OT EVs (I know it is done to death but coming from another angle).....

£200 a month wouldn’t get you much without a big deposit. Most people buying new cars these days are getting them on PCP anyway so are very unlikely to own them outright - the balloon payment at the end of the term is usually thousands so people just swap and start again.

Mine is leased. I pay about £520 a month and that includes tax, insurance, servicing, tyres, etc. without an initial deposit.

My company are offering incentives to get people to swap to EV’s and by 2025 we’ll only be able to order EV’s. The government has also introduced reduced benefit in kind payments too, but I guess a lot of that will be scrapped when they become the norm.

 

As like most things on here the answer is different depending on what you want to achieve.

If its about running a secondhand car and minimising your motoring costs, then electric isn’t the answer.

If you are looking at a new car and can benefit from the tax breaks then electric is a viable option.

From my own experience I have petrol, diesel and electric (I waste far too much money on cars) and each has its pros and cons. Over time the market is going to change and the benefits of different fuel types will change as technology and tax policy changes.

 

I would love to do my bit and go electric but when looking at £450+ a month it’s not viable for me unless the government bang NMW TO £15 ph or they give a bigger incentive to ditch ICE vehicles

 

I think that battery electric and hydrogen both have a part to play in a greener future. But I dont see that hydrogen is going to be commonplace for private vehicles (cars) for several reasons.

I don't see that the infrastructure will ever be in place - there are currently fewer than 10 working hydrogen fuel stations in the UK. They are massively more expensive to deploy than petrol pumps (over a million a pump).

The cost of running a hydrogen car isn't close to competing with the cost of charging a BEV. That difference may reduce a bit when comparing with public rapid charging but not when compared to home charging. I think a tank of Hydrogen to give a range of around 500 miles in a Toyota Mirai is around £80. Very similar to the cost of fuel. 500 miles in a BEV costs under £10

I think that Hydrogen is a viable solution for larger transport (buses, trucks) where batteries don't make as much sense because of the size of them that would be needed, and where the refuelling takes place back at a fixed depot rather than needing the infrastructure everywhere. But for cars, well Toyota seem to be the only player that remains interested. No other manufacturer is even trying. And it has played badly for Toyota because they have spent so long focused on H2 that they are behind the curve in the EV game, and when they realised that, they then started spending serious money lobbying to slow the rate of adoption of BEVs until they caught up.

Hydrogen as a solution seems to me to be a solution put forward by the oil companies as a way of staying relevant and retaining the 'visit a station and spend money on our fuel' model. And people in general tend to put forward the hydrogen argument as a way of kicking the can down the road because it means they can keep their petrol car for a good while longer. The main reason people put forward the hydrogen option is because the refuel model is like the traditional petrol refuel - 10 minutes to fill the tank. But charging times are increasing fast, cars like the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq5 can now charge at 230kw and go from 10 - 80pc in 20 minutes. Once that 800v technology becomes commonplace on all new cars, and people can charge up in the time it takes to nip inside the services and have a pee, it kills the refuel speed benefit of hydrogen argument.

 

What your engineer friends have highlighted has been virtually ignored on the wider stage. Govt just talks about electric vehicles by 2030...it's utterly unrealistic...where I live, probably 20-30% of people live in terrace houses, no private land, and parking outside your own home is never guaranteed, how are you going to keep an EV charged? The answer is going to be a mixed approach with hybrids being the shorter term answer and hydrogen power being for the longer term. People don't seem to know but a firm at Catcliffe set up 3/4 years ago producing green hydrogen and offering vehicles for sale, the problem was the initial outlay was too much, but they are still going and actually have had serious investment going into the company. JCB realised that electric is no good for remote site work, they've spent £100m developing a hydrogen cell engine which looks to be successful, one of the big car manufacturers ( Toyota?) have just run a real world 1000 miles on one hydrogen cell...there is also a lot of work going on to make current ICE's convertible to hydrogen.The other advantage of a mixed approach is that we're not going to be putting a quarter of a ton of scrap heavy metal batteries into landfill every few years.
On an EV note, the latest London Taxi is electric, but has a small engine built in to extend the range, not to propel the car, but to charge the batteries.

 

I can't agree that it kills the hydrogen argument at all...it is a reasonable motorway argument to a degree, but how many of us live near, or use the motorway services?...I think I've used a motorway service station once in the last 3 years. If you look at the map of current motorway services there are hardly any in Scotland, Wales or the east and west country in England.

You say ''Hydrogen as a solution seems to me to be a solution put forward by the oil companies as a way of staying relevant and retaining the 'visit a station and spend money on our fuel' model.''
I would agree, but from an infrastructure point of view it's already there, the companies currently run thousands of existing stations in every corner of the country...it makes a lot of sense to use that infrastructure and existing distribution network as much as possible.

