Buy all your VW California Accessories at the Club Shop Visit Shop

Which electric car to buy?

The BYD Atto 3 is making a good shout for itself. Strong Chinese battery and BEV company (they make all your electric buses and 20% of the cell phone batteries). Nice design cues, without going crazy, patented battery tech. Price is a bit strong but that is probably due to the sector at which its aimed.
 
Maybe an alternative to the ID Buzz
That’s the ugliest car I’ve seen in a while. Perhaps it looks better when on the road.

Also big. Car designers always conveniently forget that when out and about, we have to park in standard sized car parking spaces. If they’re going to keep making bigger cars, a sliding door would be good.
 
Perfect - I need an estate for the dogs - currently have a Polestar tuned XC70 for dog duties
 
I hear that EV owners might be allowed to drive both ways down one way streets. Bonkers! What with EVs being quiet sounds like a few deaths might be on the cards! Who are these people!
 
Interesting.


ELECTRIC cars are being written off after minor damage to batteries, casting renewed doubt on their environmental credentials.

About half of low-mileage electric vehicles being salvaged have suffered minor battery damage – which can be caused by something as innocuous as mounting a kerb – according to Copart, an online car auction platform.

A senior source in the insurance industry said car makers were not sharing diagnostic data because they were wary of third parties botching repairs. As a result, insurance firms are reluctant to attempt repairs and take responsibility should anything go wrong.

“A lot of people are quite scared of what to do with them,” he said. “If a car is not powered down correctly you could get electrocuted.”

The battery issue comes as the Government unveiled plans to force car manufacturers to sell an increasing proportion of electric cars in the run-up to the ban on petrol car sales in 2035.

The source said electric vehicles could be sent to the scrapheap for minor bumps, such as mounting a kerb.

“In rare instances, the damage could even lead to a volatile situation,” he said. “The battery could catch on fire.”

Batteries are the most expensive part of an electric car, accounting for around 50 per cent of its value, and there are “only a few qualified technicians in the UK able to remove a battery, let alone repair it”, said Chris Payne, head of engineering at motor insurer LV.

The placement of the battery can make it more likely that an electric car will be damaged in a minor accident, say experts. This includes ones with the common “skateboard design”, which places the battery underneath the car.

Edmund King, AA president, said: “On electric vehicles the battery can, in effect, form part of the chassis, so if there is serious structural damage it might mean the car is written off.”

Mr Payne said: “Electric vehicles are environmentally friendly, but if you write one off, questions start to be raised on the environmental impact.”

The Department for Business and Trade has been asked for comment
 
Not to mention the increasing insurance premiums to cover such huge loses.
And yet, with EVs having by now generated a bunch of reasonably good actuarial data for insurance companies, EVs are not overall especially more expensive to insure than their ICE counterparts.

(If cars had just been invented the Telegraph would no doubt be writing articles citing "industry insiders" about how much more expensive it's going to be to replace all those expensive tyres, compared with forging horseshoes.)
 
Back
Top