Back with a new scooter - its electric!

[Waldorf]

Following this thread with interest!

My NIU moped has just clocked up 1000km/650 miles and I'm still very happy with it.

The top speed is 45MPH so not as quick as the Silence SO 1 but it's quick enough for my local trips.
I will be very interested to see how the Silence's actual range compares with the advertised range; the NIU manages a little less than published figures.

Please keep us up-to-date.

[roadster]

...Well not exactly. The scooter is fine but I managed to break the battery undercarriage mechanism which supports the 40kg battery pack when its removed. I tried to wheel over a doorstep and I think it bottomed out somehow and broke a hinge on the strut which locks the mechanism in a wheels and foot down position.

DSCF2233-hinge-small.jpg

The arrow points to the hinge that broke ( on the hidden side ). It works as an over-centre locking strut to keep the foot extended which in turn locks the wheels in the down position. The hinge pin has a hairpin spring which makes sure the two parts do not fold accidentally but it means there is a big load on the plastic composite. My modification ( AKA bodge ) leaves out the spring and instead anchors a heavy duty rubber band ( slice of inner tube ) to produce the same effect but without loading the hinge. The blue cable ties just hold the band in place and don't have any role in the mechanism. The lesson is that 40kg can't just be lugged around over obstacles. For practical purposes its too heavy and awkward to lift. Admittedly the undercarriage shouldn't rely on plastic components but then it would weigh even more.

[Waldorf]

Oh dear! What a bummer!

I bet your repair is better than the original, though.

Take care.

[Data]

My bro in law has bought the new Kia E-Niro with 202hp and 300 mile range on a full charge. It goes 0-62mph in 7.2secs or there abouts. In fact Kia tell us it does 382 miles on a single charge in urban and town use. Overall since he has had it (8 months now) he averages 315 miles on a single charge. When doing mostly motorway work cruising at 65-70mph it returns anywhere between 265 to 284 miles on a single charge.

But how much does it cost? Spec sounds nearly useful -I regularly have to do a 255 mile journey down South....and to go electric I'd need something that could guarantee that I'd get there on one charge ( allowing for any congestion induced diversions), at 70mph the whole way, in winter with the heating on and summer with the AirCon on, plus wipers, lights etc. And presumably the range and power of the batteries will decline over time, like phone batteries?

Well the Kia E-niro has been voted the top 'E' car in europe for reliability, range, performance and just about everything else and has a very useful 7 year warranty. Again the warranty has been voted the best on any car by all the big mags and motoring organisations. New they come out at £34k+ with the government grant so a bit more than I want to pay just now. However, it is fully loaded and has every conceivable extra. Just going back to reliability, there's little to go wrong compared to ice cars and they just keep going, that influences second hand prices. And the performance of these babies is amazing with 400nm or torque available from zero revs. At 30 miles per hour with the traction control switched of if you floor it the front wheels smoke and squeal. Yes they have that much power!

Bro in law used the air con last summer and it didn't seem to impact the range at all, although obviously it must do. But he didn't notice it and he's done some reasonable amount of running around in it. But range anxiety is not something you need to worry about. The car tells you when to charge and where. It shows you all the charging points as you drive and whether they are in use. There are thousands of charging points and they are growing in numbers at an exponential rate. You can often charge for free at charge points in hotels if you are a guest, in supermarkets and big shed car parks etc, at least around here. But on motorways there is no shortage of chargers.

The thing about electric vehicles is that most of them are already as cheap to buy as a ice engined cars. It just depends on how you buy it. The retail price on all EV's is falling and will reach actual parity with ice cars in a year or two so they are saying now.

The big bonus is that most electric cars do not depreciated in price hardly at all. You can pay 30k for a one year old Kia E-niro with 50,000 miles on the clock. I recently saw a used one with 38,000 miles on the clock just over one year old at £29,000. They don't go wrong, the engines are good for 600,000 miles and the batteries should last you 15+ years or a lot more if you look after them. On that note there are thousands of 13 year old Nissan Leaf EV's going around using the original batteries. The batteries are still ok and giving as much as 90% of their original range. Some will have depleted to 80% if owners didn't look after them. There is no cut off point for batteries as to when you should replace them. They can go for 20 year or more so I'm told. Big business has turned to using EV cars big time as they are so cheap to run. You can get back the still slight extra cost of buying one very quickly. Service costs are tiny and vary from car to car between being just 25-30% of the cost of an ice vehicle.

Just a note. If you watch any Youtube videos be aware that US car testers show a different range for EV cars. This is due to a different system they use to calculate the range. Ours is a better way of doing it.

My next car will be an EV.

[riders in the storm]

You can pay 30k for a one year old Kia E-niro with 50,000 miles on the clock.

Really ?

I'm sure you could but would anyone....? Surely not ?

We've just bought a 3 year old Nissan Leaf top of the range model in work, immaculate, 23000 miles, from a Nissan main dealer for £12.5k.

