It is the cost of the part which is £2,500 plus vat. There isn't much to an electric vehicle

Surely in time, even if not around already, there will be 'electric car specialists' who can fettle these things with soldering irons etc or via reconditioned/exchange parts.

I'm sure there were the same disgruntled, pessimistic arguments when the internal combustion engine started replacing the horse and cart. The difference though was that there was a huge untapped source of fuel. The raw materials required for making the current breed of batteries are scarce in comparison. If the batteries can be made to have greater range/ recycled efficiently and reused, it would be a step forward.

The 10% is from the dealership as have a service plan with them and no interest or contribution from Citroen.

There should be tougher legislation to ensure vital parts like these have a long no-quibble warranty. That's the best way to increase consumer confidence in the product.

Early adopters will get financially punished with nearly all new technologies.

Battery prices have fallen from $1200 per kwh in 2010 to under $200 per kwh in 2018.

Peak sales of the Citroen C Zero across Europe maxed at 3000 in 2012. For the last 8 years the average has been around 1500 pa. To compare - Ford Fiesta has averaged about 300,000 pa.

So it is no surprise that the cost of EV components is very high - they simply don't have the volumes for economies of scale. With Fiesta type volumes the cost of the component you need may well be between 25%-50% of what you are currently being asked.

Fast EV development means that component design will change rapidly - the result is that many/most current components will not fit vehicles even only 3 or 4 years old.

And I suspect EVs will start to become competitive in 2-4 years assuming battery and motor technologies continue to progress and volumes increase to make them competitive.

Edited by Terry W on 07/12/2019 at 16:31

It's illegal to use an electric scooter in the UK, except on private property with the landowner's permission. Push scooters are not permitted on roads.

There are several electric Vespa type scooters round these parts and there appears to be 2 types. Some obviously require registering like a normal road vehicle with a reg number and some just have a number plate on the rear with "max 15 mph" on.

Then there are of course those pushbikes with battery assist that appear not to meet any requirements including the users wearing a helmet.

Its fair to say that the slow scooters are a bigger menace than those that keep up with traffic.

It's like the battle in the USA between EVs and the ICE in the early years of the last century is being re-run. In the 1900s about a third of cars on the road in New York were electric. In Europe Ferdinand Porsche developed an EV (the Lohner-Porsche). But a decade or two later EVs lost out to the affordability and simplicity of petrol cars. I think EVs will be a niche market for a long time yet. They must at least match the longevity and reliability of bog standard cars like our Ford Focus (143,000m and 20yrs old next year with no major bills) before they achieve mass market status.

These people remanufacture batteries:

www.autocraftds.com/what-we-do/electric-vehicle-ev.../

They might know how to get your inverter fixed?

These people advertise inverter repairs:

www.ukhybridautomotive.co.uk/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8t...E

Great to read all the posts. Just to pick up on a few points based on 6.5 years of ownership.

1. The car was purchased brand new at a good discount for £13k and I have been lucky enough to have access to free/cheap charging at work, so the overall cost has been reasonable.

2. However adding all the costs up I am still reckon it has cost me about £3k pa. This compares to a Clio diesel I had from new for 14 years which cost about £2k pa (and did 160k miles). I think that this shows that electric cars are more expensive and worryingly wont provide the cheap motoring that most people want particularly those who buy second hand several years down the line.

4. I agree with the comments that EVs are not the answer to reducing carbon emissions.

5. It is interesting that electric cars seem to be getting larger and more complicated the C Zero and its cousins are very compact but well packaged cars which can easily carry four people and are ideal for town use and short commuting journeys. Personally I could say this is what an electric car should be, with easily (and cheaply) replaceable components. However in the time I have had the vehicle people seem to want electric vehicles to do what a petrol or diesel car will do (driving from John O'Groats to Lands End?). Hence we now seem to be producing larger over engineered electric vehicles which then make even less economic sense and use increasing resources..

6. The other thing which hasn't developed in the time I have had the car is the charging infrastructure which is lousy. There is no joined up thinking so to move around the country you have to have multiple cards or apps. There are also sometimes subscription fees which obviously then add to the cost per charge, and depending on the charging network costs to actually recharge can be nearer to costs per mile for an ICE car which reduces the economic viability of an electric car. For a few years I subscribed to one charge network for £20 pa but actually only charged a few times with them probably only having a few pounds worth of electricity each time, so those miles were very expensive overall.

I have enjoyed driving the car but with the car only worth £4,500 on the second hand market (if there wasn't anything wrong with it) the cost of repairing the convertor it is not really economically viable and at the end of the day my ICE car is more practical for me for the foreseeable future. Bearing in mind the full asking price of the vehicle would have been £26,000 with a discount of £5,000 from the government making the price £21,000 the price on the second hand market would still be the same so a big depreciation a lot more than an ICE.

2. However adding all the costs up I am still reckon it has cost me about £3k pa. This compares to a Clio diesel I had from new for 14 years which cost about £2k pa (and did 160k miles).

Is that a straight comparison? Biggest cost in early years is depreciation almost all of which occurs before year 7. I'm not convinced spreading the C Zero's depreciation over 6 years and the Clio's over 14 is a fair comparison.

4. I agree with the comments that EVs are not the answer to reducing carbon emissions.

Right now Gridwatch says were getting 37% of electric from wind, 5% solar and 2% hydro. Another 9% is biomass but I accept that 'green' credentials there might be a bit iffy. Another 21% is nuclear.