Great feedback and I’m pleased that you found the vehicle thats right for you, Is there a long waiting time from ordering the car and your home charger ?
Looking forward to hearing your EV adventures.
Gary
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Well, before any EV adventure starts, we intend to have probably our last Lexus adventure as we will go to France with our daughter (plus husband) and eight month old granddaughter and I like the fact that it will be in the same car as our daughter first travelled in France with us in our first continental holiday in 2009. That’s late August and early September so my challenge in the meantime is to check how suitable our house is for Solar PV (we have an odd shaped roof and there are strict enough regulations about positioning of panels apparently to avail of the grant). Then either get solar plus charging point or just a charging point and be ready to try and strike up a deal in September for (most likely) an EV6.
.sjb
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Good luck 
with the solar panels / charging, that’s something we are looking at doing at the moment.
What a great way for the Lexus to bow out, I like that very much, and a great way to remember what will have been a fondly remembered family car.
Gary
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How does one check this if buying second hand - or do all EVs have a display of it like an iPhone?
I’m quite open to a second hand purchase once the seat specs are the same as our test drive model.
I’ll certainly take your advice and see if I can test drive an Enyaq and presuming the EV3 is released on schedule I’ll give that a go too.
Thanks for all you help and I may have a few more questions!
.sjb
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Had a quick scan of the thread, did not see any mention of plug in hybrids. We are on our second Kuga PHEV, we get the 35 miles range and more as an EV without the worry of finding a charging station. The first Kuga PHEV went back with more than 7000 miles and was overall at 84 mpg. It had been from Colchester to Scotland, Bristol, Brighton, Kendall, Cromer and a few other trips beyonds its 0 mpg EV range. Beyond that EV range it will still find EV performance from regen breaking, alternator, engine decel etc.
I mention as the EV market as mentioned is in its infancy, it is a way of sitting it out for the next generation EV cars? We also just charge overnight from a normal 13 amp socket at an EV rate……no big pay out for an EV charger.
PCP is a good solution when ‘buying’ an EV. You are essentially passing over risk in the residual value to the finance company. I notice that many brands are pushing Hire Purchase instead for EVs for that very reason, I suspect. With PCP you can come back up for air after three years and decide what to do in the light of its value at that time.
If the numbers stack up for you, it may be the way to go. However, look carefully at the interest rate. If you have cash, then paying anything other than a very low interest rate is a waste.
But in a fast changing technology situation, an option to re-evaluate after three years looks quite attractive.
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Yes, unlike the earlier PHEV generations which were struggling for EV range and still had minuscule boot space left, latest ones are being fitted with 20-25kWh batteries and able to do 45-60 real electric miles. This is pretty decent not only because of EV only driving for daily needs but because they can sustain for the most of a longer journey duration and starting to make more sense as a hybrid. Additionally, PHEVs can now charge a little faster too.
sjb
If, after further test drives, this is the car of choice then I reckon that deal looks good. Particularly if you become serious about it and can negotiate a discount either with the dealer themselves or via internet providers. During covid etc we saw cars with little or no depreciation but this was an illusion / function of very unusual economic circumstances. Traditionally, any ‘normal’ car would be doing very well to retain 50% value after 3 years. The deal as presented is circa 44% which, with a bit of discount on the purchase price would hopefully nudge closer to the old norm. I suspect that is decent given recent mumblings about ev’s being particularly hard hit by depreciation. If you plan is to retain it for much longer, perhaps there is some comfort that the dealer is willing to guarantee a fairly robust value after 3yrs? Forgot to mention the 0% interest is particularly attractive after rates north of 10% predicating the car market in recent years! Me being me, I would be more attracted to a PHEV, but you are clearly set on a BEV and I reckon you have the makings of a great deal here.
Peter
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@BruceW May I ask 2 questions about the EV6?
Can one connect to it from an app in the kitchen on a cold morning and turn on the heating or does it need to be recharging to do this? I note one can set a timer to do this but thankfully as retirees timers are non longer necessary.
Secondly what do you think of the lane holding function. On the motorway I found the frequent little changes it was making a bit annoying and so turned it off to get a better feel for the drive. I’m thinking one probably gets used to this and it’s possibly a very useful function. I’m wondering what your take on it as a one term user is.