I think that is at least 50% depreciation, same as any other mass produced hatchback.

Other than that I agree with everything you say, and our next car will be full EV......

[Data]

Yes it sounds like you have a bargain. But is it a work car? That would be the slightly smaller version if I'm correct with the smaller battery pack and shorter range and not the new bigger version. They are good cars but that version is much cheaper to buy used. Is that price excluding any VAT? It sounds as if you bought it at below trade price. Don't forget the Leaf 3 years ago was a much cheaper car. And of course it does vary from make to make and even area to area. The E-niro is highly sort after, as I expect the newer version of the Leaf is. I have seen top of the range 1 year old Leafs at £25k with 25,000 miles on the clock. They are good as new. There is nothing wrong with buying a high mileage EV car as the engines don't wear out in the same way as ice cars, and there is no transmission in the conventional sense to worry about. It's all solid stuff. They are very cheap to service and work on. I spent some time pondering whether to buy an EV last year as I was so impressed with the E-niro. Lots of the myths surrounding them are just that, myths. Range and charging are the two biggest issues that folks always brings up and simply don't realise these are for most people never going to be an issue. However, I will be keeping my Citroen that I bought new 2.5years ago for quite a bit longer. I do like it.

[riders in the storm]

My boss ordered it, the price includes VAT and it was a retail purchase from a Nissan main dealer ( but no p/x). She is WFH so spent ages researching them, we already have the van version on the company fleet so we knew we would be happy with it, it is the 30kw version. It is more than fast enough for our staff, we don't need or want them to smoke the tyres from 30mph ( )...

I'm fairly confident that the depreciation at 3 years old is 50%. The Niro may or may not be sought after but I think once the early adopters have filled their boots a Kia will depreciate like a Nissan.?

I will hang on another two years ( both our ICE cars are fairly new anyway) and then have no doubt I can pick up a tidy EV for half price......

[DTO]

I would like my next scooter to be electric but the high price puts me off .
For example a new Vespa gts300 hpe is £2000 cheaper than the electric version that only does 45mph . I know which one I would choose

Plus the fact that Yamaha / Honda etc don’t seem keen on producing any Electric scooter s / motorbikes any time soon !

[Data]

My boss ordered it, the price includes VAT and it was a retail purchase from a Nissan main dealer ( but no p/x). She is WFH so spent ages researching them, we already have the van version on the company fleet so we knew we would be happy with it, it is the 30kw version. It is more than fast enough for our staff, we don't need or want them to smoke the tyres from 30mph ( )...

I'm fairly confident that the depreciation at 3 years old is 50%. The Niro may or may not be sought after but I think once the early adopters have filled their boots a Kia will depreciate like a Nissan.?

I will hang on another two years ( both our ICE cars are fairly new anyway) and then have no doubt I can pick up a tidy EV for half price......

Yes they are very good indeed, and that was a good price even for the 30kw car. But if it is only the 30kw car few will normally want that version as it's way out of date when compared to current versions which are bigger and more powerful with a far better range, faster charging etc so it will depreciate faster. But as I said it does not alter the fact it is a good car and it's a brilliant way to get an EV if you can live with the range. On the whole the earlier Leafs did suffer from rapid depreciation due to the lack of widespread uptake of EVs and fears about the battery pack life and prices. All unfounded. It's really only in the last 4 years that EV's are establishing themselves as mainstream and showing us what they can do from every angle including finacially. EV's are the only area of car sales that are expanding at an exponential rate here in the Uk and europe. EV sales were greater in the UK than petrol car sales last August and sales are rapidly accelerating. It is predicted by the trade that EV's will on the whole retain much higher values than petrol or diesel cars purely because they don't wear out in the same way as ice engined cars. So far this is being born out by what is happening. The average engine life can vary but all of them are expected to exceed 500,000 miles, with useful lithium Ion battery life near the 20 year range. Indeed in the States there are many EV vehicles with 600,000 miles on the clock. Not sure how they did that but it's been fairly widely reported and there are some YouTube videos about them.

Buying a used EV is a little different to buying an ice car or van. EV engines are not really a concern in the same way as ice engines. Batteries can be easily checked for capacity and overall condition. So if it's a high mileage car that isn't something to be afraid of in the same way as you might be if you were looking to buy an ice car. It's things like brakes (EV brakes can have a much easier time too), tyres, and general overall condition of the car you will look for. Bearing in mind how much you can save running an EV it makes them a no brainer for just about all of us now that there are cars offering a good range and rapid charging. And just around the corner are battery packs that will be lighter, faster charging with longer overall life, and giving double the range we get now. Thinking this is all good!

Bikes and scooter have a considerable way to go to catch up. But they will come good very soon. And the prices will come down considerably.

[MrGrumpy]

Yeah, EVs probably will get better & more useful and cheaper as technology develops. But I'm waiting until these things come along...I'm not going to throw lots of money now at something that doesn't meet my needs.