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Bought a BMW i3


Travis

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True, the middle class being the ones who cannot afford a 2nd blink at anything but surviving with the way things are going.

And if they do make a move, it will be called racist, for the have nots will not like it that they lose jobs.

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1 hour ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Jip, I heard from a very reliable source that local SA manufacturer will let the batteries stay in the car until they are 80%. An idea they have / had was that then the batts can be used in solar application in your house till they are done, at which time you give them back. You never own them.

On parts. For same manufacturer I got a price for diesel injectors for a particular model. At the time they where +-R5k each. Few years later I heard no, the (I think) 7 years waiting time is over you can now get injectors from Midas for less than half the price. Joke is the make of the injectors sold at both manufacturer and Midas, come from same factory. (facepalm) Manufacturer 0 : Modas 1.

My point, once the electric cars are the norm, there will be parts available available from like of Midas with a few DIY business popping up all over, same as business who chip cars, replace turbo's etc, will jump on that bandwagon is what I see coming.

BUT the tax ... aikona ... I did not see that one coming.

Fuel levy pays for what? Road Accident Fund ... petrol attendants ... I do not think electric cars will be pushed in SA anytime soon. The ripple effect could become enormous.

No wonder Electric cars are so hard fought against by the oil lobbyists. They and governments will lose truck loads of revenue similar as Eskom not wanting millions of grid tie houses all over.

Sipho and Matwetwe will not be driving electric cars or in electric taxis soon.

that's where you're wrong! Those lightweight cars will be push as LOT. As soon as the batteries run flat, guess what, you have to push it ;)

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3 hours ago, bmeagle said:

found that importing parts from the UK to be cheaper than buying a whole new diesel pump because of local dealers.

Same. I imported a window-washer pump for a BMW from the UK once. It was a third of the price (postage included) of the one at the dealer.

It was also the only car of all the cars I ever owned that had that particular part fail. And then we also have the fuel pump on the BMW motorcycles, recalled overseas, but in SA you had to buy it from the dealer. There is also this particular part that the enthusiasts simply know as the "doohicky" which can also cause some spectacular costs if you buy from the dealer.

1 hour ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

On parts. For same manufacturer I got a price for diesel injectors for a particular model. At the time they where +-R5k each. Few years later I heard no, the (I think) 7 years waiting time is over you can now get injectors from Midas for less than half the price. Joke is the make of the injectors sold at both manufacturer and Midas, come from same factory. (facepalm) Manufacturer 0 : Modas 1.

But for that you sometimes have to wait. I bought a 2007 Corolla when it was about two years old. One of the first of the "new shape". Had service plan left, had warranty left. That means the aftermarket and non-dealer service places didn't see many of them for a while. So it was one of the first to go out of warranty, and then out of service plan, and then because the previous owner was very hard on the brakes, I had to do brakes at 60 000km (I'm at 140 000km now, with lots of brake material left, so I think it is fair to say he was hard on them). So there I was, can't get the pads and disks from Midas because they simply don't have them yet. Toyota wants R1200 for a rear disk and R1600 for a front disk. So around 6k for the disks. Just the disks. Then pads and labour. Suddenly I understood why people have 9k service bills... on a "minor" service! So I managed to find pads at a Supaquick in Paarl and had them shipped down, skimmed the disks (which had a little left to work with) and so I got another year out of them. One year later, the local Hi-Q found me disks for the front brakes and I did those. Car went for the 75k km service and Toyota was like "you have to replace those rear disks, they are under spec" and I said NO, leave them alone. Measured them at home (I have a micrometer)... they were barely on spec.

A few months later I walked into a Midas, lamented how difficult it is to find brake disks, and the sales person was like "What are you talking about!? We have them in stock, R200 for a pair...". And so I eventually did the brakes, in phases, for around 2.5k total.

