EV's and what's your driveway look like?

[vetran]

I'd prefer a 6 litre V12 just to annoy the environmentalists just that little bit more!

Make it Hydrogen to annoy them more.

[gables]

Nice, that's my lads dream car. Well his dream one is the quadrifoglio but his dream one he knows he'll be able to afford one day if you get me.

I get that totally... I have to say though the performance of the veloce is perfect for the road, unleash it in "dynamic" mode and woah pressed into seat, corners coming at you very fast, and overtaking lines of traffic with ease and all nicely unassuming ;-) and best thing of all it feels exclusive, not many on the roads (alfas in general) unlike the German offerings.

[woody1]

I get that totally... I have to say though the performance of the veloce is perfect for the road, unleash it in "dynamic" mode and woah pressed into seat, corners coming at you very fast, and overtaking lines of traffic with ease and all nicely unassuming ;-) and best thing of all it feels exclusive, not many on the roads (alfas in general) unlike the German offerings.

Alfas used to have a bad rep for reliability. Are they better these days?

[vetran]

Alfas used to have a bad rep for reliability. Are they better these days?

I got a loaner 30ish years ago, the fleet manager handed me a wadge of paper telling me what to do if it broke down.

Fast as Feck though. If there were speed cameras about I would have been banned in a day!

[gables]

Alfas used to have a bad rep for reliability. Are they better these days?

Indeed and it's what put me off getting an Alfa back in the day.

We've had this for 2 years now, it's a 2018 that only had 15k miles on it when we got it and was based in London. We have just replaced the battery which I reckon is due to low mileage so not very long runs, also the stop\start (which I don't like*) probably didn't help, ironically a symptom of a sub par battery is the stop\start gets disabled but less helpfully so does the rear window demister. What I really like about the car is the lack of touchscreen for controlling things like temperature, got a big knob for that.

Anyway so far so good.

*it can be switched off but not permanently** which is a pain, a bit like the Civic it replaced there was something on that I had to push a button every time I drove the thing.
**why manufacturers don't let you disable stuff is beyond me.

[WTFH]

Alfa Romeo Giulia Veloce

The 280 engine does a great job in the Stelvio too.

[ShandyDrinker]

I've gone all in on EVs although haven't taken the predictable should have bought a Tesla approach that many EV evangelists drone on about. I think the cost of EVs is outrageous hence buying second hand. Towards the end of last year there were some crazy deals around, particularly with companies such as Onto (a subscription service) going into administration, hence the market being flooded with sub 1 year old decent Renault Zoe models for very competitive prices, many still with over 4 years of warranty remaining.

Likewise we've got a Hyundai Kona, which is a decent enough car, although not necessarily as good as the original Kia e-Niro. Again, it was a cheap car relatively speaking, sub 20k for an 18 month old model (with the balance of the 5 year warranty remaining). No way I'd have got a Tesla for that price.

EVs are only sensible if you can do home charging though. With the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff overnight electricity is 7.5p per kWh so charging the Kona up to it's max of 64kWh is £4.80, with a range of just shy of 300 miles. Even during the cold snap it's around 260 miles. The Zoe isn't as good but still has a useable capacity of 52kWh.

To put it into perspective, if I go back into London a couple of days a week, it'll cost me approx £5 per week for electric and then parking (Westfield Shepherd's Bush) at £8 per day and whatever tube costs are, say £8.50 per day into the city. So per week from Swindon to London at 2 days in the office it'd be £38. On the train from Swindon I'd be looking at ~£800 for a flexi season ticket for a month and ~£1k for a full season ticket. However, if I had to do more than 2 days a week into London I'd do the season ticket and suck it up. Commuting more than 2 days a week by car is brutal as the return trip for me is 4-5 hours, depending on traffic.

Tax is currently zero (and will still be relatively cheap come Jan 2025), servicing cheaper than petrol/diesel/hybrid and insurance are all cheaper than the petrol/hybrid cars we had previously.

What I'd also say is that if you've got solar panels, battery storage and a heat pump (don't believe everything you read in the Torygraph and Daily Wail, nor the green evangelism in the Guardian), you can also make significant savings, but that's a topic for another thread.

I'm not an environmental lunatic, and have done all of the above primarily to save money in the longer term. If it helps the planet in the process then great. As someone who used to race motorbikes (badly), I'd still consider myself a petrol head. However, for the child in me, there's something very satisfying about smoking some twunt in a BMW 3 series from a set of traffic lights in an EV.

[Zigenare]

Alfas used to have a bad rep for reliability. Are they better these days?

Years ago I had a 164 Cloverleaf - I loved that car. The only problem I had with it was that people kept stealing the boot badge, cost me a bloody fortune in replacements!

[DoctorStrangelove]

https://electrek.co/2021/04/23/remem...y%20in%20Spain.

.

I'm waiting for the electrick BMW Isetta.

Oh.

Alright then:

https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino

https://www.theautopian.com/the-micr...%20be%20better.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

My lease on a noddy ev is almost up, was a super cheap compliance car deal (£2500 up front then £159/mo) but the car's range makes me weep and I've started doing a lot more long journeys.

Can't get a straight answer on my company purchasing a tesla model 3 being good or not. Save some money but then if they hike BIK you're completely screwed because it's on the list price not the value of the car, so that could knacker any savings. And leasing a tesla is crazy money, I'd rather pay to own I think.