Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Time for Electric Power?

I was swapping the motorhome in a garage that was also an MG main dealer - had a look at their EV model (looked like a Nissan quashqai - I was impressed with it to look at inside(leather modern interior) and out for £27k.

Which just published an article on a 3 year cost of ownership comparing the EV and Ice versions of cars. Basic RRP for buying plus service, fuel, tax etc.
A couple of examples....
Mini. Mini One EV cost £6800 more than petrol version.
Peugeot 2008. EV cost £4200 more than 1.2 petrol.
The biggest savings are fuel cost but the big increased RRP for EV massively affects the calculation.
Mini EV is £9400 more.
Peugeot £6600 more.
Mini EV takes approx 11 years to break even with the petrol version.
Peugeot breakeven is about 7 years.

I wonder how the breakdown looks if you buy used? A 5 year old BMW i3 Rex is around 12 to 15k. Although the electric range is pretty low, for most people I would think that it would be perfectly adequate. I did read somewhere that the reason BMW dropped the Rex version was because they were having problems with the engines as they weren't used enough - but I don't know how true that is.

That's still twice the price of an equivalent 1 series though, so the fuel and servicing costs are going to have to do a fair amount of heavy lifting if the cost equation is to pan out.

I suspect, however, that cost is not the main driver in many EV purchases.

Tim, I think the Rex engine unreliability is a bit of an urban myth, if the user has been really good at charging and run for weeks on pure EV then the car automatically runs the Rex engine through a cycle ever so often, you get a dash data warning and then it cuts in mid journey

You can also force the Rex to run if the battery is under 70% charge, (which I did before a long journey with no charge points) so you can easily test it

Thanks Jon, that's really useful info. 2 other questions if I may.

1. What sort of real-world EV-only range do you get?

2. If the battery level drops and it switches over to the Rex engine, can you just keep topping up the fuel tank with petrol to do a long journey? Like could I drive to Scotland without stopping to recharge the battery?

Many thanks

Tim, mine was the 94kW, (I did run an earlier one with 60kW as well)

The 94kW Rex would do around 120 miles on pure EV, & yes you could run 'unlimited range' by just topping up the petrol for the Rex generator, we've done London & back sometimes without plugging in

When BMW dropped the Rex in the UK they bunged some extra batteries in the Rex space increasing to just over 120kW, the published range was I think 193 miles

Sounds good. It looks like you can get a 2016 (pre £130 tax) Rex for around £16k, and even if the 120 mile range has dropped substantially we would still be able to run full electric nearly all the time.

I'll do some more pondering.

When I was recently looking at possibly buying a used ev, the BMW looked by far the best value to me Tim.
I almost went for it....but not quite.
Nick

Yes, I particularly like the quirky looks and the way it's been designed specifically as an EV. The alternatives are bit bland and unimaginative to my eye. There's much better choice in the new car sector of course, but prices are bit on the high side for me really.

BMW battery warranty is 8yrs / 100,000 miles on the i3, so used aren't a huge risk if bought from a main dealer who can run you a capacity % report