I was thinking a car doing lots of small journeys. The cheapest ones are now hitting below 8k. Generally if I get a car it's on the cheap side and I drive it until it's scrap so the actual value is fairly irrelevant.
More querying the potential for it to maintain a max range of 40-60 miles for the foreseeable future without the costs of paying out to keep it on the road.
Quite mixed opinions on batteries and longevity at the mo. Weighing up risk and reward. Current car may yet last 5 more years- just rattling a little more than i'd like
Your requirement is low (as would most peoples if they're being realistic), so you'll get a bargain, being able to play of others irrational fears, that could practically run for nothing in total cost of ownership, i.e depreciation + fuel costs etc.
If you buy a car which had a 100 mile WLTP range in 2020, then realistically it would have done maybe 90 miles in summer for average driving and 80 in winter, maybe even more as our winters are not harsh and it's getting milder. So, even based on 4 years old, you're at worst half way to 80% battery in winter, 90% in summer (more like 85-90% for 2020 onwards cars), so in another 6 years you're still going to be good for 65-70 mile range, even off a 100 mile WLTP car (which is low, for 2020). There will always be a market to sell onto also, as most peoples commutes are <20 miles or they don't go anywhere. As it will be by far the cheapest motoring, demand will always be high. It will be the cheapest as more and more wind power/ soler comes on line, and of course petrol and diesel will get taxed more and more.
Running costs will be extremely low, people have had EV's for 10 years and the discs and pads still had another 50% life left. The electric motor is a sealed system with no friction, it's probably one of the most reliable things which man as ever come up with, after the wheel. The good thing about EV's is there are only two main parts to it, the motor and the battery, and the life of both of those is known extremely well.
I think a lot of people forget that we've had batteries and electric motors for 200 years now, and lithium ion for 50 years. More is known about any of them now than has ever been known, and by a very long way. More people associate the invention of electric motors with Elon Musk of Tesla, rather than Nicola Tesla who the company was named after, who was knocking about in the 1800's. I've had my latest EV two years now, and the range has gone up, not down, which I can only assume is from software enhancements.
If they've tested, and guaranteed batteries to do 100,000 miles and still be 80-90%, then that's what it's going to do, as a minimum, if they didn't then the guarantee claims would bankrupt them, it's not going to happen. Typically a guarantee would be 50%-100% less time than they expect them to last.
