 eDrive 2 - Our new car (2)
kfz-tech.de/Pe22
The attitude towards buying a new car has changed significantly. What kind of times were those when you bought a new car one despite buying a (used) house and drove through the Eifel with the roof open on the first night,
with the smell of real leather in your nose.
It's been a long, long time. Our next car purchase was clearly marked by more common sense. We paid a lot of attention to CO2 emissions and therefore even accepted lowering the chassis with a harder
chassis. Of course, the significantly lower consumption also had its moments of happiness.
And this time? We were actually 'forced' to buy a car, if you can put it like that. The old car with a diesel engine would have served us well still for many years, but VW had offered so outrageously little compensation in the
context of the diesel scandal that we felt obliged to sue.
Now we had a lot of money, but no car anymore. Buying back seemed too complicated for us and there wasn't really an opportunity to do so. Furthermore, it was to be assumed that the price that we would have been asked
to pay, if any, would not have corresponded in any way with market prices.
Of course we would have liked to take all that money back to VW, but they 'refused to accept it' by means of unfriendly service, highest prices and a year-long waiting period. We just had to look for another provider. One thing
was clear, however, the new one should be a purely electric vehicle with a large battery.
No, not necessarily because of the long range. It has something to do with our solar panels. The system is not large, but at the moment it still brings in good money at € 0.40/kWh. We can only laugh about the 'increase' to
0.09 €/kWh at the moment. 0.40 €/kWh is, so to speak, our overall cap on the 'fuel price'.
At the moment we are paying a little less for the kWh, but as soon as that changes, we will switch and charge some of the solar power into our new car. This is relatively easy with a switch on the line between the inverter and
the meter box. It can then be charged in single phase.
We are somewhat concerned about the fact that the output from our system sometimes falls below the acceptance level of the electric car. The plan is therefore to slightly upgrade the system, which would be relatively easy
due to the maximum capacity of the inverter. After all, we installed the system ourselves back then.
By the way, our system will still benefit from its high yield for another eight years. Of course, it should be noted that it should actually go without saying that you get roughly the same amount for electricity as you pay when you
use it. We lack any understanding of the current, low 'compensation'.
It is almost certain that we will not succeed in the energy transition that way. And if the people who have now been talked into such a system by their trusted installer, complete with storage tank, look at the results afterwards,
they could be very disappointed.
Especially because our new one has a 64 kWh battery. A little grandiloquently, you could say that, compared to home batteries, you only pay money for the battery and you almost get the vehicle around it for free. The special
highlight is that the warranty on the battery is also eight years.
This means we can then work on it, with all due caution of course. The battery was then checked again by us shortly before the warranty expired and is ready to absorb as much power as possible from the solar panels for
many more years. Then the is still worth €0.40/kWh or perhaps even more, depending on the development of electricity prices.
We received a much friendlier welcome at our local Hyundai dealership. They also had a comparatively small car with a large battery on offer, which also had a waiting period, but only half a year.
Oral promise: If this deadline is exceeded by one month, we will receive a rental car free of charge.
No, we didn't buy the Kona because of its supposed beauty. On the contrary, when we changed the color because the standard blue of the good one was a little too much, we chose red instead of white because it doesn't
emphasize the contours as much.
Actually it should have been the ID.3 with 77 kWh. We don't still feel so old that we need the Kona's elevated seating position. Then it just takes a moment longer to sit down. But the car would have been a little more racy and
would have had more space with about the same length.
Let's see if my bike can fit in the Kona. If necessary, I'll build a mechanism that allows the tailgate to stay open a little. At least you don't have to worry about exhaust gases getting into the interior. It's also short enough for
easy parking.
Since you have to back out of the driveway onto a relatively busy street, we would have liked the cross-traffic warning system, but this would have required a much more expensive package. You can't be completely satisfied
with the standard halogen light either.
No matter, € 38,900 is enough and significantly more than we paid for our last new car. It also represents the largest jump in price from one new vehicle to the next, although the time span is significantly shorter this time.
And the € 4,500 in BAFA bonus also doesn’t change anything.
Yes, we go into next year and lose €1,500 in bonus. However, the hype is so great at the moment that 'our' car has become almost €4,000 more expensive shortly after ordering. At the beginning of the year we would never
have dreamed of entering into this inflationary competition.
We are also not hasty buyers of heat pumps and don't really believe in the manufacturers' calculations, no matter how great they may be. We're sticking with gas because our heating system will probably need to be replaced
when alternatives are offered via the existing network.
Because the surplus electricity that will hopefully be available at some point has to go somewhere, right? Then the poor efficiency of hydrogen or another gas that can be obtained from it would not matter. And Germany could
use both the gas network and the existing gas storage facilities.
Speaking of heat pumps. We could have also ordered these in the Kona, 'only' an additional charge of € 1,500. You can scold us, but we didn't do that. Because we mainly need the car for short journeys, which I always felt
sorry for the combustion engine, especially in winter.
In this case, a heat pump is completely pointless because its main task is to distribute coolant. But after a cold start there is nothing to distribute unless you pre-air condition. We do not want. We are happy to drive to the
bakery and supermarket for our weekly shopping.
kfz-tech.de/Ye27
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