Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

👍 I tried to plastidip it previously but stopped when I read the bit on the back of the can saying it definitely can cause cancer.
Looks much better, I hate chrome.

T tops are heavier, suspect the MK2 has similar strengthening in the cills that the mk1 did.

Mentioned the supplier as I though they were supposed to be really close cills.

You'd be jealous of the MX5 MK1 inner, middle and outer cils, and the ease fitment. Flip side you shoud see the variance in ford made cortina MK1 inner wings and the later pressed steel one. Then missing spot welds and spot welds that have no welded.

Has anyone got a pure electric vehicle?

Be that a Tesla or BMW I, or leaf, etc?

I've had a gen 1 leaf for almost 4 years..

And do you do long journeys with it?

I mean... do you go to Wales, Lake District, Peak District, Cornwall, Scotland... places beyond the range of the vehicle and that are unlikely to have a high number of places to charge?

If so... what's it like living with a pure electric vehicle, and how does it do at journeys like that?

Leaf only really used for short trips/commuting. I'll post a longer response later.

Awesome, thanks.

I'm pondering a purchase... looking at whether range anxiety is a thing and how bad it is.

Looking at things like N8 postcode to Pitlochry which is 7h 45m via Google Maps and 8h 15m via abetterouteplanner.com with 2 x ~20m fast charging stops. Even a 3 stop route only adds 1 hour overall at 8h 39m.

But this all feels academic, I'm sure reality is not as smooth as the ideal. Things like conditions and driving style reducing range, broken or out of service chargers, etc.

Hah... https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ is awesome... tapped in that I'm totally going above the advertised road speed limit, that I'm loading an extra 300kg in the car, and it's recommended 3 stops and yet reduced the total time to 7h 30m

Still all academic... but I could live with this kind of scenario.

Plastic windows! All the gear, no idea...

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I've only made one long trip in the leaf when i bought it 4 years ago. Chorley to Glasgow. We stopped 4 times to charge (2 miles left on the range indicator at one point). Public chargers were deserted on the M6 and M74 and 30 minutes of quick charge gets you up to over 80%. At that time there were very few electric vehicles about but even then there were rows of Tesla chargers and two public chargers at the motorway services.

The public charger infrastructure is a complete mess with all sorts of different providers who all require a different shitty app.

If you want an electric car to travel long distance the Tesla M3 is the only option because of Tesla's charging infrastructure.

I bought the leaf for financial reasons as that time they were unwanted on the second hand market. The business development manager at Chorley Nissan bought about 50 three year old gen 1 leafs that had been returned on lease and managed to get Nissan to provide warranty and competitive finance. I took out a 3 yr PCP at a stupidly cheap monthly with the view that if the car was shit I'd hand it back. Financially it has barely depreciated and the running costs are tiny. The battery degradation has been reasonable with a reduction in indicated range of about 10 miles. I haven't bothered to analyse the batteries using one of the 3rd party apps and I have always charged to 100% I didn't bother getting a home charge point as the cables are different across manufacturers with the leaf having a type one socket (and a Chademo) so I've just charged with the granny cable to a 3 point plug.

The gen 1 leaf has a conventional heater so range in the winter is an issue. My wife often uses our petrol car if she has more stuff to do.

The leaf is vastly superior to a petrol car for town driving essentially because its quiet, has no gears and instant torque. Ours has been completely reliable but the ICE is typically Nissan shit.

I was tempted to replace our petrol car with a Tesla but there is something really dreary about the M3 and I just couldn't spend £500 a month when there are more interesting options at that price (also I couldn't spend that much on a car despite the tax advantages).

Electric cars make perfect white goods a to b runabouts but for something more interesting I'd still go petrol.

If you’re looking at long range, the Tesla is the only answer right now because of the charging network (both availability of points and speed of charging).

We’ve got a new Renault Zoe coming in July but that will just be used for local trips.

Any thoughts on a Model S? Bit of a balance between practical and interesting?

