I have an old friend who has 30+ years experience as a Land Rover specialist. Based on his advice and experience, I would be very careful and do your research as his garage is currently turning away broken cars due to lack of parking space. He spends all his time rebuilding ingenium engines for ICE cars and the rest of the yard is full of broken new Defenders waiting for out of stock parts! He himself is quite vocal about how terribly unreliable these cars are now and he would personally only buy an older model
And they were hardly renowned for reliability
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Exactly! And even then, you need a specialist to repair them. When visiting England, I pop in to see him and there are 3 x 4 post lifts always with Discovery or Range Rover bodies raised above their rolling chassis- because it is easier to work on them with the bodies off- not a DIY job. I once bemoaned paying £150 for the antiroll bar for my Alfa- he cited an electric one for a Range Rover was £1,600! He is very skilled and experienced and can diagnose any of the complicated and frequent electrical faults but with the modern crop of LR products, he only has to know the model from a phone call to know what is wrong with it
Out of interest, What’s the problem and what model is it? I watched one of my regular YT’s buy a very cheap electric car, the garage didn’t have anyone available to fix it. Quoted the previous owner lots to repair, probably the go away price. They literally found a loose connection and repaired that and bingo, fully working
No idea of the model or the problem. My sister eventually found someone to fix it, at great expense.
Most standard repairs such as running gear & brakes are well within the remit of a ‘normal’ garage.
As an EV has so much less that needs repair (inc. brake pads, due to regenerative braking) then a lot of owners will have many years of hardly needing any kind of servicing, apart from the ‘need’ to get a stamp in the booklet, & even that is a relatively cheap process.
As with any modern car, once you get into the realms of electronic problems & the plethora of associated sensors you could end up in a world of pain & expense. Even ICE cars suffer from having too much tech that can be hard to diagnose correctly & then can only be fixed by a very rare expert.
EDIT; I meant to say that my E-NV200 van had a transmission anomaly at 10 years of age. Some quick internet delving led me to the problem being the failure of a tiny rubber bush in the linkage of the gear selector that was easily fixed by me (the cost of the bush was, however, outrageous for what it is).
The same problem can occur in the ICE version fo the van, so it’s not really an EV issue…
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True. Except that an EV has much more in the way of delicate, not to mention potentially lethal, electrics/electronics to go wrong.
Unless an infernal combustion engine is running they are fairly benign in terms of killing the mechanic.
7-800VDC OTOH will send you to your maker for the heck of it.
Fair point, but as numbers grow so will the number of places with facilities & expertise to deal with it. People also need to realise that there are many safeguards in place so that working on an EV presents no electric shock danger if you’re, say, just changing a shock absorber.
I had a real world experience of aversion to dealing with an EV. My E-NV200 van needed it’s air con regassed - a very important things as, unlike the Leaf, it uses the air con to cool the battery when charging.
I took it to a recommended local place that boasted it’s ability to deal with all forms of vehicle air con. It had recently changed hands & the new proprietor was keen to get new clients. However once he realised that I was presenting him with an EV he backtracked & stated that he wasn’t an EV approved garage so couldn’t touch it.
I explained that the air con system had absolutely nothing to with the electric traction side of things, but that Nissan are quite specific about the various gases & lubricant that goes into the system. I asked him to have a think & check it all out & that I’d come back in a day or two to talk further.
I duly returned & he was all smiles having learnt a few things in the intervening period & he was more than happy to take my money to do the deed, with the correct materials.
Not all French trades people are stuck in their ways it seems.
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That’s why they have large isolation switches on the high voltage battery packs.
And they work really well, right up until someone forgets to switch it off. Not the fault of the vehicle, but a new hazard to be managed.
I did the same….Petrol head through and through…had an old classic and rebuilt the engine, bla de bla….had a Saab rocket highly tuned that ran on ethanol…then Peugeot 3008, VW T- Roc,. Then a VW Tiguan PHEV and found myself using battery only pretty much…..50km max..so decided then and there to go to the dark side…TBH I wanted a Tesla but the CEO is such a tw*t I couldn’t see my self in one. I admit they look sleek and are some what minimalist for the interior. SO, opted for a Megane E Tech Iconic Supercharger. Whenever people see me they ALWAYS ask….drumroll…..what is the range?! This is of course subjective and depends on how you drive and if it is cold outside or not. Don’t forget range will plummet on the faster roads…ie when you go on holiday for example..
