[Closed] I think I want to try an e (Corsa Vs E Niro)

I bought the cheapest Nissan Leaf I could find. The body work and interior were fine but the batteries were down to 60% health which means a 40 mile realistic range. I am amazed how much I use it instead of my custom built sports car or my 600BHP Mercedes - yes, I am a petrol head. It is just so easy and painless. I charge from home via a 3 pin plug probably every 3rd or 4th day depending on how much I have used it. If you buy something with 100 mile range and can charge at the railway station every other night or so then you will be fine. I am disabled so cannot walk or ride far and have realised how many of my car trips are just 1 or 2 miles each way. Never enough to warm the engines on the other two cars so I am protecting my nice cars while driving the bland-mobile, I mean Leaf.

If you're looking at an e-corsa, also look at the Peugeot 208e. Same platform, but different ride and interior. I had a petrol 208 last year and was very impressed by styling. The build quality seemed better than fiat but worse than Renault.

Later in the year, there will be vw id3 and fiat 500.

Peugeot will be better than the Corsa - Vauxhall is being slowly lowered within their brand portfolio. PSA are also after Fiat/Chrysler at the moment I think. The current 'electric' 500 is basically a bodged con so wait for the new one. ID3 will probably be good but VW priced so might want to wait for the Skoda/Seat versions.

Key questions is how many miles do you really do between points where you can be sure of a charge point? If you are too low on charge then do you have an alternative?

From your post I reckon you should try it but why?

A new Leaf is about £35,000 as opposed to the Note which is almost the same but petrol for £18,000.

You need many years of free road tax to pay that back.

Peugeot will be better than the Corsa – Vauxhall is being slowly lowered within their brand portfolio

I’m not surprised at that, I’ve driven dozens of Corsas and lots of Peugeot’s, and l really like the Corsa, very well equipped for a small car, and a delight to drive. I just don’t like Peugeot, comfortable enough, but I really don’t like their styling and cockpit ergonomics.
Just the fact that the Corsa comes with a heated screen, out of the whole Vauxhall range sets it apart, so it doesn’t surprise me that PSA would want to downgrade it. Vauxhall actually had the new Corsa finished and ready to go into production, when PSA took over they told Vauxhall to scrap it and start again using their platform. What a waste of time and money.

I dont know what the prices are like but the little Honda is properly nice inside, doesnt feel like an economy car at all. The e mini is meant to be alright too

I took advice from my accountancy provider while I was a director of my own limited company , they suggested getting any cars on personal finance rather than as company cars, in case I ever closed the business I’d have to give a company car back. Wise words as it turned out, I closed the company within 3years. If you’ve got longevity in your business maybe less of an issue

I just feel a bit stupid/wasteful driving everywhere in the Vivaro, and the Panda is a bit crap to drive but basically free to run. Can't really afford a new car personally but with the 0% benefit in kind on electrics for the next couple of years the temptation of taking a business lease to get the vat and corporation tax reductions is pretty strong.

The idea of driving for skiing in Aviemore or Glencoe and back on a single charge from Edinburgh in comfort is appealing!

I’m not an ev owner yet, it’s due in July 🤞 but I wouldn’t even have considered one if I couldn’t charge at home.

But it looks like mine will be delivered before I can get the charger installed. People on the internet who know about these things tell me that I should be able to recharge from my 70 mile commute within about 8 hours plugged in to a normal 3 pin socket.

At the moment I can make do but depending on our shifts we don’t have 8 hours between one of us coming in and the other heading back out to work. Depending on your usage that might be fine for you, especially if you have somewhere close you can charge quickly if needed.

We have a Zoe. It was 3 months before we got a hone charger and use it very infrequently as mrs OTS has a free charger at her work. As long as there are a few charging options nearby I wouldn’t be concerned about getting one at home, but they do break and can be occupied by other cars when you need them so better to not have to rely on only 1 public charger.

