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Electric cars


norwaysaint
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Looking at getting an electric Golf or an E-Up as our new car. Would love a Tesla as I have a few friends who have them and rave about them, but I can't justify spending that much. Anybody here have one or something similar?

 

Don't know about the UK, but the savings you can make over here with an electric car are huge. There are lots of subsidies and things you don't have to pay. I should be saving the equivalent of nearly 500 quid a month, which means it'll pay for itself pretty fast.

 

Any experiences would be appreciated.

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Ive never owned one so have no personal direct experiences, only indirect experience through work. The only thing I would say is think about how you would use the car and relate that to charging points - ie how many miles a day do you do. How often do you need to travel more than the cars range? Bear in mind the quoted range figures are like fuel economy figures, rarely achievable in real world driving.

 

Some cars advertise an 80% charge in 30 minutes but that is using the most powerful DC charging points. There are at least four different power ratings for charging points and the basic ones will take 7-8 hours. Checkout what spec recharging points exist in the areas you are likely to travel to, especially motorway service stations. You can buy home charging units which will reduce home charging times by around half but cost about £1,000.

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Thanks for the answer. There are charging points everywhere here, there are a few outside the school where I work and a few in every car park. Supermarkets usually have the fast chargers outside and apparently the 80% charge in half an hour thing is pretty reliable. Teslas were the second most sold cars here last year with Nissan Leaf not far behind and the UP! just behind that. Top was Golf and I think that included the electric version, so Norway is very set up foe electric cars.

 

My only issue is that we have a few square km of forest where we spend most of the summer and we don't have electricity there, so we'd probably keep a petrol car around just for that, but the rest of the year it's mostly to and from the city. Teslas will do about 500km on a full charge, but I don't think we'll be getting that kind of range.

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Thanks for the answer. There are charging points everywhere here, there are a few outside the school where I work and a few in every car park. Supermarkets usually have the fast chargers outside and apparently the 80% charge in half an hour thing is pretty reliable. Teslas were the second most sold cars here last year with Nissan Leaf not far behind and the UP! just behind that. Top was Golf and I think that included the electric version, so Norway is very set up foe electric cars.

 

My only issue is that we have a few square km of forest where we spend most of the summer and we don't have electricity there, so we'd probably keep a petrol car around just for that, but the rest of the year it's mostly to and from the city. Teslas will do about 500km on a full charge, but I don't think we'll be getting that kind of range.

 

We spent a couple of days in Oslo last year. It was very spooky having these Teslas creep up behind you when you weren't looking. They seemed to be everywhere.

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Will be seriously thinking about a Tesla for my next company car, which is admittedly a while away, if I run the current car for the usual 3 years. It seems from my limited research so far that it adds precisely zero to your P11D. Any views on if that is correct, and how long it will stay that way?

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I haven't met anyone with a bad word to say about their Tesla. As mentioned above they are everywhere here now and are truly beautiful cars inside and out. One of my friends drove his down to Romania during the summer and had absolutely no problems with charging at all.

There are a lot of toll roads here and electric cars don't pay, so you can save a lot, not to mention on taxes and petrol. You can also drive in the bus lane with them.

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My only issue is that we have a few square km of forest where we spend most of the summer and we don't have electricity there, so we'd probably keep a petrol car around just for that.

 

Have you thought about a small generator as emergency backup? Would be a lot cheaper than a second car. This one is relatively quiet, the 'suitcase' Hondas more so, though pricier obviously. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wolf-2500W-240v-6-5HP-4-Stroke-Petrol-Generator-Portable-/252080215221

Edited by buctootim
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I haven't met anyone with a bad word to say about their Tesla. As mentioned above they are everywhere here now and are truly beautiful cars inside and out. One of my friends drove his down to Romania during the summer and had absolutely no problems with charging at all.

There are a lot of toll roads here and electric cars don't pay, so you can save a lot, not to mention on taxes and petrol. You can also drive in the bus lane with them.

 

Yes. Thanks.

