Going electric

Hi folks

Just a note so say I'm leaving. We've had our 2003 A2 since it was 4 years old (purchased from Carlisle Audi). It's been a fantastic car. I've practically rebuilt the suspension and brakes during our ownership and just serviced it yesterday (gets an oil change every 10k). Now at 166k and running sweet as a nut. I'll post details of the car on the sale section as the trade-in value from the garage was frankly insulting.

I'll still pop into the forum from time to time as the level of DIY expertise, technical knowledge of the A2 and friendly banter I've experienced is up there with the best, so thank you for that.

My wife has opted for a 15-plate BMW i3 range extender, so we're swapping aluminium for carbon fibre, so no concerns about impending rust!

Only down side is I won't be allowed to touch it, with spanners anyway! Besides I don't want an electric shock!

Thanks again. :)
 
Just handed back my 66 i3 .

They are great cars but the back door design is crazy, just park next to a car and try and get people in the back.

But apart from that they are a GREAT car and I am sure you will love the economy, the instant torque, the way that you hardly ever have to brake and lack of pollution.

I will bet that you will return to A2 ownership in the future (perhaps in addition to the i3?)

Steve B
 
Nooooooooooooooooooo.

I tested a BMW i3 for a week and on the Rex the economy was no better than a petrol Audi A2. The seats were super uncomfortable and forget about that weird rear door thing. So many times my daughter could not get out of the back seat as the front door needed to open fully first.
Try and go fast in it and those thin space saver wheels get all flightly.
Plus mental regen is not customisable.

I would have gone for the Hyundai Ionic. 170 mile range, plenty of space and customisable regen and super super comfortable.

I bought a Nissan Leaf and the Hyundai is next on the list.

BTW I've gone the opposite to you and just bought an A2. Had you mentioned it a couple of days ago I would have bitten your hand off.

Hope the i3 goes well for you.
 
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I did really like the i3 I had for a weekend test, the performance was amazing, yes the ride was pretty poor, but no worse than the A2 on 17", kids loved the doors but not sure they would feel the same trying to get in on a wet school run, but overall very tempted to have one but couldn't really justify the cost as I do such a low mileage, so bought my wife a Fiat 500c and took the keys to 'her A2 ' now my company Lexus IS going back.

Enjoy yours.
 
I will be going the same route this year some time. Love to stay Audi, but they offer nothing quirky, designer, different in the BEV market, just more of the same dull euro-boxes.

Chris
 
I will be going the same route this year some time. Love to stay Audi, but they offer nothing quirky, designer, different in the BEV market, just more of the same dull euro-boxes.

Chris

Couldn't agree more. I've be been buying Audi since 1995 and simply love diesel. Looked at the A1 and felt distinctly underwhelmed in terms of design and technology.

Audi need to rethink this part of the market and people will follow.
 
Oh I almost forgot, don't forget the outlandish servicing costs and the odd quiet recall (service fix) which tries to fix either smoke inhalation or fire risk from the Rex's mini engine on the i3.

That said, I did admire the look of the i3 and really did like the mobile app integration so you could track the car or warm it up on a cold morning. Though my Nissan does the same thing but easier.

My suggestion, take it for a long drive (get a weeks test drive) and do all the things in it you would normally do and make that Rex kick in as see what happens to the performance and the noise levels.

Although I've loved having a fully Electric car for the last 18 months there are things to consider.

You have to have a smart phone and hundreds of different charging apps some precharged with money or credit card details.
On family days out longer than the range of your (sometimes not more than the Range of your car) car you'll be needing those apps even more to search for those sometimes misplaced chargers which may or may not be working.
Having a Rex will still not mean you won't want to charge, if anything, it's the opposite, you'll be that person who is always searching for a charging point and always need the Type 2 7kwh charge point at the minimum. Free parking will mean you sometimes get free parking too, but be careful not to just leave the car in the space without charging as there are horror stories of notes being left on cars by other lekky car drivers.

Those smart apps are even more important in other countries when for hunting for chargers.
Though if your getting a PCP you can't go out of the UK without permission first or you will invalidate your agreement, we had no issues with that thankfully we we bought the car outright.