Home charge point vs just plugging into a socket at home is not such a big difference in most situations, because it's left plugged in overnight which is usually going to be enough. This especially true if you can fit a 16a circuit, which is usually cheap and easy.

Either way if you can charge at home then one of the joys of an EV is that it starts every day full. For someone who can't park within cable reach of home though, EV ownership is going to create a significant extra chore. Is the fast charger close enough that you can pop it on there with no real inconvenience and move it once charged without inconvenience either? If it is then I guess the difference is pretty small. You'll pay more for the energy though. And you may become frustrated if/when that charger becomes busy with increased local EV uptake.

Home charging point is a no brainer, massively quicker than a 3 pin.
We got a Model 3 recently and I now can't see us ever wanting to go back to a petrol car, so much easier and more pleasant to drive + between the pcp cost and petrol and tax its cheaper than the car it replaced.

When we first got it I also used to go out to Tesco to do the shopping and plugged in to charge up for free there 😁

Also, to anyone that already owns an electric car, would you get one if you can’t charge at home? We have a train station with a fast charger right over the road, hardly ever anyone in it. Usually just the same car that must live near us but also not have a home charger.

Altho I do have a home charger, I've only used it twice, once to test it worked and 2nd time was for the novelty. Reason being that pretty much all my local public rapid chargers are currently free to vend until Oct 2021. one is a few hundred yards from home, another two on my way to/from work, So I'm taking advantage. I've proven to myself that you can do it*, However, you probably need to have time on your hands (it might be difficult if you have a busy family/work life). I'd want a car that's got a proper 250miles+ (the 50miles is probably what you'd lose in the winter), I'd want at least 3 rapid chargers nearby as plan B and C etc. The other thing is that my car has a good entertainment package on a big screen, I can watch netflix, youtube or play video games. So 25mins charging passes quickly.
*Easy for me to say when I've got a home charger to fall back on.

Having the charger across the road is good and you could leave it charging for 45mins (assuming rapid charger) with a note in the window if anyone was desperate to charge, but what happens when it's taken and you need to charge or someone has dumped their Range Rover there or it's out of service?. You need to have options either locally or on your commute (and they'll need to be rapid chargers not 7kwh destination chargers).
NB Ultimately a lot probably depends on how many miles pa you do, but also routine, commute length, local charger network etcetc, assuming all the boxes are ticked then the main downside is that considering regular refueling has to become part of your life whereas it wasn't really before.

then one of the joys of an EV is that it starts every day full.

The battery will last longer if you keep it between 30% and 90%. It's rare I need the full range and a charge is often enough for a week or two.

I've got a Zoe 50 having had a Zoe 40 before that. I checked out the Corsa and Peugeot but it was the better range and more powerful on-board charger on the Zoe that tipped in its favour. There still aren't many 50kW Combo chargers about so having a 22kW Type 2 charger makes long trips more viable than with a 7kW on-board charger. 1.5h for 60% rather than 4.5h. I like to stop for lunch but not for 4.5h.

Our electric i3s arrived this week and it's ace so big thumbs up for going EV.

I got ours on lease to take advantage of the BIK tax as it costs no more than a petrol Fiesta. List price is irrelevant if leasing. My wife is on the insurance too at no extra cost.

The battery will last longer if you keep it between 30% and 90%. It’s rare I need the full range and a charge is often enough for a week or two.

Sure I read somewhere that the Teslas only charge to 90% unless you specifically ask it to go to 100% eg for a long journey.

Maybe worth investigating the salary sacrifice angle?

Octopus

Sure I read somewhere that the Teslas only charge to 90% unless you specifically ask it to go to 100% eg for a long journey.

Yup most EVs charge below 100% as standard but it can be over ridden to 100% which the max charge but not the capacity so it’s safe to charge to 100% as they’ve built in protection.

The battery will last longer if you keep it between 30% and 90%. It’s rare I need the full range and a charge is often enough for a week or two.

