So my phone rang. I was busy, so I declined the call. When I arrived home, I had an email from Renault Financial Services – or Mobilize as they now call themselves. They had been trying to get hold of me and I could use the chat facility. So I did. As I had already contacted them a few weeks back, I presumed that this was a follow up on my decision to refinance the balloon payment. This would work nicely for me and the payments would reduce, so a win/win.
Nope.
I spent several minutes on the chat being asked if I wanted to trade in my car and if I didn’t want an EV, then they had a hybrid. I ended up telling them that I’d already had this discussion with the dealer. Indeed, I’m not sure why a finance company is doing the job of the dealer anyway. I don’t want a hybrid Clio. They don’t do a replacement Megane and I am not buying an EV.
What a pointless waste of five minutes.
l thought the ev’s were so desirable they were flying out of the showrooms.
Maybe not.
I really love my Korando. It’s twelve years old now, is just coming up to 100,000 miles and still goes really well. I think that the desperation to sell EVs is going to become interesting in the near future, dealers are going to be stuck with thousands of them that they won’t be able to shift. New ones are inferior to an ICE car, a used one with no way of knowing how good the battery is has to be pretty much worthless.
https://jalopnik.com/so-many-unsold-teslas-are-piling-up-that-you-can-see-th-1851526312
My S_I_L and B_I_L bought a low mileage Toyota C-HR hybrid nine months ago for £23k. She doesn’t like driving it and so last week they asked the selling Toyota dealer what it was worth as a trade in. With a a straight face they said £16k. It rather confirmed my view that they can’t get rid of the buggers fast enough but don’t want them back.
“l thought the ev’s were so desirable they were flying out of the showrooms.”
Yes they are. And each one is accompanied by a flock of pigs.
I didn’t think that hybrids were too unpopular as they don’t have the problems with range and charging points that full electric vehicles have. I presume that they can operate in low emission zones without having to pay a charge. Presumably the smaller batteries aren’t as ruinous to replace if they die. Plug in hybrids can also potentially save you money by using off peak electricity although I did read a report from a guy who worked at a dealership who said that trade ins nearly always came back with the charging cable still sealed in the packaging.
OT but has anyone been over to Fahrenheit 211 recently and seen the video of the rapping Labour candidate?
Anyone who buys an EV, or even a hybrid, has fallen for it and is only encouraging the nonsense to continue. If we all just refuse to participate, the whole EV market will evaporate and we can get back to continuously improving simple internal combustion engines in performance, economy and cleanliness, although the latter is questionable as they have never have had, and never will have, any negative impact on the planet’s climate.
That’s pretty much my approach. Even a hybrid is a compromise too far. ICE or nothing.
I don’t agree with this. I think you need to distinguish between plug in and mild hybrids. I have a mild hybrid which has a light electric motor that helps at idling speeds and with the torque curve. Driving it is exactly like driving a pure ICE car. The electric motor simply makes the car a bit more efficient than it would be without it.
As you are always carrying the extra weight of the battery, I’m not sure how more efficient it really is.
EVs are on average 25% heavier than ICE cars, weight that needs to be carried around at all times. Even given that there are less parasitic losses than with ICE, I would not be surprised that EVs use more energy. I don’t recall ever having seen anything about that point, rather like the dog that doesn’t bark.
A year or so ago I rented a hybrid Fiat Panda for a week, as opposed to the classic ICE Panda that I would normally use on a holiday island.
A ruined car, the extra weight completely emasculated the car in all aspects: acceleration, braking, handling, it was truly dreadful, with no saving graces at all. Never again.
An owner would also discover the additional costs from increased brake-wear, suspension-load and tyre-wear, all flowing directly from the excess weight introduced to what was previously a simple, sprightly runabout. And that’s just a hybrid – a full EV is a nightmare on wheels. Never for me.
This is simply not the case with my car. The electric motor weighs 25kg. Considerably less than the weight of an adult person.
Perhaps my last was too cryptic. The electric motor in my mild hybrid, and so far as I know other mild hybrids, is not there to provide a separate motor capable of powering the car by itself, but to increase the efficiency of the ICE. This it successfully does; the performance is almost the same as that of the earlier non hybrid version of the same engine but the petrol consumption is improved.
What do they know that we don’t?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL056wvE2d8
“I’m not sure why a finance company is doing the job of the dealer anyway.”
Because the parent company is desperate. The government quotas are on sales, not manufacturing. They face being fined for failing to sell things that nobody wants to buy.
Honk!
Car companies have long been making their profit from their finance arms.
I saw a video that claimed that Harley Davidson are planning to revive their flagging fortunes by making electric motorcycles. These will appeal to a younger demographic apparently. Experts say that electric bikes are the future. HD shareholders are bailing as fast as they can. I don’t know how true any of this is but, if true, it will be interesting to see what happens.
HD tried it and it failed. Dismally.
So I’m a bit out of date with my news, it was just a video that I came across on YouTube. I never really understood the attraction of Harleys. Sure they have their own distinctive character but they seem to under perform on every metric compared with pretty much everything else and are far more expensive as well.
Electric motorcycles are pretty much the same really, I wonder what qualifications you need to be an expert?