Free chargers and free parking are rare outside of Bedfordshire. Connection fees or subscriptions are beoming popular.
Ecotricity (all chargers on the Motorway) are still more expensive than your home Electricity costs, last rate was 17p per kwh. Doing a lot of miles, then forget Ecotricity as you would be better off with a diesel if they are your only option.
Chargemaster are an excellent company and their subscription is moderate and charge delivery is 9p per kwh plus you can enter a competition each month to drive any car they have in their fleet like Teslas Model S, Model X etc.
If you are charging at Ikea then your Ecotricity charging is free as long as you go into to the store and tell them your charging apparently.

Get as many charge RFID cards you can as they are invaluable when you have run out of data or the signal is bad on your smart phone.

There are some many more issues with having an electric car past the car, it's actually harder to drive sometimes for all the other things you have to do first.
Planning, planning, planning then to get to your destination to charge and an ICE car or truck or caravan is parked in the bay so you can't charge.
Or you need a special code to make it work and the person who has it has gone home.
You can't call Ecotricity on Sundays as they do not have someone manning a phone on Sundays. Unbelievable.
OMG the list is endless.

They are a fun toy though.
 
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I'll shut up after this rant, sorry.

One other thing about electric cars. Battery degradation and the cost of replacing it once you go out of warranty.
Put you foot down and you can watch your GID's (something you'll know once you get an electric car as it will become an obsession) disappear never to return.
Treat it gently and you will get moderate degradation, never charge to 100% if you want your battery to last but this will kill your range so you think, I'll only charge to 100% this one time. Then your charging to 100% all the time. Then with your fast torque you'll show those ICE cars how fast an electric is off the line. Then you kiss your lovely GIDs goodbye.

GID's are a measure of your batteries true state of charge.
So if you multiply "Gids" * 80, you get the true capacity in watt hours, or you can multiply by .08 and get kWh.

In simples, less GID's less range.

If your on a PCP deal then great, treat like a rental car, thrash the S out of it and give it back making sure the body work is ok as the rest of the car is knacked. In three years the battery will be on that slow decline to range loss anyway.

So having an electric car is actually a false economy, high price of the car, the electric fuel savings seem great.
But if you buy a secondhand car and plan to keep it for a long time, the cost of eventually replacing the batteries is actually the same cost of servicing an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) car and worse if you've had to pay for any electricity or connection fee's along the way.
Just travel up the motorway and charge via Ecotricity you'll see you would have been better off with an ICE car.
Don't forget the depreciation too. Although VW Golfs still command a high resale value, it's because the first Generation was really range limited and they barely made any. Next years batch of longer range Electric cars will be so much better the older batch will drop remarkably.

I'm done. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.
 
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All of the above may be true, depending on your method of purchase or how long you are keeping it.

I'd note that for a car, that is almost 20 years old in design, the A2 is as fresh as the current crop of Audi offering, bar a sweeping LED indiactor and an angry face, with a gawping grill.
Audi are behind in their offerings for alternative fuel models, IMHO. And will need to catch up fast if they aren't going to lose out big style.

And I have considered converting my A2 to electric. There is a company in Somerset that will do the conversion. I won't pretend i'll do it, I have an MG Midget in the garage that still needs attention after 25 years of being idle LOL.

So my plan is i3 and then see what's about in 3 years or so. I intend to test a Kia Soul, Zoe, Leaf, ioniq and i3 to see how the others compare, who's to say the others might be better. Love to wait for a Model 3, but....

Chris
 
All of the above may be true, depending on your method of purchase or how long you are keeping it.

I'd note that for a car, that is almost 20 years old in design, the A2 is as fresh as the current crop of Audi offering, bar a sweeping LED indiactor and an angry face, with a gawping grill.
Audi are behind in their offerings for alternative fuel models, IMHO. And will need to catch up fast if they aren't going to lose out big style.

And I have considered converting my A2 to electric. There is a company in Somerset that will do the conversion. I won't pretend i'll do it, I have an MG Midget in the garage that still needs attention after 25 years of being idle LOL.

So my plan is i3 and then see what's about in 3 years or so. I intend to test a Kia Soul, Zoe, Leaf, ioniq and i3 to see how the others compare, who's to say the others might be better. Love to wait for a Model 3, but....

Chris

I'd love to see an Audi A2 electric but only time will tell if they make one.