I'm thinking I should consider electric or hybrid when the PCP is up on our current petrol car.

I'm pondering.

Narked that I chose a Volvo V60 Polestar based on "it's ready and should arrive in a month", only for the lockdown to reveal that actually it's not even been produced yet. And it will still be months before it is produced, and maybe longer before I could use it. In the meantime the spec for the V60 has changed, and the things I couldn't choose because "this one is ready but this spec is fixed" are actually now the default options.

So... continue to buy a new car that already isn't the latest revision of that car, and that doesn't have the few options I would've liked... or return to the end of the queue and get precisely what I wanted and wait longer... or... something else?

Something else being: Maybe a Polestar 2, or maybe just open up the search fully again and start over.

The deposit I paid isn't so much that I would care about walking away from it. And super tiny things matter, like after I'd ordered and when I thought it was a few weeks until the V60 arrived I enquired about getting those few options added (a few £k more) plus some floor mats (£80), etc... and they quoted RRP for everything and wouldn't even consider just throwing the floor mats in... and at that point my view of the dealer went from "they're nice" to "wow, not even kind and generous at the sale stage, maybe this is going to be a bad relationship".

The Polestar 2 looks nice, I can't figure out the cost of a Tesla at all (wherever the discount savings comes from doesn't look like it's this planet), I might just say fuck it and buy a 2nd hand... basically I'm open to considering quite a lot again... except a BMW, anything but a BMW.

If you don't need a car right now, wait. Likely that the car trade is facing a bit of a meltdown. Should be a buyers market.

What kind of car do you want? Saloon, hatch, estate suv? Are you a cash buyer or finance involved?

I'd also check that whether your deposit is refundable if the V60 is delayed.

Edit.. This looks a reasonable lease deal (from the pistonheads thread)

https://zen.auto/search-personal-leasing/special-offers?make=audi&model=a3%20sportback&term=24&miles=8000&initialPayment=1500

Spotted an AE86 Sprinter today.

Absolutely love it.

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The electric car thing is interesting in a way because if you need to do long distances then the car itself becomes unimportant on comparison to the charging infrastructure- and this is where Tesla wins, to an extent that’s not really any contest with the others.

Based on what I have read/watched- no direct personal experience.

With public chargers you never know if they will be broken or occupied when you get there.. The tesla chargers are like a first class lounge in an airport in comparison.

What you're saying about charging is exactly what my dad experienced with a first gen Leaf. He overall enjoyed it but found over the two year lease period that charging points went from plentiful and empty at the start to harder to find working and often hogged by people by the end and it put him off getting another one. This was about 2-3 years ago too so I'd imagine it's much worse now.

@Velocio

A friend here in Toronto just got a Model 3 about 3 months ago and there are definitely pros and cons. They were doing a deal when he got his which meant he got 2 years of Supercharger access for free. He does 100mile round trip a day to the office and this has obviously brought his running costs down. The amount of Superchargers en route means he never has too much of a worry of running out.
I've heard reports of a few year old Model S starting to look pretty shabby inside due to some iffy build quality. This model 3 seems ok new but interior materials make me believe that this is probably going to be the case in a few years too.

that's a fuck yeah. love it.

why would anyone ever want a new car when you can have something like this

Kids, safety, reliability, comfort

That says "boot it to fuck everywhere. LOUD. With metal"

you got the wrong guy

About the electric car thing... Harry's garage did a a few videos comparing normal EVs to a Tesla that specifically demonstrated real world driving including long range drives. For all reasons outlined above the Tesla wins easily. The biggest downside that affects all EVs is highway range is drastically less than urban because there's very little regen. Basically the batteries are in constant drain so you start with 240 miles range, and 20 miles of steady motorway and you're down to 170 miles range. Or something like that. They were good vids, worth a watch.

The new Taycan has impressive range I hear.

@Chalfie
Honestly, when I see cars like that it fills me with childish excitement. A few too many stickers for me, but that's just nitpicking.