on EV so I'm not referring to those. The expensive items are when the chargers or DC/AC converters die (anything in the powertrain basically)... they are thousands to fix outside warranty and there are a few scare stories.

However, a few scare stories shouldnt be enough for everyone to stay away from EV, as we have all owned ICE, and me anyway, have had to pay thousands to fix an ICE(on a not so old car either). And I've had ICE that cost me nothing in repairs.... its the luck of the draw.

So, the question really is not about how much it costs to fix an EV, its a case of reliability. And only time will tell on that but, as I said, with less moving parts it should be more reliable.

Villain · 23-01-2017 02:16PM

unkel wrote: »

Cheapest Leaf on donedeal is about €7k and is 6 years old. Surely that's not so bad? Obviously if you buy a high spec Leaf with the 30kWh battery (€30k), you will lose €10k in the first year alone. If you buy a base model (€20k), you won't...

Donedeal isn't a great measure, the prices here are the reason people are going to the UK and importing cars for values far far below the prices here.

The Leaf is loosing awful money in depreciation and when Hyundai release a larger battery I can't see any reason why the same won't happen with the 28kW Ioniq, unless Hyundai do more than Nissan are to support early adopters.

unkel · 23-01-2017 02:27PM

Villain wrote: »

Donedeal isn't a great measure, the prices here are the reason people are going to the UK and importing cars for values far far below the prices here.

The Leaf is loosing awful money in depreciation

I'm not convinced about that. Unless of course you buy a high spec model. The cheapest 6 year old Leafs in the UK are all over £5k and many of them are battery lease (so they were very cheap to buy originally)

Of course a lot of people have bought a Leaf on PCP, and a 3 year old Leaf would have had a lot of depreciation. With PCP you are extremely inflexible in what you can do. I guess it is a lot safer to either buy second hand, buy new with cash or a flexible bank loan or overdraft or hang on to your EV for a lot longer than 3 years.

Villain · 23-01-2017 02:35PM

unkel wrote: »

I'm not convinced about that. Unless of course you buy a high spec model. The cheapest 6 year old Leafs in the UK are all over £5k and many of them are battery lease (so they were very cheap to buy originally)

Of course a lot of people have bought a Leaf on PCP, and a 3 year old Leaf would have had a lot of depreciation. With PCP you are extremely inflexible in what you can do. I guess it is a lot safer to either buy second hand, buy new with cash or a flexible bank loan or overdraft or hang on to your EV for a lot longer than 3 years.

Well based on figures people have posted to the two FB groups on purchases they have made the depreciation is pretty awful and I think the fact that Nissan have lowered the GMFV consideably on a Leaf in the past two years shows they have leraned that too.

unkel · 23-01-2017 03:10PM

GMFV => PCP

Having a fixed 3 year lease is very inflexible and like I said, you probably get hit with high depreciation, compared with buying with cash, flexible loan or buying second hand or keeping it longer

If you buy a new €20k Leaf now, keep it for 6 years and sell it for €5k (probably worth more), you will have suffered €2.5k per year depreciation, which is very low

A similar size ICE car will have depreciated by maybe a few hundred less a year but will have cost maybe a few thousand more per year on fuel / maintenance / tax

Villain · 23-01-2017 03:18PM

unkel wrote: »

GMFV => PCP

Having a fixed 3 year lease is very inflexible and like I said, you probably get hit with high depreciation, compared with buying with cash, flexible loan or buying second hand or keeping it longer

If you buy a new €20k Leaf now, keep it for 6 years and sell it for €5k (probably worth more), you will have suffered €2.5k per year depreciation, which is very low

A similar size ICE car will have depreciated by maybe a few hundred less a year but will have cost maybe a few thousand more per year on fuel / maintenance / tax

I fully understand what PCP is and what GMFV is, I am using it as an example to show how Nissan have changed the GMFV in the space of a few years. A point which was also lost on Nissan CEO James McCarthy.

My point was the GMFV offered on a new car has dropped from around 12k in 2014 to around 8k now in 2017.

Also the GMFV offered on a new Leaf compared to an ICE of the same price is around €2,000 less.

Trust me the drepreciation on a Leaf compared to an ICE is far worse, how you think Leaf cars are holding their value well is beyond me.