Moral of that long story: Don't buy a car that is too new! Gotta give the pirate-part people time to catch up by the time you need them :-)

Second moral: Toyota don't make brakes. They have a supplier. Their supplier in this case was ATE. ATE had the same parts. R700 for a pair... only place I could find them was in Chatsworth in Durban, at some seriously shady sounding place. Nowhere else in SA. But it goes to show... same part, 4 times the price at the dealer.

So agreed. From these lessons learned, it's going to take a long long time before I'm touching an electric. Maybe about ten years, unless a mid-life-crisis intervenes ;-)

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

For interest I enquired about a business lease on an i3 94Ah.
Still in shock. For a 24 month lease ( give it back at the end) they want R20.4k per month. Insane. The same vehicle can be leased in the UK for betwwen 300 and 400 UK £.

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  • 3 months later...
On 10/21/2016 at 1:01 PM, Gerald_db said:

@Travis What range have you been getting from your i3 60Ah now that you have had it for a while?

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So my i3 is sitting on 26,000KM. I am getting an average of 145km on a charge. I run on Eco Pro most of the time with a mix of Aircon. I don't drive lightly, have places to be and people to see. Rex has seen 9570km of mixed use. On average I see 150km on the 9l tank, most of that REX milage came from running without charging at home for 2 months, while I established a baseline power usage for November-December and also a trip to Cape Town and back.

 

I find myself not using the 7.4KW R30,000 charger, but rather the 3 pin plug charger as I charge the car over night so 8 hours isn't an issue for charge time, besides battery isn't empty when I get home and I topup during the day if I am home.

 

The DC rapid chargers in Midrand and Sandton are handy, I have used the 20+ times on trips out to PTA or running around to multiple clients in Sandton. I have also used the AC fast chargers at Melrose Arch a handful of times while I grab lunch there.

 

My electricity cost for the 3000km average month is less that R336, and thats before my solar production that is now running 60% of house consumption. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
So my i3 is sitting on 26,000KM. I am getting an average of 145km on a charge. I run on Eco Pro most of the time with a mix of Aircon. I don't drive lightly, have places to be and people to see. Rex has seen 9570km of mixed use. On average I see 150km on the 9l tank, most of that REX milage came from running without charging at home for 2 months, while I established a baseline power usage for November-December and also a trip to Cape Town and back.
 
I find myself not using the 7.4KW R30,000 charger, but rather the 3 pin plug charger as I charge the car over night so 8 hours isn't an issue for charge time, besides battery isn't empty when I get home and I topup during the day if I am home.
 
The DC rapid chargers in Midrand and Sandton are handy, I have used the 20+ times on trips out to PTA or running around to multiple clients in Sandton. I have also used the AC fast chargers at Melrose Arch a handful of times while I grab lunch there.
 
My electricity cost for the 3000km average month is less that R336, and thats before my solar production that is now running 60% of house consumption. 


Would you feel comfortable doing a daily highway commute of 180km without any recharging?
Would probably need to top up the rex fuel tank daily.

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Would you feel comfortable doing a daily highway commute of 180km without any recharging?
Would probably need to top up the rex fuel tank daily.

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Hi there. Real world use. Yesterday my wife did an Eshowe to La Lucia mall Durban return without recharging. Total 280km including a few stops. Aircon the whole way and set on Ecopro. Driven at 118kph mostly freeway. Left with full battery. Used the rex manually switched on from 25% battery. Switched off close to home to use remaining battery. Arrived in with 9% battery and used 6l petrol in the rex. Ours is the 2017 94ah (bigger battery) rex model. Amazing car. Your call tho.

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This thread makes me want to really really go out, bankrupt myself, and get me an i3.

But rumour has it that by 2022 electrical cars will come down significantly in price, so I think the best course of action is to drive the Diesel 5 more years :-)

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This thread makes me want to really really go out, bankrupt myself, and get me an i3.
But rumour has it that by 2022 electrical cars will come down significantly in price, so I think the best course of action is to drive the Diesel 5 more years :-)


Will they drop in price or will the range just increase. I think the latter.

