Or 40 minutes to about 85% at a CCS DC rapid.

@Travis,

@Gerald_db,

Can I ping you about your i3.  I’m toying with purchase of a 2016 model with 60ah battery and 27000kms.  No REX. 

I live in Cape Town and it’s mostly the daily commute maybe a customer visit - 50km a day would be a lot, Stellenbosch and back is less than 100.

its very well optioned - must be close to full house.

What do you reckon - @Travis is yours lasting well?  Would you recommend?

The latest has a much bigger battery but oof the price (well this used one ain’t cheap either)

Hi there. A friend of mine in Durban bought the 60Ah battery only for use in and around Durban. 100km range or more. The 60Ah Rex would be a good choice for CapeTown. Get them to check what percentage of new capacity the battery is at tho. Our 94Ah after 47000km has a battery capacity that still exceeds the guaranteed new capacity. 

10 hours ago, Elbow said:

The latest has a much bigger battery but oof the price (well this used one ain’t cheap either)

Yup. I have pretty much drawn a line in the sand around 350k. Once a new EV sells for under that price... or a good second hand one sells for under 250k... then we can start talking. Until then... Diesel remains my poison of choice.

Mmmmh, so this topic made me do a bit of research into the topic again.

Cheapest reasonable i3 in Cape Town right now, around 400k. It has 65k km on it.

This would be likely be the second vehicle in the house. No way I'n doing Namibia trips in an i3 even with Rex.

Monthly payment over 60 months would be around 10k with no deposit or balloon (balloons are evil). That is too much.

But I can trade in the Suzuki if I can convince the wife (I probably can), so I can put down a deposit of 60k, so that's 8k a month. Still too much to my mind.

I could probably throw another 100k into deposit, now we're around 5.7k a month. That's getting there (but I'm in for the opportunity cost on that 100k, so technically I'm still above 6k a month).

Now if I could get the purchase price down to around 250k... well hello, now the monthly repayment is more like 3k. This car is going to do 5000km a year. So we're below R10/km (meter taxi rates) at least as far as that goes!

🙂

36 minutes ago, plonkster said:

Mmmmh, so this topic made me do a bit of research into the topic again.

Cheapest reasonable i3 in Cape Town right now, around 400k. It has 65k km on it.

This would be likely be the second vehicle in the house. No way I'n doing Namibia trips in an i3 even with Rex.

Monthly payment over 60 months would be around 10k with no depositSo or balloon (balloons are evil). That is too much.

But I can trade in the Suzuki if I can convince the wife (I probably can), so I can put down a deposit of 60k, so that's 8k a month. Still too much to my mind.

I could probably throw another 100k into deposit, now we're around 5.7k a month. That's getting there (but I'm in for the opportunity cost on that 100k, so technically I'm still above 6k a month).

Now if I could get the purchase price down to around 250k... well hello, now the monthly repayment is more like 3k. This car is going to do 5000km a year. So we're below R10/km (meter taxi rates) at least as far as that goes!

🙂

Yes - they are expensive - probably by any standard but especially at first glance.

2015/2016 models have a 60Ah battery - so theoretically 130km range but I suppose that might be 100km in the real world?  So this is firmly a round-town car.

I think it will be tough to find one at 250k, but of course in a couple of years time maybe.

Wonder what is involved with buying one in the US or EU and importing it.  Since their used prices are MUCH lower.

Up front cost is offset with lower running costs - but you are proposing very low annual mileage.

A calculation attempt : its a 360v battery; 60Ah so 21.6kWh.  I think you can use 19 or so.  So 100km on 19kWh.  If 90% charging efficiency then 21kWh to charge or 210Wh per kilometer.

So worst case R2.56 * 0.21 = R0.54 per kilometer.  Well that's cheaper than petrol or diesel by about a third?  (say 6l/100km @ R14/l = R0.84)

Best case you could charge off solar if you are patient and it suits to charge in the day.  Maybe get half your charge from your panels.

So over 5000km fuel saving between R1500 and R2850.

Free charging at work, convenient to use other public chargers can change the results.  Our office park has a huge grid-tied installation so talking to them about charging there.

