Recommendations for electric or hybrid cars

[Balderdasha]

Having relied on walking, public transport and occasional taxis for the last 14 years, my husband and I are close to admitting defeat and buying a car. There are lots of factors involved in this. A big one is that my mum, who lives in a town with appalling public transport, is ill. It takes us close to 3 hours to get there by public transport vs 45 minutes to an hour in a car.

I was hoping that fully electric, self-driving cars were going to be readily available next time I needed a car, but the technology has not moved fast enough.

I have a full licence, but will need a few practice lessons to get back up to speed. Previously I drove an old Volvo tank, manual gears. My husband will need to take lessons and pass his test.

So, if we're going to buy a car, are any of the electric or hybrid models worth getting and are they reasonable value yet? I am starting from a position of almost no knowledge, so I would appreciate any pointers to old threads or other websites, but I'd also be interested in any personal experiences of owning or driving these types of cars.

[jdsx]

It sort of depends on your budget! The cheapest decent EV is probably the Renault Zoe, which you can get from about £4.5K upwards. But you have to pay a monthly 'rental' on the battery in addition at this price level, which starts at £49 a month (for 5,000 miles p.a. I think). You can buy them 'battery owned', but they are pretty expensive for a small car. Then there's the Nissan Leaf, early ones probably available from around £5.5K. If possible, I would try to stretch to the 30kWh battery (the early ones were 24kWh).
There are cheaper alternatives: the MItsubish iMiev, Peugeot iOn and Citroen C-Zero are all basically the same car underneath. But I wouldn't want to have an accident in one. Range is limited and parts are hard to come by.
EVs/Plug-in Hybrid EVs are only really suitable if you have somewhere off-road to plug them in. I wouldn't want to rely on public charging at the moment, there isn't a joined up system in England (Scotland is better in this regard).
I would always try to buy the most recent car I could afford! Battery technology has improved a lot incrementally over the last 7-8 years, and range drops off with age (and cold weather!).
If you don't have anywhere to plug in, a hybrid Toyota Prius/Auris/Yaris is probably your best bet, depending on what size you need. We have an Auris which we inherited and it's been pretty faultless. (Our other car is a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, which has also been excellent, but it's thirsty when it runs out of battery and is only suitable if you do mostly short journeys.)
All hybrids/EVs are 'automatics' and are generally very easy to drive in comparison with combustion engine cars.
Worth having a look at 'SpeakEV.com' if you're interested in EVs generally.

[blameless]

I had a Yaris hybrid as a courtesy car a couple of years ago - it was easy to drive and easy to live with as you're still just filling it up at a petrol station (it generates its own leccy).

As jdsx says, anything hybrid or electric comes with an automatic gearbox; so if your husband is starting driving from scratch and time is a factor then he may wish to go for an Automatic-Only licence, as these are quicker and easier to attain than a Full licence.

[jdsx]

I had a Yaris hybrid as a courtesy car a couple of years ago - it was easy to drive and easy to live with as you're still just filling it up at a petrol station (it generates its own leccy).

You'll be telling me it's a self-charging hybrid next...

[Belhaven]

We have a Citroen C-Zero and as a city car it is unbeatble. You need minimum of space to park the car and can quickly and easily turn it around in the street to go in the opposite direction. It is also very very easy to drive, if you have ever tried a radio car, it has about the same feel. so, if you are not that comfortable with driving it is a good choce.

However, the range is limited, about 120 kilometers, (80 miles?) if you don't use the heating system, a much less with it on, so it may be a stretch to visit your mum 45 minutes away regularly. On the other hand, the car forces you to be economical with energy, which, of course, in itself is a good thing.

With hindsight, I think I would have opted for a slightly bigger car, like Nissan Leaf or the E-Golf, as I think they have better all-round capabilities.

[Antepli Ejderha]

The newer Yaris Hybrid has a smaller boot compared to the older one. We often could only get the pram into it. The Auris is much bigger and a big roomier. I liked both but I wouldn't go back to a Yaris now.

Apparently the second hand prices for electrics and hybrids are high and holding because of emission charges etc. Outside of London they might be more reasonable.

Being an automatic is great for driving in traffic and the newer models have an instant response when you try to accelerate, my old Yaris was very sluggish.

I also started a thread on buying a car about 5 years ago, there was some good advice on that too.

[Eggchaser]

SpeakEv has subforums for every car on the market, although discussions can get very bogged down in technical details concerning battery output and engineering waffle at times.

On YouTube, Fully Charged, EVMan and Electric Opinion are good. Driving Electric gives some good reviews. Most "mainstream" auto channels suffer from Clarkson syndrome and fail to understand EVs in the way they work over an extended period of time.

I have run a Hyundai Ioniq EV for two and a bit years now, it has been great.

