New Toyota Corolla assessment

[Rat Catcher]

I have one in the shed alright, thanks. I think the battery is about a deuce. I bought one for the MKII Octy (not AGM) during COVID '19 anall. The best price I could find back then was around the corner from you in EBC.... in fact, he wasn't far off the best price up in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland... and they seem like a good crowd to deal with.

[Rat Catcher]

I'm not a hybrid fan, erm. In for a penny, in for a pound... Either fully fledged EV or stick with diesel would be my view. The fuel savings on hybrids aren't enough to justify all that extra technology under the bonnet IMO.

[John m]

My reality A lot of miles on my dash got two or three more years out of what Im driving (fingers crossed )Doubt to many will want to lend to somebody a year or two from pension age .I will more than likely be looking at Part Worn .Covid will mean there might not be a lot of 3 or 4 year old Part Worn available .If the World ends or me Crypto investments takes off I might even call it a day when my present yoke ages out .Dont want to be borrowing to have to work to repay a loan .Cheap and cheerfull will be the ideal way to go .

[Rat Catcher]

You could save the money. I know I shouldn't use 4 letter words like that but I haven't borrowed money for a car since I bought a new one in 2004. However, the last one I bought cost €11,975 and the one before that was €10,xxx. You'll get fuck all in that price range these days. While we were blindsided worrying about the price of a sliced pan Brexit rightly fucked up the second hand car market.

My dilemma is a bit more complex than yours as my current car is licensable until 2026... What if that's the first year there's no EV grant?

[Octavia1]

Thanks Octy... I actually qualified as an accountant many years ago. I guess, like many first generation migrants, my parents sought to take full advantage of the nation's educational opportunities. In my case, I ended up driving a cab for a living but both of my siblings followed middle class careers. I guess 2 outta 3 ain't bad!

At the kilometerage I cover I think I'd plan for 6 years and hope for 9 or 10, erm. I guess a ballpark figure for fuel savings (without taking taxation on resultant increased profit into account) would be 50%. Of course none of us have crystal testicles so we don't know how electricity and diesel prices might compare going forward or, indeed, whether we (individually, as a race or as a nation) will still be around in 6 or 10 or 12 years. Do you want to risk going to your grave having never owned an EV?

Perfect ....Will yu do me tax this yer so ......?
I think I can get tax relief off me shrink an stuff ...

[Rat Catcher]

I'll give you a hand with it but you'd be filing yourself through ROS.

[Belker]

I'll give you a hand with it but you'd be filing yourself through ROS.

I have been contemplating doing that fer years as I pay me accountant a Hairy a year fer doing very little.
But last year she did come back to me explaining A B and C and adding in X Y and Z, which all meant very little to me but sounded very good, ended up owing nothing after paying next years preliminary and was told be getting 2.25 Large back, which I kinda didn't believe...... until I saw it on my bank statement !

[Rat Catcher]

The fact that you gave them 2.25 large (too much) to get it back is difficult to reconcile with a ringing endorsement.

[watty]

<snip>

My dilemma is a bit more complex than yours as my current car is licensable until 2026... What if that's the first year there's no EV grant?

The EV grant was EU money for 3 years and we're now starting year 3.  There might be a year 3.5 or 4 because you couldn't buy an EV last year and possibly this year so there might be some money left in the pot.

In any event, the current Govt is moving away from grants on private EV's (the €5k) (and maybe taxis) and spending the money on charging stations and "other infrastructure" to reduce people's range anxiety.  I guess they figure people have the money to buy the EV's but range anxiety is holding them back.  Bit like all the bicycle lanes all over the country.  Build it and they will come?

The price of EV's will drop a lot once the Chinese start bringing them over to Europe.   Over on Boards.ie, they're saying some new Tesla's are cheaper than the Honda Civic!

[Rat Catcher]

That's the dilemma. I've kinda decided I don't want to buy one this year, hoping that the grant will stay around forever like the WAV grant. I'd feel like a proper moron if I bought one in the first year with no grant... In fact, I'd probably buy a diesel or maybe even a hybrid to spite the cunts.