The Kia Soul is as aerodynamic as a brick and although semi comfortable has a lack of boot space an no connectivity that the Nissan or i3 has.
The Zoe is good but again small.
The Nissan are also not fantastic with range and the speedo is famously over estimated by 4mph. The connectivity app is awesome though the GPS maps are not upgradeable or updatable so you have to buy a new SD card to update it.
The Ioniq seems to have thought through the spec but it does not offer app or GPS connectivity.
The i3 to me is pretty but lacking in all areas that matter to me, such as practicality and price.
The VW is something I wanted but the range is woefully poor plus there are issues that VW don't really give a toss about them so the dealer back up is awful.
The Tesla, ah the Tesla. Fantastically heavy car, super pretty, super expensive and you'll never want to park it anywhere where there are people as one scratch will send you mental. Charging is free as long as you pay a fee up front to have the free charging service (or was the case when I went to buy one) so beware extra costs involved.

Also to note, electric car ownership is marred by a woefully limited charging spaces across the country. Although they are slowly making it better the more people who adopt electric cars over ICE cars will see people not being able to charge their cars as the "benefits" of electric car ownership means people using destination charges as their own free private parking spaces all day. Thus blocking anyone else being able to charge there.
 
In the interest of balancing the understandable negative comments.

My i3 did not have ANY service costs because the first service was three years after I leased it and the lease would have finished before they kicked in.

The car was costing me ZERO to run most of the time.
No Road Tax, no congestion charge, no electric cost either!!!

The reason it was virtually free was thanks to Ecotricity, rather than them being expensive to use when recharging, they are free to me, because I switched my home electricity supplier to Ecotricity and so I get 52 fast charges every year (30 minutes to get over 80 miles) when using their public charger points on most motorway stations. I was lucky enough to live 4 miles from a motorway service station and so I used to go for a coffee and get at least another 80 miles for nothing. Ecotricity even gave me a discount of £40 a year just because I owned an electric car. So there are two sides to this and I just wanted to tell how it worked for me.
Agree 100% about battery costs and in the case of the i3 pre September 20916 cars have a shorter range as it is (around 80 miles). So to me, if you can afford it a three year Lease deal is worth considering, especially since in the next couple of years technology will advance a lot on these and the current models will probably be left behind.

But I thoroughly enjoyed the car and it was great fun to drive (yes the skinny wheels can be "interesting" on roundabouts!

Steve B
 
There is an EV A2 conversion on YouTube could it be that it is the ultimate conversion for an A2. Gives the best of both world's. ☺
 
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I am also an Ecotricity customer but my nearest fast charger is nearly 40 miles away, so no free charges for me (unless the sun comes out!) or we go to London or similar. What is really needed is universal access to charge points without a wad of cards etc.; we have about 8 charge points at our local Morrisons and I've never seen one in use! However, continual (or even occasional) fast charging will certainly reduce the life of your battery, so if you own the battery it is probably best avoided. The Eup's manual recommends mainly slow charging but doesn't mention anything about not charging to 100%. Using slow charging exclusively, our indicated max range has increased by 5m.

The only issue I am aware aware of with Up's is navigation, VW having now opted for smart phone use. Our Eup has the earlier Garmin option. It is possible to "upgrade" to the previous standard but not without modifying the dash.

RAB
 
To put a little bit of context to this. This is a private purchase not a lease or PCP deal. I did look at the lease arrangement but the monthly figures were huge, and the final balloon figure was eye-watering if we decided to purchase. Bear in mind my wife has owned her A2 for the last 10 years - then gives you some idea that we tend to maintain a car for the long-term, and have always bought outright.

Couple of deciding factors, not particularly for the BMW, but for going electric. My wife wanted to change her car and initially looked at the Renault Zoe. The battery rental arrangement put us off, because it's just another cost that we can do without given buying electric isn't exactly cheap. That's fine if you lease it, as you're handing back the car after a defined period, but if you purchase - then it's something else to consider. At £10k miles a year you're potentially looking at £89-£99 a month of additional costs.

Didn't consider a Nissan Leaf. Plug ugly in my book - and for the premium you're paying, it needs to have some kind of presence.

