The high price of a new electric car is widely thought of as being the biggest limiting factor in getting people to buy in to the EV revolution. Generally, it has been true in the past that even accounting for grants from the Sustainable Energy Authority (SEAI) and rebates on vehicle registration tax (VRT), electric cars have tended to be far more expensive than their conventional diesel, petrol and even hybrid brethren.
No longer, though. While VW has made waves this past month with the announcement of an upcoming compact electric model which will cost as little as €20,000 (taxes allowing) the fact is that electric cars are already rapidly approaching that sort of cost point.
Indeed, they’ve already dipped – albeit temporarily – under it. Volkswagen itself was briefly selling the last few examples of its brilliant, 250km-ranged e-Up for as little as €18,000, in an effort to clear the last few stocks of the car. OK, so it didn’t last long, but the fact is that you could have bought a new electric car for less than that magic €20,000 number.
It possibly helps the case for electric cars that the prices of those conventional petrol and diesel models have been steadily rising too. When a humble Skoda Fabia or Renault Clio costs north of €20,000 you know we’re in a new paradigm of vehicle costs.
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Since they were first launched, more than a decade ago, electric cars have always boasted a potentially lower full-life cost than petrol or diesel cars, and that has remained true even in an age of increased electricity prices. As long as you do most of your charging at home, and preferably on a reduced night rate, running an EV is spectacularly cheaper than filling up with go-go-juice at €1.80 a litre.
The upfront price has continued to be off-putting, though. That is now changing, driven by lower costs for making the batteries (the cost of the battery was at one point as much as 80 per cent of the cost of an entire electric car) and increased competition, particularly from Chinese brands.
It’s in China, or at least in a Chinese car dealership, that we have to start then and there are few better examples than the BYD Dolphin. It may have a slightly silly aquatic name (and BYD is itself a cringe-inducing acronym of Build Your Dreams) but this is a very serious car. Right now, BYD will sell you a Dolphin with a 420km range from a 64kWh battery for €29,318. That’s less than VW asks you for a basic petrol-powered Golf, and the Dolphin is roomier inside. Plus, that 420km range is not only realistic, but the ‘Blade’ battery, with its lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) design, is more robust than that of most rivals and can be full charged over and over without loss of energy storage.
It’s a good car in other ways too. It’s quiet and refined, and while there are plenty of cheap plastics in the cabin, BYD’s designers have given them a subtle texture which makes them nice to look at and touch, showing a depth of thoughtfulness and thoroughness that some European car makers would do well to emulate.
BYD of course has a combative Chinese rival in MG. While MG is, technically, a British car brand (remember all those 1960s sports cars?), since 2005 it’s been Chinese-owned and has rebuilt its European sales base with a series of electric and plug-in hybrid models. The most impressive of these is the MG4, an all-electric direct rival to the BYD Dolphin and the Volkswagen ID.3, and which currently has a base price of just €25,995.
Now, that’s a limited offer (mostly for the July change to the 242 registration plate) but it’s still a tempting one, albeit it gets you the most basic model with the smallest battery and a range of 350km. That’s actually a surprisingly useful range, once you get used to frequent top-ups, but there is the option of extending it to 450km thanks to a bigger battery, for a cost of €29,495.
Can Europe compete with that? Well, actually, yes it can. Volkswagen has recently been trimming the prices of its ID electric car range, and the ID.3 electric hatchback now has a starting price of €35,765. Pricier than the MG? Well, yes, but it’s a much closer competition when you take away the MG’s temporary special offer price, which brings it back up to €33,495 with a comparable range.
There’s also the Cupra Born – mechanically identical to the ID.3 but with a more stylish Spanish body – which has a similar list price, but which Cupra will currently sell to you with a monthly PCP finance package cost of just €229 (you’ll need to pay a deposit, of course, and there’s a chunky “final payment” at the end of the three years but it’s still a tempting price…).
Fancy something affordable but without the, ahem, “distinctive” electric car looks of the ID.3 or Born? Well, there’s the Opel Astra electric, which comes with subtler styling and a 420km range for €35,298.
Of course, if you’re prepared to pay just a little more than that, you can get yourself into some seriously capable and long-ranged electric cars. Tesla is often a controversial company, not least thanks to its CEO but also because its quality levels can be, shall we say variable?
That said, Tesla has been taking the lead in trimming its prices, as well as improving its batteries, so that now you can buy a standard-range Model 3 saloon (by far Tesla’s best model) for €40,990 with a range of 513km and access to Tesla’s brilliant ‘Supercharger’ rapid charging network which makes longer journeys far, far easier.
Alternatively, returning to China, there’s the BYD Seal – an Irish Times car of the year, no less – which is similar in size and style to the Model 3, boasts a 570km range as standard and which costs €44,036. It’s a lot of car for the money.
Mind you, if you’re looking for a personal recommendation, there’s the Hyundai Ioniq 6 ... In its most affordable €45,395 form it has a generally impressive range of 429km, but for €50,000 you can upgrade that to more than 600km – and, thanks to its slippery, aerodynamic styling, it really will achieve that kind of performance in real-world conditions. It’s a wildly impressive car.
Does that start to sound we’ve drifted back into expensive realms with these electric models? Possibly so, but all things are relative. Consider that the Tesla Model 3, Hyundai Ioniq 6, and BYD Seal are all executive-style, sporting saloons. Well, the benchmark for that class has long been the BMW 3 Series, but even in its most affordable, plug-in hybrid form, that’s a car which costs at minimum €56,000 these days, which rather puts the prices of this four-door electric trio into perspective, and that’s well before you start to take lower running costs into account.
Does it matter that electric cars are suffering when it comes to depreciation? Yes, of course it does, but the current plummet in electric car values is largely due to a sharp market correction following on from the Covid and microchip-fuelled shortage of cars in general from 2020 to 2022. If anything, the market has over-corrected for the moment, and as second-hand buyers start to cotton on to the cost benefits of running an electric car, and as they start to become more confident about the longevity of batteries, that should start to change.
The vagaries of the market will have to play themselves out anyway. What you now need to do is to start taking electric motoring seriously as a value proposition. Prices for new models have fallen already and will fall again. Charging will (slowly, too slowly, but still) become easier. And the imperative to reduce emissions from transport will not go away. The affordable electric car isn’t around the corner; it’s already here.