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I drive an old (2004) BMW E46 330d. Gives me an avg of 17km/ltr.......but it's mine, no monthly payment so i can afford NOT to get 40km/l with an electric/hybrid car. I still get 1000km+ with R700 worth of diesel and maintenance cost is minimal. Had new cars, been there, got the t-shirt. No thanks!

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Don't get me wrong. I love BMW's, i specialize in BMW's (well audi and VW too) and I've driven an i8 once (only once[emoji23]) but ev's will never be affordable enough for the middleclass salary earner, not new or within motorplan anyway, and not anytime soon anyway. When these things goes out of warranty and maintenance plan they become impossible to afford. I worked for Toyota for years and the same goes for the likes of Prius's and Auris hybrids. After the batteries reached the end of their life you simply cannot afford to replace them and the vehicle's worth 5℅ of what it was bought for new.

If you've got very deep pockets, hell yes! But for an "armgat" like me, no thanks. My previous 320d had 497000km on the clock before i upgraded to an 330d. 150kw, 430nm torque, up to 5.4ltrs/100km, insurance R290/month. It gets me there, and it gets me there quick if needed.
No EV's for me anytime soon...

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8 hours ago, Czauto said:

never be affordable enough for the middleclass salary earner,

The predictions are that they will be, within ten years or less. Perhaps that is optimistic, perhaps not. I think what is going to happen is the cars will stay more or less at the same price (mid 400k and up), with the usual process of each model getting bigger, stronger and more expensive with each model year and new lower-cost models introduced at the bottom, while inflation will slowly take care of the middle class salaries.

The thing that will make the biggest difference, I think, is the affordability of a new battery, because that's what you need for a strong second-hand market. I've never bought a new vehicle in my life, and I don't see that changing soon.

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Just checked autotrader. There are 8 Nissan Leafs for sale at present, many of them around 200k-250k. That's middle-class territory, 3k a month car payment type stuff. They are all 2013 models though (with very low mileage), so the question remains: How good is that battery?

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It seems middelclass in the city and middleclass in the Karoo differs A LOT. I bought my 330d for R90k. The payment was R1900 / month which meant that i could settle it a lot quicker. Yes it was secondhand (obviously) but the car looked like it came out of the factory the previous week. I bought a new vehicle once and never again. Depreciation is just too rapid.
That's just my opinion. I am a mechanic so i'm not afraid of vehicles with high mileage. As long as it's been looked after. My 2.8td 4x4 colt rodeo has got 350k on the clock and it's as good as new (mechanically anyway. Quite a few scratches due to a lot of offroading)

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1 minute ago, Czauto said:

It seems middelclass in the city and middleclass in the Karoo differs A LOT. I bought my 330d for R90k. The payment was R1900 / month which meant that i could settle it a lot quicker.

If I look at what people I work with drive, it seems quite acceptable to blow between 2k and 4k a month on a car. After all, bond payments are well above 12k a month, just the levies and electricity on your average 3-bedroom is 2.5k a month!

I also owned a Diesel BMW, an e46 320d. Also bought it for 90k. Had it for just over a year when I decided to get rid of it as a matter of urgency. Every month there was something small that needed repair. Window regulators. Window washer pump. Final stage blower resistor (twice, 4 months apart). I also removed the swirl flaps on the intake and installed blanking plates as a preventative measure (cause those do break and wreck an engine). Then I looked at the list of common failures, and realised all the items are on it... and they are the cheap ones :-)

I took the 25k knock and got rid of it. And then, like Donkey on that bridge towards the dragon's lair (in the first Shrek Movie), I declated that I know THAT END IS SAFE... and bought another Corolla :-) I borrowed 110k, and the installment was 2.2k.

So I am probably optimistic when I think a 200k car will have an installment of only 3k... but it seems to be within range of most city dwellers.

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