A new vehicle; time for a big change

It’s funny how life can take unexpected turns. We returned from our Big Lap of Australia about a year ago now, and one of the first things I got stuck into was looking for a second vehicle for me to get to and from work. We’d sold my old Corolla prior to leaving, and after much deliberation and searching, I eventually settled on a 2012 Honda Civic which had about 65,000km on the clock, was well appointed and drove well. I got our mechanic to do a number of things, with the intention of keeping it for the next 10 + years as a run about to and from work.

The end of our Honda Civic

Only 5 months into the Honda ownership, I was stopped at an intersection a few streets away from our house, when the driver of a VW Tiguan cut the corner about as much as you could, and failed to brake at all, before driving straight into the front passenger side of the vehicle. I was fuming, seeing it happening well in advance but with zero ability to do anything. However, I was humbled (mildly!) when an 80 year old lady stepped out of the drivers seat, and exclaimed ‘I don’t know what happened!’. 

We did the usual thing with detail swaps and so forth, and I went and saw a panel beater not long after, had it assessed and booked it in. I was given a hire car due to an airbag fault, and a couple of days prior to the hire vehicle running out, I rang to find out the progress, only to be told the vehicle had been written off due to a damaged airbag harness, and not being able to get replacements.

I was very unimpressed, with very little time to find another vehicle and with money lost due to the insurance values. Being such a low kilometre vehicle I’d paid 12k, and it was at maximum allowed value with RAC at $9700, plus we’d spent about $1600 at the mechanics getting it pristine for many years of motoring.

Curve balls are something you get used to travelling Australia, and like every other one, I started looking immediately for a replacement vehicle. It was hard 5 months ago, and had not gotten any better. Anything under 12 – 15k was a real gamble, with anything as good or better than what I had at least 15 – 20k. Now, I’m sure had I have not been in a hurry something would have eventually popped up, but I was borrowing a family vehicle and didn’t want to hold it forever.

On a random hunch, I thought I’d look into Novated Leasing again, given we’d already done it with the Isuzu Dmax for 5 years in 2018, and were quite happy with it.

Electric vehicles

Up until this point I’d done a bit of research on EV’s in a very informal way, and knew at some stage they’d be something we’d look at. However, I was not aware of the ridiculous tax incentives of getting an EV, and was quite shocked to receive a quote for a brand new EV through a Novated Lease. Not only are the exempt from FBT (Fringe Benefit Tax), but the WA government was offering a $3500 rebate for any EV’s purchased up until May 10, 2025.

I should point out my interest in electric vehicles stemmed primarily from the driver comfort, limited maintenance requirements and financial savings. The environmental side of things is also of interest, but not a primary driver and I’m also not entirely convinced that they’re the ticket to major environmental improvements. I should point out that we recently had a 13kW solar system installed too, which made it even more suitable for our new stage in life.

Initially, I went to BYD, and drove their Dolphin and Atto 3, and I quite liked both. I then took a Tesla Model Y for a drive (second hand), which was absolutely beautiful, but I just couldn’t justify the extra money. For me, transport just has to be reliable, and economical, and not much more than that. I ended up at Nedland MG looking at a second hand Atto 3 (as the new ones were 2 months away and wouldn’t have met the rebate time frame), and looked at the MG4, and not long before I was leaving, I was told about the MG ZS EV in long range.

These were in run out, with a new model landing shortly (they’re here now), and they only had a few vehicles left. A couple of years ago they were selling for 62k driveaway, and they were running them out the door at $36,888. That’s a seriously good deal in anyone’s eyes, but when you take the $3500 rebate off, plus the GST due to a novated lease, you walk away with a brand new EV for 30k, and that’s just ridiculous.

These come with a 7 year warranty, or 160,000km, and roadside assist for the entire duration too. After watching mechanics online, I’d previously said I’d never buy an MG, but its pretty hard to go past the figures. Ironically, it was much cheaper to do this, than it was to get a smaller, cheaper base price petrol vehicle on a novated lease, which is hard to comprehend.

You get 4.2 cents per kilometre back for electricity costs charging at home too, which if you are on a time of day tariff, or have solar and can use it, makes it even more attractive.

About the MG ZS EV LR

The MG that we ended up with was the last iteration, with a build date in 2023. I like this, because all of the bugs will have been ironed out. First model vehicles are always a bit of a gamble, and yet they’re always very popular.

The MG ZS EV were originally a petrol vehicle, that MG converted to Electric, and then they came out with a second iteration, before running the model out. The new MG ES5 is now being sold, which replaces our model. The MG ZS also comes in a hybrid version too, which seems to be quite popular. Now, I’ll happily admit that this vehicle is on the lowest end of the EV scale, and given that it was originally a petrol design it will never be as good as a bespoke EV, designed and built from the ground up with batteries and electric motors.

These are quoted at 440km of range, and run a NMC Lithium battery, which is good for 1500 + cycles, and prefers to be kept between 20 and 80% state of charge. This will still get you around 700,000km without changing the battery, which is insane. The slower your driving, the better the fuel economy; stop start traffic is much better than freeway driving, contrary to the norm in a combustion vehicle.

It’s 150kW, with a 73kWh battery, with a 40,000km (or 24 month) service interval, and capped price servicing.

Ours has heated front seats, a sunroof, decent regenerative braking (probably 85% of braking is cancelled out for my style of driving) and it does 0 – 100km/h in about 8 seconds, which is more than fast enough. On the flip side, it does not come with wireless android auto, which was solved by buying a wireless Android Auto dongle.

