Advice on buying used ev

You’ll need to work out the range you can expect from the car you’re buying.

Try to get accurate battery degradation info about the car you’re looking at. This is very difficult, at best you can get apps that measure the usable capacity, at worst maybe Google other users tests of that car is your best bet.

then get the long term efficiency level from the trip computer

and ask the owner about their mix of urban/rural/motorway driving.

combining all 3 will give you an accurate measure of range.

ignore ALL mention of expected ranges numbers from any EV ad, and work it out for yourself.

Tesla maintenance is minimal, wipers, tyres and a brake check and air filter every two years. No annual service at all.

Well I don’t see many other 2021’s for that price online so seems decent value. There’s an 8 year 160k km warranty so your unlikely to spend anything on repairs.

Possibly but your buying a 3 year old car so its likely to loose 50% of its value over the next 3 years just like any other car would

Sorry, but you are misinformed. I am a Model 3 owner and I pay the €10 subscription.

Without the subscription, you still have all the screen functionality as those without a sub. The exception being you won’t have satellite view and real time traffic data. Your updates can be done on your home WiFi or on your mobile hotspot if you were so inclined to wait.

The subscription gives you a free Spotify account which is great if you don’t have one already. They’re hardly going to give free Netflix and Disney accounts, but it’s great to have the big screen to watch using your streaming accounts if you want to.

There are no other subscriptions for Teslas, but you can pay to upgrade from the standard autopilot software if you choose to.

@ the OP. Model 3 is a good choice. Sounds like you don’t need the range, but it’s nice to have. You could do much worse for 30k. Prices will likely drop over the next 6 months, but they could also stagnate, or rise. Anything could happen in this crazy world.

Just to add my 2 cents - picked up a 2020 BMW 330e M Sport two weeks ago - cost me €36k. It has plenty of gadgets and extras to play with. I prefer the look of the car over the likes of a Model 3.

When fully charged, I have around 25km on electric (this apparently increases when the hotter weather rolls around). This distance is perfect for me, as I also WFH. I drive to the office once every week or so, which is a round trip from Galway to Athlone (~160km), meaning 50km of this trip is on electric (charge in the office) and the rest is using petrol.

The petrol tank is quite small compared to my previous diesel. Costs around €60-70 to fill it, and would use a quarter of a tank during the Galway-Athlone round trip.

The thing I like about the PHEV is that it is a very smooth drive when driving in electric mode, but when you switch to 'sport' mode it kicks in the ICE which is great too have a bit of fun with the car.

The dealer provided me a 1 year mechanical warrantly, and BMW provides their own warranty for the battery if the car has less than 100,000km or is less than 6 years old (whichever comes first). Mine has 50,000km. From doing a bit of reading, it can be quite costly to repair/replace the battery if this goes, but I think that can be quite rare.

It can also be relatively costly for standard services etc, but I think this is expected as you would be buying a car within 'premium' brand which requires 'premium' parts.

Agree with you here, I have the premium connectivity myself and its nice to have but definitely not a necessity. I just like the satellite maps and the ease of using the streaming services without any hotspotting of phone

(On a side note - does the premium connectivity sub actually give you a free Spotify account though? I have only ever logged in with the account I had before I got the car, so never looked at the option of a free account with the car. The Tesla website says "**A paid subscription to streaming services is required to access music and media streaming" - https://www.tesla.com/en_eu/support/connectivity

Good point on the optional heating. It's not a subscription, but worth knowing. Personally I see almost no value in rear heated seats. Steering wheel heater is a nice to have. If it were BMW, you would be renting the heat for the whole car 😂

While a dedicated EV charger is not necessary for a smaller battery car, there is a lot to be said for the convenience of having a dedicated wall charger and one that is less easily stolen. Each to their own though.

Anyone know if the Tesla warranty is still valid if the car is Irish registered, but imported from the UK a year or two ago? Assuming that the other warranty requirements are still valid.

To be honest I don’t know if the price is good value or not. I would recommend a 2022 or late 2021 model if buying second hand. The lfp mic car is excellent. I pay the 10euro per month, worth it in my opinion for music, multi camera view, satellite view etc. car is well made, don’t listen to some of the crap here and elsewhere.

I would also recommend getting the Tesla Model 3 particularly if you prefer the saloon over an SUV.

It handles very well, tech is excellent and the range is very good.

Tesla's have no service requirements which is another positive. They recommend changing the brake fluid every 4 years but there is no servicing linked to warranty like other manufacturers.

The version with the LFP battery can be charged to 100%without impacting its longevity. The pre-LFP cars can be charged to 100% if the additional range is needed for a trip but in general it is recommended to charge to 80%.

Having a home charger makes it so much easier. The home charger combined with a smart meter and an EV friendly smart meter contract from a supplier dramatically reduces the running cost per km.

Good to know. Thanks for the information 😀

I did my research extensively before buying a used ev. I had an original budget of 20-23k and the only things worth considering were i3, id3 and egolf. As i needed something more solid than an ioniq.

however each one were going to have issues and battery tech and app etc etc.

in the end i even didnt get a mif m3 which were 1 month ago selling for 29k, but managed to get myself a lfp m3 rwd 2021 with warranty for slightly less.

yes i went over budget but you could see if wasnt depreciating as much as other evs, and if im honest, m3 as an ev makes sense as its built to be an ev.

im extremely happy to have stuck to the m3.

disclosure, i had prior exposure as we have a model y from last year so im well aware how much better ev and tech was compared to others, and how it drove etc.