[watty]

One of the Unknown knowns that is unknown .How much will Eamo the Onion or Gretta the Wizard charge EV owners for end of life disposal .Will a Scrapped Ev have any real value ?Anybody still playing Flymbo on their Nintendo 64 ?Have EVs got inbuilt obsolescence .Big Dommo cant get an Eight Track Stereo tape player for his 1972 Cortina .Who remembers VCRs .Electronics move faster than The Culligan brothers up a drainpipe .Watty what is your expectation for the amount of years service from your Ev ?Do you expect to get the full 9 or is it 3 and change it ?

The battery will be hugely valuable.  Even now, manufacturers are confident the battery will outlive the physical car itself. 

They can be recycled back into other cars if needed.  Even now, the price of a replacement battery has dropped to circa stg£4k for a secondhand battery for the MG5.  That's within spitting distance of a replacement ICE engine?

They could also be repurposed as energy storage batteries for buildings and other infrastructure.  For example, you could have a pile of batteries in the basement of an office block getting powered by solar panels and they would charge the lights and the elavators for the office block.  Stuff like that.

[mercenary for hire]

I watched a video about Tesla basically saying MusK is more profitable than the other manufacturers by a huge margin.I think there will be a proper price war once the Chinese EVs land in Europe.BYD motors are being brought in by MSL very soon.

Musk could have more price cuts up his sleeve and still make a decent profit.This environment where car makers can just add 10 or 15% to the price and expect people to keep queuing up isn't gonna last long.It won't be too long before we have a sub 30k leccy vehicle suitable for taxi use IMO.

Here's the vid for anyone interested.
 https://youtu.be/G4ZcxeRq2Io

[Rat Catcher]

£4k for a good battery is certainly doable, not that you'd want to do it... but if the rest of the car is sound and it's still licensable for 2/3+ years it'd probably make sense.

[watty]

That's the dilemma. I've kinda decided I don't want to buy one this year, hoping that the grant will stay around forever like the WAV grant. I'd feel like a proper moron if I bought one in the first year with no grant... In fact, I'd probably buy a diesel or maybe even a hybrid to spite the cunts.

In year one, the grant scheme was open for months while the second year was oversubscribed within weeks.  I guess year 3 will be the same.  So even if you're only thinking about it, get the grant letter and put it in your back pocket.  Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it!

I'd also think about the mileage you do.  An EV works for me because I work the city in a pretty small defined area.  I do ~150km/day and the battery is good for over 300km.  So even with battery degradation over time, I have that safety margin.  And even if the battery lost 10% capacity to 270km+, I'd still have a safety margin.  Some of your posts have you doing mad distances in one night so I'd maybe work out the potential distances you might cover and see if your EV battery would cover that comfortably.  (Forget about the hypothetical once-in-a-lifetime runs to Belfast.)  What nightly distances would you do 95% of the time & would your battery cover that?

https://ev-database.org/ is the 'bible' for unbiased, accurate info on EV's...

[Rat Catcher]

Range wouldn't be an issue for me, Watty.... provided I fully charged every day or two. I fill the diesel every 5-7 days - I started doing it when it gets below 3/8ths of a tank rather than empty because I learnt that it requires 1/4 tank to activate DPF regeneration. The cars full range is c.700 kilos so I'm alrady working to a range between 438 and 525 kilos with no issues. Generally, I'd be well below 200/kilos per shift as I rarely work more than 5 hours. However, I'm thinking of doing a 7-8 hour shift once a week of a Saturday or Sunday going forward to increase efficiency but we'll see! I guess combined with one or two decent jobs that could stretch it a bit... but I wouldn't think it'd be very often and it'd probably only need a 30 min plugin to remedy. I don't record shift kilometreage but my highest takings so far this year was €490 inc. €30 bonus on a 9.5 hour shift so was probably under 500 kilos.