The BMW i3 is a premium brand. Damned expensive for what it is, but the range extender version was the deal-breaker. I'd read lots of reports about range anxiety - and the thought of having a back-up petrol engine was an attractive proposition. This car will literally do a 50 mile round trip every day. That's fine if it's charged over-night, so even if plans change - the back-up 9 litre fuel tank provides peace of mind.

Factor in that the car is under BMW warranty until mid 2018, then you have confidence that if something does go wrong you're covered. The car has only covered 10k miles, so BMW's 100,000 mile or 8 year warranty on the battery is also reassuring.

Besides - I've been under the A2 more times than I care to remember changing fuel filters and suspension. It's done us proud, and will be sorry to see it go, but the drive is looking like Phil Mitchell's garage, so it needs to go to someone who'll appreciate it.
 
By the way, when I was looking to get the i3 I went to a BMW dealer and their quote for a three year lease was ridiculous, WAY too expensive.

So I shopped around at the independent lease agents and sorted out a phenomenally cheaper lease, a huge difference.

So if your quote for a lease was from a dealer then I would recommend trying a google search of the independents first.

I went for a very high annual mileage (because I am an IT contractor and had no idea where I would be working)
Foe 15,000 a year it was £290 per month fully inclusive. I did put down a £3,000 advance rental though which was worth it.

I am sure that you could beat those prices too. The beauty of the lease was that it was a brand new i3 with a great spec and if EV technology advances as it almost certainly will by the time your lease ends the next car you get will be the latest technology.
I just worried that buying it outright means that it could end up as "old technology" and so have depreciated LOADS.

But I know that some people shy away from leases and others embrace them, so each to their own.

Steve B
 
No electric cost?? How does the car run then, on air?

Ecotricity are more expensive than it's competitors, even with the £40 car discount, your paying more for energy which means your car is costing at least something so is not free to run.

Also their 52 fast charges a year, (if charging from 2% to 100%) will get you (depending which car you bought) anything from 936kwh total energy from an 18kwh car or 3650 miles a year, that is IF you are only charging when totally empty each time. Ecotricity estimate you only get about 1000 miles of 'free' energy for your 52 'free' charges. This is about right as it is very unlikely you are filling your car up from empty each time to make it worth it, meaning you are getting short changed for your 'free' charge if you are charging up when the battery is 50% or more full.

What about all the other charging you do or do you only charge your car with Ecotricity and do about 1000 miles a year?

Just interested.


In the interest of balancing the understandable negative comments.

My i3 did not have ANY service costs because the first service was three years after I leased it and the lease would have finished before they kicked in.

The car was costing me ZERO to run most of the time.
No Road Tax, no congestion charge, no electric cost either!!!

The reason it was virtually free was thanks to Ecotricity, rather than them being expensive to use when recharging, they are free to me, because I switched my home electricity supplier to Ecotricity and so I get 52 fast charges every year (30 minutes to get over 80 miles) when using their public charger points on most motorway stations. I was lucky enough to live 4 miles from a motorway service station and so I used to go for a coffee and get at least another 80 miles for nothing. Ecotricity even gave me a discount of £40 a year just because I owned an electric car. So there are two sides to this and I just wanted to tell how it worked for me.
Agree 100% about battery costs and in the case of the i3 pre September 20916 cars have a shorter range as it is (around 80 miles). So to me, if you can afford it a three year Lease deal is worth considering, especially since in the next couple of years technology will advance a lot on these and the current models will probably be left behind.

But I thoroughly enjoyed the car and it was great fun to drive (yes the skinny wheels can be "interesting" on roundabouts!

Steve B
 
No electric cost?? How does the car run then, on air?



Just interested.

Because I have Ecotricity for my home electricity they give me 52 free fast charges at their service stations and I have a local one.

I get a minimum of 80 miles of chargeeach time (my i3 has the extended range batteries and so if I have 40 miles left on the range I get it to 120 on the free charges)

I have only done 4,000 miles over the ten months I had the car.

If I ever need to charge at home I have economy 7 and so the overnight cost is very low anyway.

My home bills have not increased since I had the car and it really does mean that it is free to run.

I am talking facts not assumptions.

Yes our home electricity charges are above average but to me it ios worth it to ensure that there is ZERO pollution caused by my driving (I am no eco nut, but it is something I like)

Steve B
 
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