 

Its a polarising argument for sure. But, even for those users, of which there are admittedly many, who can't charge at home, what I am hoping and expecting to see is

a. Workplace charging become very commonplace. If you can charge at work, where you car spends 8 hours sat doing nothing, then that is a good a solution as charging at home. They only need to be the same 7kw chargers on every parking bay that you have at home.

b. These types of destination chargers installed in numbers at other places where you spend time, not just the token gesture 1 or 2 units you see at the moment (i.e. car parks, supermarkets, cinema etc).

c. Many more rapid chargers in the locality.

It may well be that, ultimately, both types of solution take off, but given the lack of focus on H2 as a solution for cars by most manufacturers, I just don't see it happening. I wouldn't be against it if it did, on the contrary, the more options people have to get away from polluting cars the better. But I'd still stick with EV myself. Given the choice of charging in 20 minutes somewhere for, lets say £40 (50p per kwh), the option of charging somewhere for peanuts at a slower rate if I happen to be somewhere with 7kw chargers in the car park, or filling a hydrogen tank for £80, I'd go with the charging option every time.

The other issue with Hydrogen is that currently, the production of green hydrogen at scale is exorbitantly expensive, which is why, as a percentage of total hydrogen produced, it is negligible. Most hydrogen is produced by burning fossil fuels. I know the same argument can be made for the production of electricity, but everyone can see that the energy grid is getting greener with every passing year. We already have the largest offshore wind farm in the world, just off the coast of Hornsea, and that will be surpassed when Dogger Bank comes on stream.

Not sure why you are focusing on motorway service stations as the place you can rapid charge - they are everywhere, not just in motorway service stations. Your local McDonalds, and Costa for example.

 

Oh almost forgot the engineer also informed me that the technology required is definitely there and that the car would be able to charge the house with energy (other way round to charging the Leccy car).
I'm not in any corner I'm just stating what a highly qualified person informed me, because I don't have a clue.
I'll be changing my car in 2 years and need more info tbh.

 

If you are changing your car in 2 years, the chances of you being able to go with a Hydrogen powered car as an alternative in that timeframe are roughly zero.

 

Yea thought so myself

 

"So many switching" Less than 3% of cars on the road are EVs (including hybrids/plugin hybrids) As regards significant savings ... How? unless you are downsizing or getting a more basic replacement EVS are far far more expensive to buy than than ICE? therefore the leasing costs MUST reflect that higher capital cost.

You did not say whether you were quoting business or private lease rates, how many months and what mileage allowance, nor the model specifications of the EV or ICE.

I find it incredibly difficult to understand how you can get a lease contract with maintenance on a 'like for like' basis on an EV over an ICE at the same price (the additional monthly cost only covers the annual maintenance bill) . I have never see an EV with equivalent spec that is anything less than 20K more than the ICE to buy. Something has to give.
The new price of a Tiguan TDi 6 speed manual is is just short of 33K OTR RRP What sort of equivalent size CSUV EV can you get for that price? I have spent considerable time looking at lease, private hire and purchase outright options for My Skoda and The Karoq (ICE ) vs Enyak (EV) are miles apart price wise even with tax incentives for going to EV. Didn't look at VWs as they are basically expensive Skodas for people who are in many case 'badge conscious' (Not for one minutes saying you are but there are plenty who still sneer at certain makes).

I really am not convinced that, apart from a small number of people in certain circumstances, at this present moment in time EVs are a practical proposition certainly not from a financial perspective.

 

The size of car I need is an estate now the only decent sized one I have seen is the MG5 even that is in excess off £450 a month way out of my range

 

This is a disingenuous statement. There are over 20 million cars on British roads. Of course, the number of those that are EV is going to be a small percentage overall at present. No-one would seriously suggest that they were all going to disappear overnight and be replaced by EVs. But the rate of uptake is growing fast. 17.7% of new cars sold in February this year were EV. The percentage share has increased every month in the last 3 years and the rate is now growing exponentially That is a much clearer indication of how things are changing, not the current overall percentage of the whole car pool in the country. At those kind of rate increases, it is likely that within 3 years, half of new cars sold each month will be EV.

Here you go
Electric car sales UK 2022: EVs make up 17.7% of February registrations | DrivingElectric

We are following the same upward curve as, for example, Norway, but are around 3 years behind where Norway are - they are now at the point where I believe something like 80% of new cars sold are EV.

You are making the mistake here of assuming that the lease is paying for the whole car, so if an EV is 20k more than an ICE, then the lease payments have to cover that 20k over 3 years. The lease is paying for the depreciation on the car. The EV will have a higher sticker price, but would be expected to have a higher residual value than the ICE after 3 years as well. The difference in lease costs should only be the total of the difference in depreciation between the 2, which will be a lot less than the 20k difference they started with.