There are plenty of positives to EVs but blindly ignoring the issues serves no-one well especially those thinking of buying.

Oafley Jones · 23-01-2017 03:31PM

Villain wrote: »

Trust me the drepreciation on a Leaf compared to an ICE is far worse, how you think Leaf cars are holding their value well is beyond me.

Looking at other markets, the leaf is one worst performing cars (if not the worst) on sale as regards depreciation. It's staggering how much value it looses. Great news, if you're buying second hand though.

oinkely · 23-01-2017 03:34PM

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Looking at other markets, the leaf is one worst performing cars (if not the worst) on sale as regards depreciation. It's staggering how much value it looses. Great news, if you're buying second hand though.

Indeed, second hand at about 2 to 3 years old they are a serious bargain.

KCross · 23-01-2017 03:42PM

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Looking at other markets, the leaf is one worst performing cars (if not the worst) on sale as regards depreciation. It's staggering how much value it looses. Great news, if you're buying second hand though.

Interestingly, of late, the UK forum is complaining that EV used prices have recently increased. The debate is why thats happening.

One example from today (of which there are many) here:
https://speakev.com/threads/used-prices.25737

Im not saying the depreciation isnt still high here as the UK and Ireland markets are very different but I dont think the depreciation in Ireland is significantly worse than ICE... worse yes, significantly no.

Bear in mind every new car depreciates ~50% in the first 3yrs anyway. The Leaf will depreciate another bit but not thousands more.

I think part of the problem is the unrealistic expectation of having equity at the end of a 3yr PCP. There will be alot of ICE folks unhappy when their PCP's finish their 3yrs as well... PCP is being mis-sold.

I'd agree the value is in buying an almost new car where you dont suffer that first 1-2yrs of depreciation.... there is fabulous value to be had there.

zulutango · 23-01-2017 03:42PM

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Looking at other markets, the leaf is one worst performing cars (if not the worst) on sale as regards depreciation. It's staggering how much value it looses. Great news, if you're buying second hand though.

What are the reasons for the depreciation with the Leaf, do you think? Is it because everybody knows there's a newer, better one coming? I don't think the batteries can be upgraded in the Leaf either?

listermint · 23-01-2017 03:44PM

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Looking at other markets, the leaf is one worst performing cars (if not the worst) on sale as regards depreciation. It's staggering how much value it looses. Great news, if you're buying second hand though.

If I was a betting man I'd say this has some part to do with their marmite styling.

If word gets out that you can travel for 250km for the guts of 3 euro in an iconiq well then I think the resale will be fine. Various commuter diesels will be ditched coupled with the regulation that is on the horizon for the same cars. Writings on the wall at this point

Oafley Jones · 23-01-2017 03:45PM

KCross wrote: »

Interestingly, of late, the UK forum is complaining that EV used prices have recently increased. The debate is why thats happening.

One example from today (of which there are many) here:
https://speakev.com/threads/used-prices.25737

Im not saying the depreciation isnt still high here as the UK and Ireland markets are very different but I dont think the depreciation in Ireland is significantly worse than ICE... worse yes, significantly no.

Bear in mind every new car depreciates ~50% in the first 3yrs anyway. The Leaf will depreciate another bit but not thousands more.

I think part of the problem is the unrealistic expectation of having equity at the end of a 3yr PCP. There will be alot of ICE folks unhappy when their PCP's finish their 3yrs as well... PCP is being mis-sold.

I'd agree the value is in buying an almost new car where you dont suffer that first 1-2yrs of depreciation.... there is fabulous value to be had there.

Edit: To clarify this because it doesn't read correctly. Anything over 30% loss of value after three years is getting bad. 50% is starting to get horrible. You've brands that will skew this overall e.g. French and particularly large, but in high performing brands you should be doing better. What figures are you using as regards depreciation in Ireland.

Oafley Jones · 23-01-2017 03:50PM

zulutango wrote: »

What are the reasons for the depreciation with the Leaf, do you think? Is it because everybody knows there's a newer, better one coming? I don't think the batteries can be upgraded in the Leaf either?

Multiple reasons I'd guess. Tiny potential market, fear of unknown(s), dodgy styling?

So I went for another ICE - please don't hate me.

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