The finances

I mentioned above that the primary reason for going down this route was the finances. I wanted a reliable car, and was prepared to consider any option. In our scenario, I opted for 20,000km per year, on a 5 year lease. 

The vehicle was $36,888, minus the GST and the $3500 rebate from the WA Government, taking it to just over 30k, driveaway.

My cost per fortnight is $308, plus the balloon repayment at the end if I choose to keep the vehicle of $10500. That’s $50,500 over 5 years and we drive away in the MG as our own vehicle, or 40k and we hand the vehicle back. This isn’t quite right though, as we got $3500 back from the WA government, plus the driving rebate below.

This covers everything; the finance (at high 8’s), servicing, replacement tyres, electricity, registration and insurance. Now, I mentioned 4.2 cents per km from the ATO earlier, which takes our annual EV charging electricity cost at 16kWh/100km from $992 (at the normal 31c per unit) to just $152. Now, do most of your charging at home off solar, and you’ll easily drop that to $0, and even save a few hundred bucks on top. 

Realistically then, its about 40k total for 5 years of ownership of a brand new MG ZS EV, and we get the car at the end. 

The reason its so cheap is because every single cost of owning and running the car is currently tax deductible, because its an EV.

Now, if we considered my 12k Civic, and do the figures over 5 years, we get the below:

Fuel: 20,000km at an average of 7.5L/100km, and at $1.65 per litre – $2500

Maintenance – $1000 per year. Estimated. I spent about $1800 when I first got the vehicle, and know how quickly these costs add up if you maintain it well.

Rego and insurance – $1900

Interest cost – $720 (mortgage rate)

Depreciation – Very little – maybe 1k per year?

A total of $7120 per year, or $35600 over 5 years.

So, for $880 per year over 5 years, we get a brand new vehicle, with virtually non existent servicing requirements that is safe, comfortable, quiet and fun, instead of driving a 13 year old Honda Civic around. It’s actually obscene.

Now, I will point out that if you novated lease a 40k petrol vehicle against a 40k electric vehicle, the EV is going to be substantially cheaper, purely because of the FBT exemption.

We could have purchased a second hand vehicle with cash, but you’re still paying the mortgage rate of high 5%, and I felt I’d be spending 15 – 20k to get anything reasonable, which just didn’t make sense.

What do we think of it?

I really enjoy driving the MG. It’s quiet, comfortable, has immediate torque and I’m happy to cruise around a lot more, knowing that the costs are extremely low. Our family fits quite comfortably in it, and whilst it will be getting too small in 5 years when our kids are much bigger, it will do just fine as the primary, around town car. Its so much more comfortable than our Dmax, and asides from learning that the indicators are on the left side and a whole raft of new electronical controls, its been a smooth change.

If its not causing us any issues after the 5 year lease we’ll hang onto it, but if its depreciated incredibly we can hand it back and not cop the crazy depreciation.

Charging plans

Up until now (around 3000km done), I’ve just been using the 10 amp charger that the car comes with. I can do virtually a week of driving and charge it on the weekends. The idea is to maximise the charging when our solar is doing well, but the 10A charge is simply not fast enough to do this entirely. 250km a week requires roughly 25 hours a week on charge, and at this time of the year we’re lucky to get 14 hours of decent sun over the weekend.

My intention is to install a faster charger, which will allow a 7 or 11kW charging rate, and the 250km per week charging down to 4 – 7 hours, which is easily doable on one day of the weekend. These are about $1000 – $3000 depending on what you get.

Alternatively, you can go to a time of use tariff, and charge it overnight at a reduced rate, or over the weekend from 9AM to 3PM at an even cheaper rate.

If we can charge off solar, it will cost us zero in fuel for our secondary vehicle, which saves us about $50 a week. Not bad.

Should you get an EV?

I’ve never been one to tell people what they should, and shouldn’t do. What I would say, is that these are going to become far more common in the next decade, and if you need another vehicle its worth looking into. The Chinese electric vehicles are absolutely killing it its going to be a very fascinating next decade in the auto industry.

That said, if you fall into one, or more of the below, I’d be more cautious:

• No access to charging at home. Relying on the public network is stress I simply don’t need. Some people do it, but it would turn me off completely.
• Regular trips well out of the major cities. For us, if we were taking it down to the South West often it would be a hassle. Yes, its doable, but its not nearly as convenient as an internal combustion vehicle.
• If you have a reliable vehicle that you like. Environmentally, the best thing you can do is run that thing to the ground. I’d still have our Civic, and be quite happy driving it around if someone stayed on their side of the road.
• Doing more than 120km per day, without access to a faster charger, or a second car. The normal 10A outlet at home will yield about 10km per hour of charge. If you’re doing more than 120km a day, it makes it hard to charge up enough overnight without a dedicated, larger EV charger. For us, I have zero concerns over range or charge, as we can always take the Dmax, which will comfortably do 1100km on a tank.
• Towing/4WDing. There’s no full electric vehicle out there yet that is really suitable for towing anything heavy, or 4WDing. The BYD Shark appears to be a brilliant hybrid option which I have no doubt will become incredibly popular, but its still fuelled by petrol. Yes, some people do tow with EV’s, and they’re getting better, but it tends to be lighter trailers, on shorter trips (or with really good planning).

Final thoughts

This is a bit of a random post, from a series of random events that we’ve experienced recently. No doubt it wont be relevant to a lot of you, but if you found it helpful or have any questions, leave a comment below and let me know!

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