Choosing an EV

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Last Updated: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 14:59

Brands

Most vehicle owners have their favorite brand and many have remained loyal to it for years. However, when it comes to choosing an EV the auto market is now so disrupted that following ones current brand loyalty could be a huge mistake. For example, in retrospect, would you have purchased; another camera from Kodak, a phone from: Blackberry, Microsoft, L.G, H.T.C, or Nokia? and these were all highly respected brands at one time.  With the exception of Nokia, which survived by the skin of its teeth when Microsoft dropped the brand and the remnants of the company switched from its own O.S to Android.

Auto manufacturers have similar problems.  The biggest car market in the world is China, where most brands get 40% of their sales, but in 2022 it was announced that fossil driven cars could no longer be sold from July 2023. This has left many companies with stock sitting on lots with little prospect of sales. This affects all European and Japanese suppliers. Even those selling EV models are not getting many sales. Toyota, Nissan, VW, GM and Ford all have huge debt and major challenges when only a few percent of their total manufacturing is EVs. As 2025 approaches many have cut thousands of staff and closed factories.

Toyota's debt is the highest of any at 187 billion and their interest costs taking a large part of profit. They claim 3.5 million EV sales by 2030, but they have made similar claims before.  In 2016 and 2017 they claimed their solid state batteries would be in production by 2022 and they would have ten EV models on sale in 2020.  Where are they? Instead they are focusing on Hydrogen and Hybrids. They do currently offer the BZ4x which is actually made in China by a subsidiary.

VW is now claiming the roof is on fire. Thousands of cars in Germany are being stock piled for months and unlikely to be sold - ever. They spent 1.3 Billion on upgrading one factory for EV production and have some 130 more to do. This would likely add another 160 B to their existing 212 B of debt, which is probably secured by assets that no one now wants.

Nissan with its Leaf EV is now virtually broke, and no other brands are building BEV models in any profitable quantities. All auto builders have debt, falling ICE sales, and minimal EV production, if any, and have to buy carbon credits from Tesla 

Even Tesla, when they began production of the very expensive Roadster in 2002, has nearly gone broke twice, due to problems with the model X and initial production line issues for the model 3. Until production reached about 10,000 per week they made little profit. However, ongoing investments in their world-wide supercharger network and the building of some five multi-billion dollar Giga factories in as many years, plus to still have 30 billion cash in the bank is truly amazing.

Profit is a problem for ALL auto manufactures as it often comes from high volume or luxury sales and few are producing EV's in sufficient volume. USA EV sales for 2nd quarter 2023 has:- Tesla at 60.4%, Hyundai and KIA 6.9%, G.M 6.5%, V.W 5.3% and Ford 4.6%. 
The total 2023 rankings for U.S.A assembled cars (including ICE) have; Tesla's in the top places 1-4, Honda Passport at 5, V.W ID4 at 6, Honda's from 7-11, Toyota at 12, more Honda's from 13-15. The 1st from GM is the Corvette at 19, and Ford makes an appearance at 38 with the Lightning 150!

Lucid, Rivian and Nio produce excellent EV's, but their numbers are still low and therefore built at a huge loss.  It has been reported that Lucid loose near $500,000 on each sale. Fisker is now gone leaving little support for existing owners.

The most successful Chinese brands are; BYD, MG (SAIC) and NIO. While there are many other smaller Chinese brands that make EV's, the tiny models they make would not meet overseas regulations.  i.e Only basic city transport with low max speeds. BYD has become profitable by starting with Hybrids and working with battery manufacturing to now produce full EV models in quantity, similar to Tesla in China. Tesla is actually in second place to BYD for combined sales.

Apart from Tesla, the American brands are not doing that great either.  GM and Ford make their profit from Trucks. (Utilities in NZ lingo.) In 2024 they have been outsold by the Cybertruck. GM announced the Hummer EV for $700,000 NZ.  Its said they made two of them in 2022! The battery is huge at 200 kWh which would take many hours to charge at 50 kW.

On the European front there are many brands:-  Polestar, BMW, VW, Skoda, Renault, Mercedes, Audi. (While Volvo make hybrids they sell BEV's as Polestar.)  I have driven a Polestar and in comparison to my Tesla I would describe them:- Tesla - a high tech computer on wheels.  Polestar - a luxury and well built Volvo like car that runs on a battery. The Polestar felt and drove like an quality ICE car but not as efficient in power use as the Tesla. The Tesla is of minimalist design and of very high tech (I can't think of another car that one can make headlight alignments using scroll buttons on the steering wheel.)

Many critics of Tesla complain about the lack of buttons. I suspect these people are the same ones who had Blackberry phones and thought Apple was crazy to use a touch screen. How did that work out!

Making a Choice

Things are now changing at a rapid pace and even the latest Tesla M3 is internally vastly different to mine after just five years. I have several friends that between them own; a Nissan Leaf, Polestar, and two with an MG Z ES. They all took time to explore the market before making their final choice.  Obviously, price is the first configuration, but each had very specific reasons and requirements:

  • The leaf owner has has another car and its just for round town and they only ever charge it at home.
  • The Polestar 2 owner wanted an EV after experiencing a Tesla model S, was previously a Mercedes owner, and now only needs one car and charges it only during his 1hr of free power! Since upgraded to a Polestar 4
  • The MG owners both have motor homes for trips, so only needed sufficient range to cover the Auckland Area. Both were replacing a Mazda, which due to only short trips, was costing a lot for frequent servicing and the high price for 98 fuel. Also a concern was the future falling second hand or trade in value.