However, the question I would ask myself now is……how long are you prepared to wait to charge it up at a public fast charger? It seems around 15 mins is the fastest (20-80%) Kia EV6 for example or around 35 mins for me. THIS is the question you have to ask yourself. Most EV will have a range of 300km plus so are you going to drive that long without a break? It’s a bit like buying a big house for the one big xmas day so all the family can stay when your modest 3 bed does very nicely for the rest of the year…and you just have to make do for the xmas day/long holiday. I would certainly get one with a heat pump/battery precondition if you in a cold part of France.
For us my “fuel” bills are down to a third of what it was. Its also fun to have your car plugged into your home and you are in charge. Of course, range, and more importantly charging speed , will get alot better but I believe the sweet spot is now to buy….who needs a car to go 700km plus…when you normal journey is 50km per day
It seems the prices are between 35-50k new for a normal ev without going to the super lux side….though I do quite like the Genesis GV60…..can’t quite make out the Hyundai Iconic 6…but feel it could bee too low for my ageing back. I would go second hand 2-3 years old max and stick on the max warranty. Like all cars they loose masses once they leave the forecourt. It all depends on budget of course and how you see yourself in your new toy.
Just to say…we have alot of Parisiens here for their holidays here…no problem with that….and alot of Tesla cars for their wagons……..if you like to be a bit Saab quirky and stand out from the crowd a Tesla wouldn’t be the car for you…..though repeated reviews you will see they are in the top 5 or so of cars…at the moment…not forgetting the price which TBF is pretty decent.
Just go through your needs and press that button.
If I were to have my time again I would go for a Volvo EX30 long range………
Courage!
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I just say it’s longer than the range of my bladder.
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We’re probably all different, but I usually make myself stop every 2-3 hours for a 5-10min walk about to stop the legs getting uncomfortable and sometimes (certainly not always) help reduce sleepiness.
But the question of range should be answered by the distance a car can cover using 60% of the battery capacity between 20% and 80%. Driving outside of those levels will reduce the capacity, and is not recommended as I understand it, for emergencies really. So a typical EV with a high capacity battery will do about 2 hours on the autoroute between charges if you’re looking after it, perhaps 3 if you don’t mind hammering the battery.
We all need to decide what is important for us, what we are willing to live with and what we aren’t.
I guess the other factor is how often one drives that sort of distance at once, for us it’s only three or four round trips a year. Our current ICE car should get us to Tarragona or Valencia non-stop, but one doesn’t (and obviously shouldn’t drive there non-stop), so I think range anxiety is a hangover from earlier times.
Unfortunately the E equivalent of our current car is around €60K, which is far beyond the means of an academic’s pension.
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Only if repeated rapid charging is used, the occasional use of all of the battery won’t hurt it, the batteries always have a reserve portion to prevent battery damage hence an 80kw will have a usable 76kw on near amount. If you rapid charged twice on a journey but the rest of the time kept to 20-80% it will have no measurable effect on the battery.
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For me, it’s not a compromise that is acceptable, even once per year. When I retire and time is less important then that may change, although I could imagine it lengthening an already long journey unbearably. For our 800km drive we’d need to charge at least twice in an already long day.
Maybe that’s the big difference - when you retire you have so much more quality leisure time. Never imagined it would be so good. Although it started when I began to work wholly online, one of my biggest simple pleasures remains not having to rush breakfast.
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This was the view that we took, we wouldn’t be rushing anywhere, so now the journey is part of the event rather than something that needs to be suffered to get to the destination.
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I just did a new plan using a Kia EV5 which is a potential against the Skoda Enyaq and two stops, one at 10 mins and the other at 16mins which wouldn’t be any real difference to the current ICE journey. Of course AM would have a longer journey down from Oxford but the tunnel has a fair number of chargers and it’s usual to get there at least 30-60 mins before traveling so a good top up there before the next leg. It’s interesting that car insurance often drops in price when you tell them you are retired as you are generally not in a hurry any more as stated.
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TBH with the tunnel we normally go directly to the loading are if allowed, because that way you’re more likely to get the scheduled train - waiting often means being delayed for the last couple of hours. But yes, more time instead of eating the little annual leave is a luxury we look forward to.
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