.sjb
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The car does not need to be plugged in to activate the heating/heated seats/steering wheel etc from the app. Obviously it uses battery power when this is done, if it is plugged in then the car draws the power from the cable rather than the battery. I have sometimes activated the heating in the station car park from the train a few minutes before arrival. It is great, but it can give anyone standing close by a shock as the empty car starts to whirr! The only caveat is that obviously it won’t work if the car is parked somewhere with no mobile coverage.
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Can’t stand the lane hold/steering function. Tried it but now I never use it. I do sometimes use the lane departure warning but mostly not. It can give you a warning chime, or a nudge on the wheel according to how it is set up. Note that this turns on by default (I think this is mandatory in all cars now?) but it is a simple button press to disable it completely from the steering wheel. The blind spot warning on mirrors and in the driver display works very well though, and will alert if you appear to be changing lane with a car on either side; first with a warning tone than a ‘shake’ of the steering wheel. Very effective.
Bruce
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My MX5 has the lane departure warning feature. All I can say is that whoever invented that has never driven on a country road. Fortunately there’s a button that turns it off permanently and you eventually get used to the little amber warning icon.
Willy.
In Europe it is regrettably true. These “driver aids” have been brought in by EuroNCAP as a requirement for manufacturers’ cars to achieve a 5 star safety rating and subsequently by the European Commission as an EU-wide legal requirement. The UK Government’s Department for Transport daren’t say any different, so we have followed suit.
All will claim that statistically it makes our roads safer. Statistically they are probably correct up to a point. However, the unintended consequence of all these “driver aids” is that drivers are paying less & less attention to the road, so different bad outcomes are becoming more prevalent.
Equally, lane keeping assist is a nightmare on country lanes and is simply scary on UK motorway roadworks, when there are lane diversions but the old white/yellow lines have not been fully removed. There are many times when the lane keeping asisst doesn’t know which set of lines to follow. It gets quite lively then!
Best regards, BF
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Our new car has the speed limiter assistance……if you go over the limit it flashes and makes a binging noise. You have to turn off each journey…….all cars now have some speed limiter fitted.
We went through some roadworks and the cameras picked up the new lower limit, but not the standard speed limit on exit due to poor sign placement! If a more onerous system like increased accelerator pressure being required, it could in itself be dangerous.
Or you buy another cable
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My favourite is GPS map data. You are poottling along at 130 and suddenly the car decides 90 is correct because 3 months ago there were roadworks.
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I have had an Audi Q4 Sportback 55 for 3 months / 5000 km. We got the same level of discount (24%) as we would against an ICE car.
So far it has been great. It charges at a maximum of 150 which is ok. We call these stops ice-cream breaks because it takes as much time to charge as it does to buy and eat one. We very rarely charge from empty to full though. Sometimes we charge at car parks on a 10ish AC supply which is fine if we have a market visit to make. Buy some veg, fish and yoghurts followed by a beer or two and the car will have gone up 25%.
We do regular 265km journeys and - at 80% - the car says it has 400km range. We get to the end with about 25% charge left. Winter is coming.
Our car is fully specced with 21 inch wheels, heat pump and so on. We love the heads-up display. Nice Sonus sound system too.
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Same here in Sweden. In winter time I’ve had very scary moments when the car thought snow mud was white lines.
It is likely that it is saving lives. But I would bet it is also taking lives.
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I switch it off as a matter of routine. Unfortunately it has to be switched off on every journey 
as you can’t deselect it permanently on one of our cars. As @Willy says it is useless / irritating on an empty country road, where you might iron out bends by straying over the markings in the middle of the road. I love a HUD though, so am not automatically against all advances in technology.
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HUD? Horrible, distracting, pointless. Doesn’t work with polarising sunglasses either.
Active Cruise; now that is a brilliant thing on my car.
YMMV!
Bruce
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I think the HUD on my BMW 128ti is one of the best things about it. And particularly helpful is that if you switch the units to km from miles, the speed limit and the current speed are displayed in the HUD alongside the satnav info. Very useful in France last couple of weeks!
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