Electric Vehicles EVs

Yes, I think that’s it exactly.

No doubt significantly down to silly low interest rates.

My dad bought a brand new bottom-of-the-range Maestro Clubman in 1990. I nagged him unsuccessfully to at least get the LX with central locking and electric front windows. They’d been saving for years for it. I think it was £6k. These days the move would be to put that £6k down and get something for £30k or more.

Isn't that just symptomatic of modern day society, stretch yourself with as much finance as you can afford get to make it look like you have more money than you do.

I work with a bunch of guys that are on well under £30k salaries, living with parents or in cheap rented accommodation but are driving £40k, 50k and 60k motors.

Don't know how new it is either, 12 or 13 years ago I knew a guy that was living with his parents and waiting till he'd paid off the finance on his Range Rover sport thing before moving into a flat. He told me his finance payments were something like £450 a month which would have been plenty to rent a decent place up here (Glasgow) at the time and more than my mortgage payments were when I bought a place a few years later.

There’s the company car aspect to all this too with the tiny BIK on electric cars - it was at 0% a few years ago and is now 2%, but that still means company car drivers can drive a £60k E-Tron and pay 60/120 quid a month depending if they’re on basic or higher rate tax. It’s like cycle to work in that whilst maybe it encourages a bit of take up of a less polluting mode of transport it mainly acts as a perk for the already very well off.

I work with a bunch of guys that are on well under £30k salaries, living with parents or in cheap rented accommodation but are driving £40k, 50k and 60k motors.

This is something I don't understand at all (I don't really understand car obsession full stop), round here people live in absolute shit holes but have 60k plus motors, washing and waxing it every other day.

It blows my mind that anyone would prioritise spending on a car over their house.

It blows my mind that anyone would prioritise spending on a car over their bikes.

ftfy

Obvs, that goes without saying.

completely agree with you on the car thing though.
I secretly like cars (shhh, don't tell anyone!)
but I don't like them so much that I'm going to prioritise a massive chunk of my income on one, and can't understand the mentality of people who do.
maybe I'm just a tight arse?

people live in absolute shit holes but have 60k plus motors, washing and waxing it every other day.

I guess it’s just what gives you the most pleasure. From a sensible financial perspective it’s the house every time, but it can be fun and liberating to ignore prudence and buy cool shit. Also, no one down the pub or at football knows ho low cool your house is, but they all get to see your car.

I bloody love cars. But I’m also tight. I live in a constant state of uncomfortable dissonance

If the people down the pub can see your car you are doing the pub wrong

My man drives it home.

I bloody love cars. But I’m also tight. I live in a constant state of uncomfortable dissonance

Snap

I’ve got to lease a car for work. They pay for most of it. If I’d had a mg4 I would only have to put a small amount in. Instead it’s going to cost £150 per month. But that includes mot, service, tyres etc etc.

By my rough calcs, equivalent car prices have doubled in the last 20 years - have salaries?

I’m looking for a new car and wondering who the fuck is buying all the performance models at £30k+ for a hot hatch! In my mind a decent used car is under £10k so paying £500+ a month is madness but perhaps once you start down that road it normalises itself?

Our household income is just about top 10% I think but that kind of monthly hit would mean scraping by in other areas.

I blame the yut. Young people who live at home are going to want nice things so when they see an advert for a merc amg on pcp they think they can afford it. But they’ll never own it. It’s renting a car. The only people who lose are the consumer

The cost of car PCP pales into the distance when compared to the cost of sending kids to university. One of the reasons I've got a £3k Ka on the drive lol.

Blatant golf club application with that last sentence.

Finance cost drives it for sure. My pal is taking delivery of a new Honda Civic on Thursday for just under £50k. Nuts.

However. A neighbour recently recalled to me buying a brand new 3 bed terrace house in Cambridge in the late 70s for £11k. At the time his BMW company car cost exactly the same.

Today the house is probably £450k and the car maybe £45k. So maybe cars are overdue a price rise.

Will there be a price hike nearer 2030 when ICE sales stop and luddites want what they've had for the last 100+ years? I wonder when the ICE fueling infrastructure will change?

That's insane, but we see it all the time. Folk dont have 2k to replace a boiler in there house that's 15/20 years old and knackered but have a new motor in the drive. Its all for show and an insane way to look at it. Id rather have a shit car and money in other stuff than have a new car and not a pot to piss in for a rainy day.

A price rise, jesus even the cheap ones aren't as cheap as they use to be. A new defender starts about 100k id say the price rise has already happened in certain parts.

I think the difference between a house and a car is one appreciates and the other deprecates.

I’m not sure it’s too much of a boast given some people on here clearly manage it with one income!
More the point that we’re doing ok and cannot fathom buying a £30k car (ie base model EV) on finance, let alone the higher spec stuff.

So it looks like I'm getting a Tesla Model Y. Went to the Tesla dealer to have a look, wife approves also.

Welcome to the club. I love mine.

Me too! Just awaiting confirmation of stock deal prices :)

Appears I'm also in the golf club too.
Fortunately the Model Y has ample space for an electric golf trolley

You'd fit a couple of sets of clubs, easy.