There is some sort of hacker culture around the car with "coding" via the canbus - it would be interesting to integrate it with the house solar install since a 20kWh battery is not to be sneezed at.  If I can sell my office park on free or low rate power I could bring that power home 😉

 

'Free power at work'. Until they figure out why their bill is so high..........😁.

1 hour ago, DeepBass9 said:

'Free power at work'. Until they figure out why their bill is so high..........😁.

Heh.  My office Park is a "green building" which means they must do lots of things and I bet car charging would get them points.  They have 1000s of solar panels on a huge grid-tie system with sell back to Coct so it wouldn’t cost them so very much.

 

8 hours ago, Gerald_db said:

Hi there. A friend of mine in Durban bought the 60Ah battery only for use in and around Durban. 100km range or more. The 60Ah Rex would be a good choice for CapeTown. Get them to check what percentage of new capacity the battery is at tho. Our 94Ah after 47000km has a battery capacity that still exceeds the guaranteed new capacity. 

Hi Gerald, and thanks.

I will take a little look around to see if I can find anything with 94Ah - I think that extra would give the confidence.

Might be that it still a matter of waiting for another few years.

 

Our 47000km in the last 30 months would have been with our Prado which uses around R1.80/km diesel only ie R84600. That's huge. They are truly exciting to drive. Acceleration is crazy. R50 of electricity gives around 180km range. Everything else feels archaic. 

12 hours ago, plonkster said:

Yup. I have pretty much drawn a line in the sand around 350k. Once a new EV sells for under that price... or a good second hand one sells for under 250k... then we can start talking. Until then... Diesel remains my poison of choice.

Well I guess that's one way to make sure you never own one.

6 minutes ago, Gerald_db said:

Our 47000km in the last 30 months would have been with our Prado which uses around R1.80/km diesel only ie R84600. That's huge. They are truly exciting to drive. Acceleration is crazy. R50 of electricity gives around 180km range. Everything else feels archaic. 

I read this and then looked at your .sig and you are falling over solar panels. Actually you've got big PV systems at home and work.  I presume that helps.

1 minute ago, Elbow said:

I read this and then looked at your .sig and you are falling over solar panels. Actually you've got big PV systems at home and work.  I presume that helps.

Yes installed a type 2, 3 phase charger at my business which has 15.3kw of grid tie however the R50 per charge for a 94Ah battery car is normal prices and we get between 170 and 210km on a full charge. Very tax efficient to charge at work as vat deductible expense and still get full SARS travel allowance.

13 hours ago, Gerald_db said:

Well I guess that's one way to make sure you never own one.

As I recall you made a jump from a large SUV to this vehicle. That is a move I totally understand and would likely have done myself. But right now I'm in the lower echelons of travel options. My two cars TOGETHER are worth less than 150k... do the job perfectly, rarely asks for repairs. For me an electric car would be a luxury. One I really really really want (don't get me wrong), but one I cannot justify in terms of present conditions. Which is a damn shame...

51 minutes ago, plonkster said:

As I recall you made a jump from a large SUV to this vehicle. That is a move I totally understand and would likely have done myself. But right now I'm in the lower echelons of travel options. My two cars TOGETHER are worth less than 150k... do the job perfectly, rarely asks for repairs. For me an electric car would be a luxury. One I really really really want (don't get me wrong), but one I cannot justify in terms of present conditions. Which is a damn shame...

I sit in exactly the same boat, I have a VW Up, and my wife has a Nissan Tida, and they are just so damn cheap to keep going, it would only be a luxury buy to replace them with a EV, I really really want to, but the math just doesn't add up yet*

It also helps buggerall that I get 50% of my fuel spend back with discovery insure...

The Up gets 18KM/L and I get 50% of my fuel spend back, so in essence I only really spend R500pm on petrol already 😕

When people quote range for electric vehicles, is that one way range, or there and back again range (like for aeroplanes (or hobbits))?

I wouldn't mind one of these electric motorbikes, R260k is kind of steep though, or maybe not if used often enough. : https://www.timeslive.co.za/motoring/new-models/2019-02-26-zero-motorcycles-unveils-its-petrol-slaying-srf-electric-bike/

Edited May 2, 20197 yr by DeepBass9

1 minute ago, PJJ said:

The Up gets 18KM/L and I get 50% of my fuel spend back, so in essence I only really spend R500pm on petrol already 😕

Granted, TCO is more than just petrol. So for me...

