munchie said:
stefan9107 said:
Seems to be that a lot of manufacturers are back peddling on EV now. They're all seeing that the appetite just isn't there from the customers outside of the company car/fleet sector.
I just think it was a typical knee jerk reaction from governments to try and shut up the environmentalists and force through EV's a lot quicker than it was ever going to happen. It's almost like they forgot to take into account what do people actually want, and what can people actually afford?
A not heavily spec'd i-Pace SE (in fact no options at all outside of the SE kit and £735 paint) is £78,000 new... or you can get a low mileage 3 year old one for £30,000...
And they wonder why no one wants a new one.
As a comparison, you can get an E-Pace D200 HSE for £52,000 brand new and lowish mileage 3 year old one is still £31-33k.
For £3000 LESS than the i-Pace, you can get a 400 Sport F-Pace with all the trimmings, and that will still be worth at least £40k in 3 years time.
So yeh, any company going ALL in on EV is basically committing suicide.
I didnt believe the used pricing on the Ipaces but a quick check on Autotrader shows that they are dropping massively in price, and at 30k thats including a dealers markup of around 4-5k for a 21/22 plate car - seemingly a bargain to be had.
It doesn't seem to stop there though. A 2018 SE with around 30-40k miles is around the £19-21k mark.
So it might look like a bargain, but you need to be back out of it again within 3 years.
The new price is already a killer - look at the new Macan EV that STARTS from £70,000 vs the old one that starts from £53,000. How many fewer were they already going to sell because of range anxiety, a bad charging network, inability to charge at home etc, before you add on the fact that it's in a whole different class of buyer at £20k more. Bad used prices will then push that PCP deal even more front heavy increasing the monthly as well (which is how most buy cars these days).
Then the second issue with EV's - the second price drop due to the battery warranty expiring and degradation. Traditional ICE cars drop 30-40% in the first 3 years and then they level out and the depreciation slows right down. It's on a nice curve that is very front loaded. EV's are going to have that bigger drop at the start, and then another drop when the battery warranty is expiring due to the fear of being saddled with a replacement that is MORE than the value of the car, or a battery that has 50-70% less range (which on the I-Pace was already bad when new according to my local JLR garage).
Battery degradation is very reliant on how the car is treated throughout it's life and that's something you can't guarantee. Harry's video covered a guy called Bjorn Nyland who has been testing it and it showed that cars used in a very hot climate, or cars that were fast charged frequently lost a lot more. For example a 2 year old E-Tron had already lost 9% of it's battery capacity, but it had been DC fast charged most of the time. Then there was a 2019 Nissan Leaf that had lost 54% because it was based out in California (I'm sure other factors pushed the number that high). Equally there was a Tesla Model S that had lost only 15% in 10 years though.
Now worrying about how a used car was treated prior to you has always been an issue, but not on the same scale and it's never affected something that is already an issue with new EV's... range. If you need to replace the battery in an I-Pace you are looking at a £20,000 bill, which if you bought a 2018 SE means the value of the whole car. If dealers want to move new cars, they need used prices to hold up, which means they are going to have to start guaranteeing batteries longer or testing them and advertising the depleted range on approved used schemes.
We are already seeing EV sales struggling now we are up at 16% of cars sold in 2023. Even with improvements in range, used prices coming up once dealers/users get a handle on age effects etc, I really can't ever see that going past 25-30%. Not unless new prices really start to come down or the gubberment step in and start offering subsidies.
) will feel up to date design wise even longer. 
