Advice on buying an electric car (UK)

July 11, 2021 7:48 AM

I'm looking at the options for buying an electric car and I'm a bit overwhelmed. I am looking for a small-medium car, with range as the primary criterion. Personal experience and recommendations gratefully received. Extended criteria below the fold.

Main use case will be local journeys but I want to be able to take extended day trips without having to charge en route so I'm thinking range 200+ miles.
Budget is flexible but I am not very brand sensitive for cars and I don't care that much about bells and whistles. My thinking is that a newer car, ideally one designed as an EV from scratch will have everything I need.
I feel like we may get substantial further improvements in technology quite quickly so I'm leaning towards a PCP deal - I'd be very happy to get views on whether this is a good approach.

posted by crocomancer to Travel & Transportation (8 answers total)

I really love my 2020 Bolt EV. Fun to drive, relatively small from the outside but roomy inside. ~250 mile range. I would stick with a 2020 or newer given the battery issues on the older models. 2022 models have the same basic internals as 2020 and 2021 with a bit of a face lift. Good community on reddit. These days you're best off buying new if you can afford it since used prices are high and there's some significant dealer incentives for new.
posted by reptile at 9:41 AM on July 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

If long day trips are on the cards, then a plug-in hybrid might be a good option, something like the VW Golf GTE.

Pure electric cars do still suffer from poor infrastructure in the UK (charge points often broken or occupied or slow), plus range varies with number of passengers and cargo and cold weather, plus general range anxiety. Plugin hybrids would still get you around town on electricity (Golf has ~40mi electric range).
posted by Klipspringer at 10:02 AM on July 11, 2021

The bolt isn't available in the UK unfortunately.
EVs with >200mile range are still quite expensive, best options for medium sized cars are likely still the kona/e-niro, tesla model 3 or ID3/ID4. Newer Renault Zoe is just over that range too on the smaller size. EV tech is improving every year, so PCP with intention of changing car in 2/3 years may be a sensible option for you but this isn't financial advice.

I'd presumptuously state though that unless you are doing more than 200+ miles in a day several times a month then range shouldn't be your main criteria for the car. If you are going very long distances regularly then Tesla is almost certainly the way to go.

Otherwise what is your budget? How many people do you need to fit in it? Are you doing motorway miles. urban or rural mostly? Do you live in a home that you can get a Type 2 charger fitted easily?

If you are doing most of your driving in a city, then Renault Zoe/Honda E etc could well be better as smaller cars but not so great for long motorway journeys.

Having owned a small EV for about 3 years now with theoretical ~180 mile range, which is ~140-150 real world in good weather if doing motorway speeds and I've not found circumstances where the range has been an issue. I'll do journeys over 200 miles (each way) only once every 2-3 months and in doing so am able to accommodate the need to stop and charge simply enough by stopping for food/toilet which after 2-3 hours driving generally you'd be looking to stop anyway.
posted by Leud at 11:04 AM on July 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Very few BEVs will really be able to give you 200+ miles. Some more expensive ones claim to achieve that, but in the real world, due to the battery condition and ambient temperature and other factors, it's likely you will get less than that distance. And of course you probably don't want the stress of going on trips where you are worried that you'll have barely enough power left to make it to the destination. So a PHEV and HEV might be a better option if range is a high importance factor for you. My own view as someone who has a VW ID.4 on order is that if I want to go on a longer trip, I can just rent a car for that (I think some EV mfrs even offer coupons for that). I'm also planning to lease instead of purchase because I know after a certain number of years the battery performance will wane (apparently even more quickly if fast charging is used) and it will be very expensive to replace the batteries.
posted by Dansaman at 11:13 AM on July 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Tesla 3 will easily get you 200 miles range unless you are driving mountains and in below freezing temperatures, and if you are able to install charger at home then you hardly ever need to charge anywhere else.

I've driven around 50k miles on mine over the past few years, and more than half of my miles are driving between Boston suburbs and ski mountain in Vermont every weekend during the winters. Driving mountains in winter with heavy foot reduces the rated 300+ miles range on Model 3 Long Range version, but I think that the Model 3 Standard+ would likely work just fine.

Not having home charging should not be a deal killer, but it is luxury hardly ever having to fill-up the car. For Tesla check on availability of any nearby Tesla Superchargers as well other charging options. I would never ever buy a non-electric car again. Switch to electric driving is akin to moving from horse and buggy to automobiles.
posted by zeikka at 11:46 AM on July 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'd probably look at the Skoda Enyaq first. There are multiple battery sizes available - the largest will easily do over 200 miles on a charge in the real world.
The Enyaq is built on VW's ground-up EV MEB platform, which makes it mechanically similar to the VW ID.3 and ID.4, as well as the Audi Q4.
posted by kickingtheground at 11:52 AM on July 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: When we were making this decision, we opted for a hybrid electric/PHEV (specifically the Chevy Volt, which is fantastic, but probably not an option for you--we're in the US, and it's now discontinued) and installed a ~40A charging station in the yard. What this means is that 95% of our trips are battery only, but if we go over the 60 mile electric range, we're driving a reasonably efficient internal combustion engine vehicle and can just stop at gas stations. If we're on a trip and there aren't places to plug in we just forget about charging for a few days.

With that said, though, I feel like we could have just as easily sprung for a shorter range BEV and planned to rent something else once or twice a year if we needed to take a trip that wasn't going to be compatible with the BEV's range and charging needs. In hindsight, pandemic-related rental car shortages might have been a problem over the past year, but I don't think that's reason enough to dismiss this sort of thing outright. I'm not sure if this is done in the UK, but it's not unheard of for folks in the US to rent a vehicle for road trips, presumably because allows you to optimize cargo space/fuel efficiency differently than you would for your daily driver, avoid the possibility of having to deal with a breakdown far from home (and your own mechanic), put a large chunk of mileage on someone else's vehicle over a short time, drive one way and take a train/plane home or for a subsequent leg of the trip, etc.
posted by pullayup at 6:38 PM on July 11, 2021

I had exactly the same criteria, wanting the ability to do a non-stop 4-hour 190-220 mile drive without stopping. In my case, between the Westcountry and London. In the end, of the relatively affordable cars, only the Tesla model 3 Long range really guaranteed it.

Now that I am more used to using it, and the superchargers, I can see how the very short stop-off for lots more power can make it quite seamless, but in the south-west of England, there aren't very many of those around, and getting a home charger will really be great when I manage to complete it.
posted by fizban at 9:15 AM on July 12, 2021 [2 favorites]