1. Car is worth around 80k. So if I sold it and invested the money in my home loan, I'd get around 8k a year in interest. So there is 8k in opportunity cost.

2. Licensing cost is R600 a year.

3. Fuel, R700 a month, or R8400 a year. Give or take.

4. One service a year, around 1.5k.

5. Insurance, around 6k a year.

6. Devaluation? Well this car has practically stopped doing that...

Total cost of ownership per year: 24.5k. I drive around 12000km a year, so very close to R2/km.

Now let's check the TCO on a new 400k vehicle. At opportunity cost it is already at double the cost. Add in devaluation and we're at 4 times. Can this car do more than my current car? Nope...

🙂

There are electric scooters available at R40-R50k : http://www.ewizz.co.za/product/spark-electric-scooter/

4 minutes ago, DeepBass9 said:

There are electric scooters available at R40-R50k : http://www.ewizz.co.za/product/spark-electric-scooter/

I'd buy a Renault Twizzy. I know financially that's still stupid... but I'd do it 😉

2 hours ago, DeepBass9 said:

When people quote range for electric vehicles, is that one way range, or there and back again range (like for aeroplanes (or hobbits))?

I wouldn't mind one of these electric motorbikes, R260k is kind of steep though, or maybe not if used often enough. : https://www.timeslive.co.za/motoring/new-models/2019-02-26-zero-motorcycles-unveils-its-petrol-slaying-srf-electric-bike/

Indeed range is depended on a lot. As ev's are incredibly efficient outside factors effect them dramatically ie rain, wind have major effects and temperature.

Average range is the best bet by way of example :- my home of Eshowe is 25km and 550m climb from the coastal N2. The nav system calculates range based on current useage and mapping provided terrain and previous info if route driven before.

Going for Eshowe to Durban (on average downhill) get up to 220km on a charge however returning from Durban get a max of 150km range. 

2 hours ago, SolarNoob said:

@DeepBass9  I've owned a Zero SR for more than 3 years and I could not be happier. I charge almost exclusively from PV so my travel costs are nearly zero 

 

 

I imagine you go through a lot of back tyres? 😀

On 2019/05/01 at 10:08 AM, plonkster said:

Mmmmh, so this topic made me do a bit of research into the topic again.

Cheapest reasonable i3 in Cape Town right now, around 400k. It has 65k km on it.

This would be likely be the second vehicle in the house. No way I'n doing Namibia trips in an i3 even with Rex.

Monthly payment over 60 months would be around 10k with no deposit or balloon (balloons are evil). That is too much.

But I can trade in the Suzuki if I can convince the wife (I probably can), so I can put down a deposit of 60k, so that's 8k a month. Still too much to my mind.

I could probably throw another 100k into deposit, now we're around 5.7k a month. That's getting there (but I'm in for the opportunity cost on that 100k, so technically I'm still above 6k a month).

Now if I could get the purchase price down to around 250k... well hello, now the monthly repayment is more like 3k. This car is going to do 5000km a year. So we're below R10/km (meter taxi rates) at least as far as that goes!

🙂

And then you need to install a nother R150K solar system to charge it

On 2019/05/01 at 7:49 AM, Gerald_db said:

Our 94Ah after 47000km has a battery capacity that still exceeds the guaranteed new capacity

This one has 27000kms and 17.7kWh available on the battery - down from the 18.8 new capacity.

That is probably "normal", but I have to admit it scares me to imagine the battery capacity shrinking over the years and the utility decreasing.

does the 94Ah battery have a better lifespan?  You’ve looked after yours better?

 

46 minutes ago, Elbow said:

does the 94Ah battery have a better lifespan? 

Get some Pylontech banks - they last decades - 6000 cycles. 😆

12 hours ago, Elbow said:

That is probably "normal", but I have to admit it scares me to imagine the battery capacity shrinking over the years and the utility decreasing.

The Tesla stats shows that SOH (state of health) drops fairly quickly and levels off around 90%. So this is still good... 🙂