There is a whole slew of EVs coming, although a lot are being held till 2020 for manufacturer fleet emissions targets. 0% BIK will mop up many of the from April 2020 and I dread to think what the Tories will do to the Plug In Grant when they get back in. Noises are being made about how it's now a mature market, so if they follow the example of solar, they will decimate the still in nappies market by cutting all subsidies dead.

Also, the new Tesla Cybertruck is ugly. Truck ugly.

[Ginger Yellow]

I think this one nails it:

https://twitter.com/david_j_roth/status/1197745966960521218

[Ginger Yellow]

By the way, if you haven't seen Freejack, do so, it's wonderfully bonkers and has a terrible performance from Mick Jagger.

[hobbes]

I think I’d rather have a Rivian...

[pebblethefish]

I think this one nails it:

https://twitter.com/david_j_roth/status/1197745966960521218

I genuinely had to Google about five trustworthy sources before I believed that this was a real thing. I think I drew that in an art lesson in the early eighties.

[Uncle Ethan]

We just got a Toyota Corolla Hybrid. Top little car. Ludicrously low fuel use. Decent boot for a hatch.

[Eggchaser]

I think I’d rather have a Rivian...

Indeed, but it's likely to be pushing US$100,00 for a good one.

Also this website

[Balderdasha]

Lots of useful information to look through, thanks guys!

[San Bernardhinault]

That Tesla Truck is what happens if a Delorean and a Hilux have a baby, and then it's rendered using early 90s CAD software.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I think that launch is a reminder that Elon Musk is an extraordinarily bad public speaker. They certainly made a hames of that launch. That thing is hideous, but then again so are pick up trucks. It's just a different kind of hideous. See the thing that is driving the whole thing is that Musk thinks that Americans are only going to change to electric vehicles is when electric cars can do everything better than Petrol cars, and are cheaper. That is why you have people hitting the cheapest tesla with hammers. It seems the windows broke because they had rehearsed that so often that it eventually weakened the glass, and they posted multiple videos of them doing it. See if you don't particularly care what a truck looks like, and you don't have to design around a huge petrol engine, and you start with a cleansheet design, you wind up with something that looks a lot like that. It has to have the long sloping back, because the lack of a cover causes huge turbulence which would kill the range of an electric vehicle. Same with the sloping front. Also that shape isn't very complicated to make, which enables you to use a monocoque shell, rather than building a frame and adding panels, which reduces weight, and manufacturing cost, and they're making it out of the same steel that they are using to build their mars rocket, so that's why you can hit it with a hammer.

The other interesting bit that they didn't manage to mention is that the $70,000 version has a range of 500 miles, and has disturbing performance claims. It is however hideous. The other thing about building a pick up truck and focussing on maximising the capabilities, and minimizing the cost, is that that's while they are supposed to be a utilitarian vehicle, that's not why a lot of people buy their pick up trucks. There's got to be a large proportion of people who buy one to make a statement about themselves, even if they are an insurance salesman. Something that looks like this is not going to tickle their fancy. Hence that Rivian Truck, which to my eyes is also a horrendous child's drawing of a truck, but it certainly screams 'Real 'Murica.' A bit like that truck that Daimler makes that looks like 1970's trucks, but really isn't.

[Hot Pepsi]

I like the Tesla truck exactly because it looks like it belongs in a 1989 film called Cybertruck!

[anton pulisov]

I bought a 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer station wagon two months ago for 800 euros. Thing is in near perfect condition. I cycle to work every day, so I only need a car for the odd trip to who knows where. I figured buying an old petrol car and driving less than 5000 km a year will cause less net emissions than whatever emissions will be caused by building a new electric car + battery from scratch.

However, the range is limited, about 120 kilometers, (80 miles?) if you don't use the heating system, a much less with it on, so it may be a stretch to visit your mum 45 minutes away regularly. On the other hand, the car forces you to be economical with energy, which, of course, in itself is a good thing.

I hadn't thought of the heating aspect! Yeah, fossil fuel cars get 'free' heating from the engine. I wonder how electric cars will fare up in Sweden then....

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The cold is a challenge for the batteries even if the car is just sitting there, so.....

[anton pulisov]

Tell me about it, I just had to replace one two weeks ago. Didn't bother buying a new battery. I drive so little the battery will only go to shite anyway. So I got a two year old battery out of a car that a friend was bringing to the scrapheap.

Apparently you can get small little solar panels (5 by 5 cm or so) that generate a small amount of power to keep your battery healthy and topped up when you park your car for a long time. Only problem is, my parking spot is north facing. In Sweden. But it is under a lamp post, so who knows.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Yikes. I think the Nissan Leaf had some problem with its battery that became obvious when they tried to use them in sweden. There's talk of them putting solar panels on the back of that truck to essentially keep the battery topped up, and recharge it a bit when it is parked outside. If anything it will power the temperature control, and security mode.

[anton pulisov]

I see plenty of Renault Zoes driving around.

In fairness, the battery in my 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer had Japanese writing on it.