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Looking at getting an electric Golf or an E-Up as our new car. Would love a Tesla as I have a few friends who have them and rave about them, but I can't justify spending that much. Anybody here have one or something similar?

 

Don't know about the UK, but the savings you can make over here with an electric car are huge. There are lots of subsidies and things you don't have to pay. I should be saving the equivalent of nearly 500 quid a month, which means it'll pay for itself pretty fast.

 

Any experiences would be appreciated.

Have you ever test driven one? Once you do you very likely won't want to go back to a Fred Flintstone fossil mobile again. I have a Leaf and love it. It's a blast to drive, not to mention saving tons on petrol and maintenance. Range is the only downside, but most of the time I don't need to go more than the 70 odd miles maximum. Got a charger in the garage, so top it off every night.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Ended up getting an E-Golf and an E-Up. Haven't really driven the Up yet, but the wife seems to like it. We're selling one of our petrol cars and keeping the other for when needed. I love the Golf though, lovely to drive, good power too. The range seems pretty good and you can extend it a lot depending on how you drive and which mode you have it in. So far I've only charged it at home, but the wife has used the express chargers, which are apparently pretty cheap, easy to use and easy to find, she paid with an app, but you can also use a contactless payment card. I'm not missing paying for petrol at all and it's nice having free parking, free toll (a big and regular expense here) and having use of bus lanes.

 

A big bonus is that you can download an app that lets you manage the car from your phone. You can program it to be charged and heated up at a certain time, lovely for cold mornings. You can also check how the charging is going from the app and even see the location of the car on a map, which must make them pretty hard to steal. I also find you hardly use the brakes, as when you take your foot off, the dynamo takes over and charges the battery, which slows you down all you need. A nice downhill can add a few km to your journey.

 

There are other bells and whistles, but I'm guessing a few of those are common to all Golfs. One word of caution if you're thinking of getting a couple of these, we found if we had both charging on the same circuit, the fuse would throw, but luckily we have two outside circuits, so no problem.

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Ended up getting an E-Golf and an E-Up. Haven't really driven the Up yet, but the wife seems to like it. We're selling one of our petrol cars and keeping the other for when needed. I love the Golf though, lovely to drive, good power too. The range seems pretty good and you can extend it a lot depending on how you drive and which mode you have it in. So far I've only charged it at home, but the wife has used the express chargers, which are apparently pretty cheap, easy to use and easy to find, she paid with an app, but you can also use a contactless payment card. I'm not missing paying for petrol at all and it's nice having free parking, free toll (a big and regular expense here) and having use of bus lanes.

 

A big bonus is that you can download an app that lets you manage the car from your phone. You can program it to be charged and heated up at a certain time, lovely for cold mornings. You can also check how the charging is going from the app and even see the location of the car on a map, which must make them pretty hard to steal. I also find you hardly use the brakes, as when you take your foot off, the dynamo takes over and charges the battery, which slows you down all you need. A nice downhill can add a few km to your journey.

 

There are other bells and whistles, but I'm guessing a few of those are common to all Golfs. One word of caution if you're thinking of getting a couple of these, we found if we had both charging on the same circuit, the fuse would throw, but luckily we have two outside circuits, so no problem.

 

Interesting, thanks Norway. Is the E-Up how they market it in Yorkshire? ;)

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I was fortunate enough to test drive a Tesla

 

Really impressed by the experience.

 

Nice looking car too

 

What would be major considerations for me as a private buyer would be:

 

1. The cost - £50k +

2. Repairs in the event of an accident (needs specialist bodywork repair)

3. Insurance - Group 50

4. Battery Life - Batteries will degrade over time

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Teslas are beautiful cars inside and out. A couple of my friends have them and love them. Very expensive though. They're the second highest selling car over here now, so there are enough places around that can repair them, the roads here are full of them. Most dealers have a battery guarantee too, our cars have eight years on the guarantee. The saving on fuel, tax, parking and tolls builds up pretty quickly though, so at the end of that time, you should be able to pay for a battery. The range of a Tesla is double what ours can do, but they cost far more than both cars put together.

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