See all Motoring AdviceIf you’re thinking of getting yourself into an EV, but you’re going to look at used examples to keep the purchase budget suitably low, then here are our top tips to help you secure a good one.
Accept reduced battery effectiveness – and thus reduced driving range
Any electrical item that has a rechargeable battery pack – such as a smartphone – will inevitably lose some of that battery capacity over time. Well, that applies to EVs too. Manufacturers will typically guarantee their EV batteries will still be 70 per cent effective after eight years of use.
This means, as an example, that if an EV has an official maximum driving range when the car is brand new of 400km, by the time it is eight years old, that number may have tumbled to 280km. It’s not a failing of the battery, or the EV in general, but something to watch out for.
This won’t be a huge problem if the EV you’re looking at was a long-range model in the first place, say one capable of 500km or more when new, because you can probably work with a 250-300km real-world used range quite comfortably. But if it was a short-range EV when new, you might only be looking at something like 100-150km or so before it needs a charge. Again, if you’re only going to use the vehicle for short-distance commuting and you know you can easily access either AC or DC chargers at home and/or your place of work, that might be enough and it should also ensure that the used price of the car in question is suitably tempting. But the long and short of all this is: don’t be surprised to see a fully charged EV’s trip computer showing you a maximum range figure that’s considerably less than what the manufacturer said it would do when it was new. It’s the norm, not out of the ordinary.
Check the charge ports
This is the equivalent of the ‘fuel filler’ neck on a car with a petrol or diesel engine. For an EV, it will obviously be an electrical socket, into which you can plug charging cables. In the early days of the modern EV revolution, there was no standardisation of charging ports, which meant manufacturers could fit different ports – meaning some charging cables won’t fit into certain EVs, just as you couldn’t charge an iPhone with an Android cable some years back. Luckily, this scenario has been sensibly rationalised in recent years, and nowadays the vast majority of EVs use the CCS/Type 2 ports that are commonplace – these use seven-pin plugs with a circular charge housing (one side of the circle is flattened).
There are, though, some notable exceptions to the CCS/Type 2 rule. Most notably, earlier Tesla cars, like the Model S and Model X, and also one of the most widespread and affordable used EVs – the Nissan Leaf. The Teslas had their own connection type when new, although later vehicles from the American company have since conformed to a CCS-compatible system. The Leaf, however, uses Chademo, a different type of unit to CCS that has two circular and two cross-shaped connections in its housing.
Chademo is still widely catered for on public charge points, but as everyone moves to CCS – including Nissan itself, as its newer Ariya EV uses CCS rather than Chademo – and now that Tesla has shifted into line too, how much longer will Chademo public charging connections be around? It might be best thinking longer-term and picking a vehicle with the standard CCS Combo 2 charging port.
Check the cables
Most EVs sold usually came with at least one domestic charging cable as standard, which is normally stored in the boot, under the boot floor, or even in a front boot area under what would conventionally be termed the car’s ‘bonnet’. Most typically, this will be either a Type 2 Mode 2 cable, or a Type 2 Mode 3 (you might be lucky and the EV you’re looking at will have both).
The ‘Mode 2’ has a Mennekes connector at one end, a converter control box wired into the middle of the cable, and then a standard, three-pin domestic plug socket at the other. This is the slowest possible charging cable you can use on an EV and is designed to go straight into a wall socket in your home or garage at one end, then plug into the car at the other.
The ‘Mode 3’ dispenses with the control box and is simply a length of electrical cable, normally around five metres long, with Mennekes connectors at both ends. This is designed to fit into a dedicated AC wallbox charging unit at your place of residence, which is the gamechanger for anyone wanting to run an EV properly.
You’ll need to know that the cable is a) present on the used EV you’re looking at, and b) isn’t damaged in any way – such as the cable housing being frayed, exposing the wires within, or the connectors being damaged. This is a crucial check to make when sizing up a used EV.
What’s the service history like?
You may have heard that EVs are comparatively low maintenance compared to petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles with internal combustion engines, because EVs don’t have an engine, they don’t have a gearbox and thus they have far fewer moving parts which can go wrong. This is entirely true – they are low maintenance… but, by the same token, they’re not zero maintenance.
Therefore, all EVs still have a mandated service schedule from their parent manufacturer, so if the car you’re looking at is three or more years old, you need to check it has been maintained according to its maker’s records. Don’t let a seller fob you off by saying ‘EVs don’t need to be serviced’ when you ask to see a used example’s service records.
Don’t forget: it’s still a car
Apart from its propulsion system, an EV is still a car at the end of the day, so don’t get sucked into a mood of complacency when viewing a used one. You still need to check its tyres are in good condition and aren’t excessively worn, you still want to drive it and listen out for both the brakes and the suspension to make sure they’re working exactly as they should, you still must go over the vehicle with a fine-toothed comb and see if anything on it isn’t working properly or looks neglected or appears to be far too worn-out to tally with the claimed mileage on the odometer.
EVs might have less that can go wrong on them, but – like any consumer product – go wrong they will, as they all have a degree of obsolescence built into them to ensure you buy a new version some years down the line. Therefore, subject an EV (and its seller/owner) to the same amount of scrutiny you would a car with a petrol or diesel engine, safe in the knowledge that you at least don’t have to worry that there will be any engine or gearbox issues with the vehicle in the longer run.
Drive it
We’ve already said this in the section above, but you can’t just look at a used EV, think ‘it looks tidy and well looked-after, it’ll be fine’… and then buy it without driving it. Take it out on a good test drive and make sure it all works for you, that it feels like a car you could live with in the long term. EVs provide a certain type of driving experience that’s very pleasant and refined, but because they’re heavy vehicles then they can put extra wear on suspension and brake components, so you need to make sure the vehicle rides and stops properly, and that there are no loud clonking sounds from either of these chassis departments.
Not all EVs have huge power and torque outputs, so it’s not a major issue if the straight-line performance isn’t like that of a supercar. However, if you know roughly what the performance levels should be like and the EV feels comparatively weak or like it is struggling to accelerate, best to walk away. There could be a significant issue with either its propulsion motor or its battery pack, neither of which will be an inexpensive fix.