03-17-2021, 08:51 AM
(03-17-2021, 07:31 AM)HawkingsHalfpint Wrote: The old MD at our place literally flipped out at his tax bill one year, and decided he didn't want to give HMRC anymore money than he already was. So he chopped his relatively decent motor, and bought one of the first Mitsubishi iMiEVs to hit the streets.
Despite it being little bigger than a Ka he loved it at first, and used to take great joy in driving folk around in it at breakneck speed; as if almost to prove how fast it was. Which was - in fairness - not too sluggish, however you wouldn't expect a car the size and shape of a bumblebee to be too pedestrian.
My abiding memory was that he always had his coat on as the heater was shit. He also nearly mowed quite a few people down as you could never hear it coming. Eventually (after the first one's battery failed, and his eco-barfmobile-coloured promowagon was replaced by a slightly more subtle silver one), the second one began to wain, and its battery seldom gave him over 60-100 miles unless more or less permanently plugged in, which it was. He gradually started using his wife's car more and it was left to decay in the factory somewhere, until he retired and we eventually chopped it for about £2k.
I tend to drive my cars until they drop so longevity is always #1 priority, hence went for a large, ugly but reliable diesel Rav4 last time out. I did have a look at the hybrid ones to see if I fancied buying one on the never-never like most seem to do nowadays but they only had a ten-year guarantee on the battery which I presume would be ludicrously expensive to replace if it did go wrong. Then you think if you buy a second hand one with fewer years guarantee left (or try and flog one) whether this would either be a potentially expensive mistake in the former case or in the latter bring depreciate massively.