I thought the car did this for you so 'full' is actually 90% anyway. My old Prius does this.

The battery will last longer if you keep it between 30% and 90%. It’s rare I need the full range and a charge is often enough for a week or two.

Aye, well true of course but 80% or 90% is effectively full as far as the normal day and this benefit of EVs is concerned.

This point varies between manufacturers as I understand it. Some supposedly have enough headroom in the battery that their 100% is OK for day to day use. Not so much ours (Tesla), "best practise" for it is to avoid at least the top 10% unless you're careful in certain respects, so I normally set it to charge to 80%. We don't charge it every night by any means but the charging we do is at home or work, while we'd be leaving it for a long period anyway, like overnight, which gives that convenience benefit.

The across the road fast charger is a halfway house. Could be nearly as good as home charging, but from my experience I'm not sure that's the case. I really like the fact that I nearly never give charging a moment's thought.

I understand it the same as Luket above, all batteries are capped top and bottom to protect them, but certainly at the top end some give more access to total battery capacity than others which gives the impression of a larger battery to others but not necessarily better. Batteries with more access to top end will experience rampimg down charging speeds towards the end to protect the battery. Batteries with more top end capped off will experience less or no ramping down charging speeds towards the end. So in some cases it's only worth charging to 80% after which the charging speed dramatically slows to protect the battery, in other cases you can charge to 100% without detrimental effect, because more of the top end is capped off. Not certain about this but I think Tesla give you more access to the total battery capacity and I think the Audi Etron is more restricted, as examples. I might be wrong tho.

For tesla, on the fastest chargers, like their superchargers, charging speed starts to slow quite a way before 80%. In fact you only get true max speed for a short period, if at all. The graph descends gradually from somewhere mid range to the top, but over 90% it's slow enough there's generally no point waiting there (and it's not very fair to others). However, at home or on "fast" chargers this doesn't apply very much, because the charge point itself can't get to the line of this graph until very late in the charge.

On top out, you're basially OK to charge to 100% so long as you use it straight away. Don't let a Tesla, or other car without lots of top end buffer I presume, sit with very high state of charge. So for an over-range drive it may be worth charging to 100% just before leaving. You might charge late anyway for efficiency for half the UK year because a warm battery (from charging) enables proper regenerative braking, and avoids heaviest use of heating/ac, and therefore avoids more inefficient running. Similar applies at the bottom - run it low if you have to but plug it straight in when you stop.

We have no off street parking, so it's either a cable out the window with a cover over the pavement, use public chargers or try and find a way to pay and get the bollard outside our house converted to a charger. There is a company in England that does this, but then it becomes a public charger and we essentially lose one of 'our' parking spaces (it's all free public parking)

I do think it would be a good idea for the council to offer home owners the chance to convert things like this into private chargers, it's the future!

The train station has two chargers 100m away, 200m away we have a large BP garage that I assume at some point will get one of their charging places (that I think you get a year free on with the Corsa) and there are a few business local that advertise you can use their chargers after hours, less than 500m away.

So I don't know, it seems like a leap of faith but equally I can't fill up with petrol from my house either..

The regenerative braking doesn't work on the Zoé beyond about 90% battery which is another reason for not fully charging unless the range is needed. Once you've got used to mode B it's worrying when lifting off doesn't slow it down. I agree about charging at the last minute in Winter, not only does the regenerative braking work better but you get more range with a battery warm from charging.

Don't rely on a combo fast charge if it's cold because the car is likely to refuse it. We've sometimes had to give up on on a combo charge and use the type 2 plug instead. There have been so many issues with combo fast charge points in France that Corridor have simply taken all theirs out so we're back to type 2 in most places.

I'm not convinced anymore there's much to be gained from regen braking over old skool coasting to improve efficiency, so I've reduced it. The novelty value of one peddle driving has long worn off. I'm happy for it to be proven otherwise tho.