My advice is study the market and view the many reviews and info available on YouTube first. Definitely do test drives and thoroughly explore the features offered. Generally one needs to order and wait some time when buying new. Many have long warranties on the battery, typically 8 years, but will the company be still around then?  Toyota has the China build BZ4x, and in typical ICE dealer fashion requires that regular servicing is needed to maintain the warranty. Also it has not received good reviews. V.W is producing a lot of EV's in Europe, but for some reason they are not selling in the volumes they expected. Seems Europe is currently obsessed with Tesla.

Update at July 2024.  Registration numbers are something to consider.  All brands, apart from BYD and Tesla, are all below 100 this year, with BYD at 212 and Tesla at 628.

Tesla has closed its previous Auckland City service centre and opened a huge new one at 147 Kirkbride Rd. Mangere, near the Airport. Part of the complex is a second building containing Tesla parts to support both NZ and Australia and recently they opened an adjacent body repair shop. I have personally visited the centre and parts are stacked on many racks about six stories high and close to 100M deep. They are obviously very serious about support.

Tesla have no servicing requirements to maintain warranty.  Basically there is nothing that would affect the battery warranty, other than perhaps battery coolant loss, and any such problems would immediately result in a warning to visit Tesla service.
Since my purchase I have had one service alert and needed two visits for a seat restraint safety issue and three minor manufacturing defects:  Bottom passenger door rubber detached, Wiper washer blockage, and lower than normal AC charging. All fixed under warranty. The charging issue needed parts and the second visit was to fit these when they arrived after a couple of weeks. I received regular emails about progress while waiting. (The restraint warning occurred after repairs to door damage that happened while parked. Suspect was a connector not fully inserted. )

Since then its had a four year service. It was due WOF, and a physical recall to check rear seat belt mounts, replace brake fluid, investigate fogging of LHS B pillar camera, replace wiper blades. In addition two wiring harness water ingress issues repaired/replaced under warranty. Total cost $514 inc GST. Half of which was brake fluid.

Its important to choose a range per charge that will easily meet your requirements.  You don't want to need a charge just to get home again from a regular daily commute.  Myself, I wouldn't feel comfortable if the range couldn't cope with two or three such local trips in case I forgot to plug in one night. With an 80% charge my Tesla would easily cope with a trip from AK to Hamilton and back, plus some local running while there. With just local running I could easily last over a week without any charging at all. Its EPA rating is just under 500Km, but in practice only about 450 with a full charge. With an 80% charge I would expect around 350km.

If the car is expected to do regular longer trips, speed of charging becomes important. For both AC (Home) and DC (Fast) charging, the car software controls this with some providing user adjustment of it.  While at home, time spent charging is not important, unless using ones hour of free power. Whether it charges at 2 Kw for 8 hours over night, or at 8 Kw for only 2 hours, its irrelevant when only 25% capacity is needed each day. However, when on a trip needing top-up stops, the time to get from 10 to 80%, or the % reached from 10% after 15 minutes, becomes important. These rates have become tests in comparing brands and its important that you know these. Often this is quoted by the manufacturer or can be found on Google. Generally the 10-80% time could range from 20 to 90 minutes.  If the maximum set by the car is 64 kW, connecting to a 250 kW charger will be no faster.
Ignore recent publicity from Toyota that they have a 1000 km range battery with charging in 6 minutes.  At 150 Watts per Km the battery would need to be 150 kWh, (double that of a Model 3) and need a 1.5 Megawatt charger to achieve a 6 minute charge and good luck finding one of those!

The optimal charge time is no more than needed to reach the next charger location with 5-10% remaining. Typically one would charge enough to provide a comfort stop every hour or so. A 15 minute charge should give at least 1 hour of driving. For a Tesla on a 250 kW charger, 10 minutes should provide a couple of hours driving. Most of their NZ super chargers are 125 or 150 kW. The navigation computer will show all this, along with the average charger usage by times throughout the day and the charge cost per kWh.  (See Pics - Finding a Charger.)

Beware of false or incomplete statistics and take reviews by automotive journalists with a grain of salt. They are indirectly paid or rewarded by the brand being reviewed. The raw number of battery fires or accidents are meaningless. Of course they look worse than a few years ago. The more cars sold the more accidents and potential fires. Figures only mean something when measured against a common metric, such as total distance traveled.

If I had to replace my current Tesla my order of preference is:

Tesla Model Q - 15% shorter length (if in production by then)
Tesla Model Y or Model 3
MG 4 ES (if available)
MG Z ES
Maybe something from BYD.

I find the current Tesla models a bit on the large size for one person, hence the smaller Model Q at the top. The model Y is higher off the ground and easier to get in and out off and has a much bigger rear boot opening, which I very much like. Whether they would be dual motor or performance versions would depend on the price and other options at the time, such as Govt subsidy, but I definitely want a long range version. As NZ doesn't have Self Drive yet I can't make an informed decision on this. However, evidently this is going to be available on a subscription basis, which may be a better choice than spending an extra $12,000 $US at purchase.

The down side - Due to Tesla successively reducing their prices for new cars, depreciation has been very high. As an early adopter I knew this would happen. The complaint with EV's has always been the price, and it had to drop to compete with ICE vehicles. The new price for mine in 2024 is now some $30,000 less. However, this has made second hand Tesla's very attractive and a bargain when compared to an ICE equivalent. The latest Tesla versions are now on average expected to last for 20 years on the original battery with 500,000 to 800,000 Km on the clock. So buying a second hand Tesla with 50,000 Km for around $40,000 is actually a true bargain.