 

So today we bought a Dacia....I'll get to that bit.....2 years old, 10k miles, 4 yrPCP £200 month, £500 deposit.
Now the name may not impress the neighbours (we don't have any and wouldn't care anyway), but they are a bit like Skoda were until folk realised they were a good car and took them seriously. Top write ups from most reviewers, including Top Gear.
We wanted summat pretty utilitarian, it's for the missus, needs to be reliable, go anywhere in a rural area, loads of space inside and cheap. She don't care about gadgets, tho it does have a decent selection. As a petrolhead, it is not bad at all, if very sensible. She loves it, she has her cleaning business and it's a Dacia......................
Duster!

But I want a Polestar.

 

I've got a brand new Dacia Duster bi-fuel. It is ace, had it about six weeks now. Saving a fortune on fuel, comfy inside, every gadget you'd need. Best car I've ever had.

 

Never driven one, but my daughter got an ex demo Dacia and found it 'OK' for her daily commute between Mexboro' and Barnsley. For the price she found it fine although lacking in 'refinement' but you get a decent sized vehicle for the low price. As a passenger I did find it very noisy at motorway speeds, and the 'ride' unforgiving on rougher roads I have seen a few Dacia Dusters and Sanderos driving around here (rural Italy) mixed in with the Audis, BMWs Fiats, Alfas and Mercs (many Italians still believe in 'La Bella Figura' and lease expensive cars even when they live in crumbling house still stuck with 70s decor). It is about 'image'.
Dacias are no-nonsense, practical and cheap, but they they lose the advantage and attraction as you move higher up the range as the price then pushes it into competition with better vehicles
My daughters Dacia got written off after a few months of ownership (she went to an overnight business meeting on the train to London and left it in the station carpark where flash floods lefty is submerged in a metre of water). She bought a Mokka which she says is a far better car (although it should be being much more expensive.) That said the NCAP ratings on the Dacias were (are?) poor and having a young infant passenger to ferry around she was a bit concerned especially as one of the weaknesses in the reports was about rear passenger protection.

I am not a badge snob but I do have to disagree with the comparison between Dacias and Skodas. Both may be made in Eastern Europe .Dacia in Romania and Skodas in the Czech Republic but there the similarity ends. Skodas are basically a tweaked rebadged VW using VW/Audi components but cheaper than their equivalent mainly due to the Skoda Czech wages being lower than post unification the German ones.

The release of the outstanding Octavia was the turning point for Skoda. Never having owned a VW I can only say that Skoda often rates higher for reliability and customer satisfaction than VWs (the latter might be down to lower expectations from Skoda owners). I do know that having owned a BMW 5 series M Tech Sport a couple of years before, I test drove the Yeti when it first came out and was mightily impressed with the driving experience and build quality. It did not feel like a big step down from the BMW. A different beast obviously being a 4x4 as opposed to a RWD saloon and less than half the price. Obviously corners are cut (the carpets are cheap and coarse and a pain to vacuum as all the bits get stuck in the loops whereas the BM carpets were like velour and simple to clean). Safety though is not compromised with multiple airbags etc. You need them the way the Italians drive

 

It is very smooth and very quiet to drive, suspension is great especially on our road which is unadopted and has craters rather than potholes! It has heated seats, 4 x cameras around the car, a big screen for apps, a/c, cruise control, auto headlights... i could go on, I'm not sure what else you would want or need in a car. Nothing cheap about it at all.

 

Not knocking them, or your choice for one minute..

Two paragraphs from the Top Gear review sums them up nicely...

"The Duster first launched in 2010, priced under £10,000 and picking up the ‘cheap but actually quite good’ baton dropped by Skoda as it rushed upmarket. It was actually one of a small handful of small SUVs on offer then – the Nissan Juke was only just out – but the fact it’s steadfastly retained a brutalist approach to looks and interior layout as the rest of the genre’s gone berserk is admirable."

Start to dig deeper though and you see where the cost has been chiselled out of the Duster. Some of those savings are really clever and don't affect the end result. But you might decide others actually do – the plastics might offend anyone coming from the cocoon of a car better described as a ‘crossover’ than an SUV. There’s an unashamed hardiness to the Duster that surely lets it repel such flimsy categorisation,"

I also think the + and - summary are accurate...

Cheap, but also value. Looks good. Is very capable."

I Reiterate that think it is a wise practical purchase not withstanding the poor safety ratings but, then again, the biggest safety feature of any car is the 'nut behind the wheel'.

For the record, for myself and my daughter (for different reasons) the stumbling block is the low safety rating . I would still argue that if you have driven lots of different ( I used to regularly use hire cars on company expenses to visit customer sites and overnight stays and have driven) you can differentiate. The Dacia ticks almost all of the important boxes (exc. the safety rating) but we will have to agree to disagree that it is high up in the 'refinement' league table. Lots of gadgets do not necessarily equate to refinement.

The good and bad points in the review are pretty accurate....

GOOD STUFF
Cheap, but also value. Looks good. Is very capable

BAD STUFF
Lacks safety kit; so slow that this might not actually matter

Enjoy!