Rapidly approaching the end of my contract hire agreement and handing the vehicle back is imminent.
I’d totally dismissed electric cars as logistically impossible to charge via the domestic supply due to access/parking issues.
I really don’t know why but I’d never considered Hybrid vehicles and am now intrigued but too late I suspect.
Had never quite appreciated there were ‘Full Hybrids’, plug-in Hybrids, ‘Mild Hybrids’, ‘Parallel Hybrids’ (? same as one of the others) and who knows what else.
The default road speed for roads with streetlights ‘not over 200m apart’ dropped from 30mph to 20mph unless there’s a local council exception, and even official maps/info is confusing. Road signs say one thing, car sat nav another and Apple Maps something different again! So you have to assume 20 mph, get tailgated, flashed/honkled at or overtaken for trying to conform to the rules
As I work from home a lot these days, much of my commuting is a few miles at most (shopping, school run) with a few less frequent journeys of 20-40 miles. 200-300 mile round trips are rare, a couple of times a year at most generally for UK based holidays, conferences or maybe visiting a non-local hi-fi dealer.
Does a Full Hybrid vehicle make sense when most of my journeys are local but particularly now we’ve been reduced to 20 mph on most city/town roads? Going up a steep hill at 20 mph on cruise control in 2nd is just awful!
Yes, I don’t agree with the policy personally, and trying to stick to it is stressful due to idiots tailgating, overtaking or flashing their lights/honking their horns. It’s going to cause a lot of road rage.
Yesterday I stopped maybe 150 yards from a primary school behind a parked delivery van (seeing the driver get in assuming he’d drive off), and an oncoming car stopped nose to nose with the van. I was overtaken by a taxi, where on earth did the driver intend to go as there was no gap between the two vehicles ahead? Annoyed was an understatement and resulted in more than a few spontaneous expletives in front of my son.
Of course this has nothing to do with 20 mph limits but is more about poor driving. You can put speed limits anywhere but it won’t stop the habitual idiots or those who speed regardless.
Also, add to all of this the uncertainties our political classes are ‘imposing’, so up until today I’ve been very aware that should I purchase my next vehicle, do I get potentially my last ICE vehicle hoping electric charging infrastructure will radically improve for those who can’t charge at home?
ICE vehicle and horrible depreciation?
Full electric, unable to charge on a decnt tariff at home due to logistical issues?
My new dilemma, how about a hybrid to cover travel mostly a few miles under or at 20mph with occasional longer journeys?
So of course after expending lots of thought for several weeks there is potential flip-flopping of government policy to (sensibly in my view) push 2030 back to 2035. Trying to avoid political comments but I don’t think it actually matters who’s in power we simply don’t have the infrastructure to support radical transport changes by 2030. Same for heat pumps etc of course. YMMV depending on individual circumstances.
What’s crazy to me is that I suspect 80-90% of the roads now designated 20 mph are short side streets/cul-de-sacs that you’d be stupid to do 20 mph let alone 30 mph. It’s a sledgehammer policy to crack a nut.
Early Sunday someone sent me a link to a ‘Senedd’ petition site countering this change, around 7,000 in support at that time. well over 200,000 2 days later. It will probably be the largest petition in devolved Wales to date, though I have no doubt it will be completely ignored.
Is there a reason for not keeping your existing car? It’s almost always the cheapest option as a new car comes with taxes, VAT etc and instant depreciation.
I’m immune from ICE depreciation but I’m unusual in that respect and it wouldn’t suit everyone.
Apart from fuel, tax and insurance my daily driver has averaged 15 quid a month. That includes purchase cost, repairs and servicing.
Ok, if delivery drivers can’t make as many deliveries it gets factored into customer delivery charges, but the huge problem is social care.
Low paid carers have enough stress and limited time with their ‘clients’ as it is, so potentially slowing journeys between visits is either going to mean a need for more staff/higher costs, or existing staff cutting visits short to get to the next person on time. It’s really poorly thought out.
For a client at the end of the day it could even be life and death if the carer can’t make it that day. This country’s care and treatment of the elderly and infirm is poor to start with as they are viewed as a burden and have the audacity to want a liveable income that they paid into by working 40 years or so.
They’ll probably want to expand the ULSLZ soon enough to save lives…cough.
Primarily as it’s a non-business lease/contract hire vehicle, and unless I purchase what I have from BCA or order a new contract hire vehicle/PCP vehicle from the ‘group’ I have no option to extend the lease further and have to hand it back.
The pandemic changed many options including maximum lease term and I’ve done far less milage than anticipated/contracted.
The ‘purchase price’ isn’t awful but probably not the best, and financing through the standard channels would have interest rates nearing double a new PCP agreement for a similar but potentially worse specced brand new vehicle.
Handing it back I’d be likely to incur some wear and tear charges (primarily a kerbed alloy), things that I’d be happy to live with if it was my vehicle now.
The simplest option is to tie myself into a new contract hire/PCP agreement with the ‘group’ and a 6 month lead time as a minimum and I’d be allowed to keep the existing vehicle at current rates until the new one was available.
It’s all about timing I guess, other financial stressors aren’t helpful in the short/immediate term but won’t be there in 2-3 years or less.
In practice that’s not the case here, as I alluded to earlier it makes sense in shorter residential streets/side roads, but there are many roads which seem inexplicably reduced to 20 mph such as industrial areas with no housing (car retailers/builders merchants etc) where it would be highly surprising to have many pedestrians/children playing.
If the main arterial roads in towns/cities can retain a slightly higher speed (30-40) and residential type roads a lower one I think most would be supportive, but all 30 mph are now technically 20 mph unless there has been an ‘exception’ applied for by the local council.
Amazingly the only road I could find which was still 30mph by default seemed to be rather close to our ‘First Minister’s’ home. The rest on the official map suggested ‘might/could be 30 mph if excepted’ rather than confirming one way or another.
I’m vehemently against road violence. I just don’t see how we consider that lives are somehow less important than driver convenience. I know others have a different view, but I’m just going to leave it at that. I have nothing more to add.
Residential streets are fine at 20mph and most people would be doing less than that anyway. Somewhat ironically the person in my street that drives above 20mph and on the wrong side of the road is the carer - their kids are usually out playing in the road too.
The bloke with the fast car/bike, i.e. me, is the one who drives carefully in and out of the estate.
if this helps I moved into Hyrbid with my new car, I cover just about 20k miles a year, motorway and A roads are 80+ % of driving - however I still achieve 55+ MPG in my Toyota C-HR
for me its the best of both worlds - with the miles I cover, and a lot in South Wales and Cornwall electric was never going to be aan option
I’ve wanted to go electric but difficulty charging at home makes it hard.
I had decided our next car would be a non plug in hybrid (Toyota type set up).
Now it would be toss up between ICE and hybrid.
Fuel will be available well beyond 2030 and by that time I’ll be in my 70s.
Our 10 year old Volvo is classed as polluting, but of course how much you pollute is based on how many miles you do.
Finally, car manufacturers are really stinging customers. The average price of a new car is just over £40k and trying to get an electric car, new, under £25k is possibly impossible. As such we are being priced out of the market.