On regen, I read there's a lot of difference in how it works/feels between manufacturers, although I've only driven a couple myself. I figure if full regen is available but I don't use it much, I'm still not losing anything. I can still allow the car to (near enough) coast with my foot at the right position. Generally I don't decelerate at anything like the rate regen can do, but sometimes I do, and with full regen available I pretty much never lose energy through the friction brakes and drive on one pedal pretty much all the time. Subjective as to whether one pedal driving is a benefit but I like it, so I think it is on that basis alone.

Depends where you live BAnana, dropping down from the ski resort recharges enough for the next 30km. A 55km trip with 1200m height loss on 4% of charge.

How much do you use on the way up though?

Is that where the other 96% went!

Surely these cars still use regen braking even if you use the brake pedal? Mine does, the friction brakes come on only when you brake hard. I'd assumed that the one-pedal thing was just a different style of control.

32% on the way up at this time of the year.

Edit: yes, Molgrips, if the battery is warm enough. If it's ski resort in Winter cold you get a warning, there's next to no regen and only service brakes when you press the brake pedal. If it's chilly you get mode D levels of regen but still only service brakes with the brake pedal. From around 15°C you get mode B levels of regen but still only service brakes. To get full mode B regen and additional regen when you use the footbrake it has to be over 20°C. By 30°C there's at least 37kW of regen when you brake, there might be more under some circumstances but I haven't found them.

Regen braking is improving all the time to the point it’s used as the only brake in newer EVs until certain speeds or G levels.

Following this as the e-500 or whatever it'll be called may well be the wife's next car (had 3x already on PCP's)

We have a front drive so easy for a charging point to be installed, what sort of cost is that?

We have a front drive so easy for a charging point to be installed, what sort of cost is that?

Approx £500 installed, assuming you qualify for the grant and it's a straightforward install.
Project EV £382 (unteathered) Rolec £445 (unteathered), Ohme £500 (teathered) a bit extra for the cable is worth it and makes Ohme one of the best prices, then it goes upwards from there. Ohme also works with Octopus Agile tariff (and presumably Go and other ToD tariffs) which is a big plus.

Surely these cars still use regen braking even if you use the brake pedal? Mine does, the friction brakes come on only when you brake hard. I’d assumed that the one-pedal thing was just a different style of control.

Varies by manufacturer.

Some of them keep all friction braking to the brake pedal and all regen on the accelerator. That way, with one pedal driving you can get the feel fully to driving using only regen, which in normal circumstances is plenty of braking capability except for emergencies. Presumably also involves a bit less tech.

Others have systems designed to mimic ICE cars, where the first bit of brake pedal is regen and it adds on friction braking as you ask for more braking force than regen only can give.

The first option shows a natural limitation of the ev/hybrid. It also suffers from differing performance of regen when the battery's cold. The second one uses presumably quite a bit of technology to mask these limitations but also to add a functionality that is in itself trying to mimic a mode of operation that comes from a natural limitation of ICE. I can see the benefit either way but the second one seems to me to be a bit of a fool's errand. It's an easy change to adapt to and helps one to drive more efficiently, so why bother fighting it?

Tesla is in the first camp and to start with it sounded to me like a disadvantage of tesla, but I've come to think of it as quite a nice touch. It would be nice to do something with reduced regen in the cold though to create consistent feel even if the battery can't get the full benefit from it, like somehow spilling the electrical energy feels a less bad choice than going back to wearing brake parts and creating nasty dust.

Since the OP is looking at an e-Niro can I commend the "Maddie Goes Electric" series of episodes on Fully Charged where she goes from electrin noob to e-Niro owner and talks about the experience along the way.

My car, old as it is, adds a little bit of regen when you lift off, to simulate mild engine braking that you'd get in a high gear. If you touch the throttle slightly there's a gap between slight regen and power, where it's just rolling. It's a useful technique to increase fuel efficiency, so I wish it were configurable to always just coast when you lift off.