Electric cars
 

I have recently been making some attention to electric cars. Tesla is well out of my reach so I have been looking at the cheaper versions. After I discard some of the smallest and lowest range cars the Nissan Leaf seems to be a most likely contender. Depending on the battery size and the test standards in different countries the range is 60-120 miles or so and the cheapest Leafs come in about £6k. This could potentially work for me but when you look in real life range you only get about 60-70 miles on the new largest 30kWh battery and that is already too low for practical use for me. Take a 8 year old car with 8 year old battery and realistic range is only about 30 miles which is a total non starter.

I could go for a slightly cheaper car where you do not own battery but lease it so no worries about battery being old and underperforming but still many of them will be only 60 mile range while I would need at least 100.
I thought at £70/month leasing is not too bad if I would spend £200-300 in fuel on internal combustion engine car. But it turns out that price is for 7.5k miles per year only. 15k mile allowance is the highest and cost £129/month. I would need about 25k miles per year.

I think I am much better off sticking to £1-2k internal combustion cars and paying for fuel at least for now.

A hybrid maybe?

A friend of mine, who is a garage owner and also a long-time petrol-head, just bought a new Prius, and he loves it. Not really my cup of tea if I'm honest but I must admit, when you look past its ugly exterior, it's a very nice car to drive. The equipment level is very high and it's pretty quick. Handles very well too.

One down side though, on a couple of occasions strangers have tried to get in when he's stopped outside of pubs/restaurants, mistaking his car for a mini-cab :ROFL: