wivenhoe

I’m not sure of the relevance of this in the UK - half of the discount is a federal tax saving off of earnings, not off the price of the car - https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxcenter.shtml From a different website - the $15,000 lease cash incentive includes the $7,500 federal tax credit. We are passing along the benefit of those tax credits to customers," a spokesperson told InsideEVs. The US government has brought in massive tax incentives for EV’s - it’s a major reason Tesla reduced their prices as one of the incentives applied to cars less than $50k. The US did all this whilst the UK government removed the subsidy on EV’s.

It’s not only EV’s. I px’d my 2 years Range Rover Velar in May against the Takumi. One of the major reasons for doing it was I got £ 62k for it having paid £ 70k - unheard of. The Velar is now worth £ 48k so a loss of £ 14k in 6 months and nearly double what it lost in 2 years. Takumi has lost about £ 18k so in real terms £ 4K more. Looking at it like this is the only way I can sleep at night !

We swapped from the Jazz to the Yaris as the ‘driving aids’ in Jazz were ridiculous, even on the lowest setting. The Lane control was downright dangerous in say a lane where you moved over to avoid something the car forced you back. It was a right palaver having to turn them off every time. My wife really likes the Yaris and thinks it is one of the best cars she has had, recent ones being the Jazz, Polo, Fiat 500, Polo. As you can see, she will only drive small cars. If you are going with the Yaris, if you can, get one with a pano roof - it makes a massive difference.

We swapped the wife’s Honda Jazz for a new Yaris (was a straight swap as the Honda had the same residual as paid for 2 years before). The Yaris is a top of the range and cost £ 21k. The Takumi LBX is £ 40k - spec wise not that much higher so double the price for better materials and build - I just don’t see it.

Just looked on Autotrader and despite Merc’s agency approach, there are loads of brand new Merc’s at heavily discounted prices e.g. EQC Premium Plus £ 9k discount. So that’s not how the agency approach was meant to work. Their announcement said single price so no stress as you would always get the best offer ! My local tyre centre is also a MG dealership. I know the manager really well there. They were forced to switch, as Peugeot after many years decided to remove the franchise - Stellantis rethink on number of dealers. He says they have never been so busy as being MG they move far more cars and they get a fair bit of warranty work ! Plus MG sell ICE cars and EV’s. He said it didn’t cost a fortune to ‘rebrand’ to MG and they don’t spend a fortune having to prepare for the tick sheet mob of ‘franchise auditors’ from Peugeot. However, a relative of mine bought a new MG and it has been back to the dealers with a faulty fuel gauge that they can’t get the parts for.

Genesis tried the web only sales and a central service with collection and delivery of cars. They sold this as a unique service with personalised attention. It bit them badly and now they have signed deals with dealer networks for a network of conventional localish service centres. Genesis has appointed the first seven of 20 new network partners as part of its plans to establish a franchised dealer network in the UK ahead of further European expansion. The move represents a significant change of direction for the brand which was launched in the UK in 2021 on the premise that it would “look after the customer from end-to-end, taking full control of that with no agents, no dealers”.

My policy went up by £ 300 to insure the RZ Takumi instead of my 2 year old Range Rover Velar. I just got a quote for a RX Takumi instead of the RZ and £ 300 cheaper ! Not in London and if I’d kept the Velar I think the renewal would have been over £1,000 more as NFU now refuse to insure any Land Rovers younger than 5 years except for existing clients.

The market price of all EV’s have plummeted recently. The critics favourite, the Genesis GV60 is a good example. A top of the range model is £ 73k on their website so similar to a RZ Takumi Autotrader has a 23 reg with 800 miles top of the range for £ 59k. Motorway will not provide a value. Motorway values a 6 month old RZ Takumi with 4,500 miles at £ 54k so less than the Genesis, but in the same dire range.

The Lexus charging network is (to say the least) not very good. Amazingly it isn’t integrated into the satnav. I have a RZ and due to a failure in the AC charging unit, I couldn’t charge at home and only use DC chargers for 6 weeks. I use ZapMap which is fully integrated into CarPlay and on the go you can check near chargers for speed and availability. There is then an option to navigate to them using Maps / Google Maps / Waze. You can preload a journey and then set charger locations - it has almost all the networks and details of cost & facilities and users report defective chargers. It will tell you whether the charger can be paid contactless, need an App or specific card. In the 6 weeks I was fully dependent on it, everything was great. It is free although a subscription (less than Lexus) gives you more capabilities.

Land Rover are also launching a new insurance service in January as they are losing a lot of sales when purchasers try to insure the cars, especially in London. Be interesting to see if the policy’s are reasonable. I suspect they will have very high compulsory excesses.

Accept your views - I achieve about 220 without much ac, except maybe the point about the charge rate. If you have a home charger then there is no difference in charge rate. If you’re reliant on public chargers then other than the Tesla Superchargers there aren’t many chargers above 150kw which the RZ accepts. However, there is only 2 minutes difference in 20% to 80% charge times between the RZ and Y Long Range. The manufactures mislead people by leading with say 250kw charge rate but once a battery gets to say 50% then no matter what Ultra High Speed charger the car is on, the rate drops to say 100kw which is why the RZ and Tesla takes about the same time. Of course, if you only need to go from say 20% to 40% the Tesla on a Supercharger will be maybe 5 mins quicker. If I was using the car for business requiring mainly long drives then I certainly wouldn’t have considered the RZ. That said, I really dislike the look of the Tesla’s and don’t fancy driving without a HUD or Speedo in front of me. Each to their own ! Over the time I have had the RZ I have come to realise that there is a lot of misleading stuff about EV’s, particularly charge rates. How many manufacturers make it clear that irrespective of the charger capacity the charge rate drops off significantly so that 80% to 100% takes longer than 20% to 80% or that in cold temperatures range loss can be up to 40%. People keep comparing against mythical range and charge rates when in real range terms the cars are far more similar than it appears. Apologies for extremely long response !

Of course - what a stupid message it is if that is the reasoning. I think the message reveals that the software is not capable of receiving OTA updates and so contact the dealer to receive a dealer installed update. Ridiculous that a so called premium brand offers map updates (including cameras) only every 2 years.

My May 23 RZ has the 2022 map version and when I asked the dealer about the message, they said it just means you have the latest version. On all my previous Merc’s, BMW & Range Rover the maps were updated OTA or by USB quarterly - not much use having traffic cameras that are at least a year out of date.

John I think you need to get your battery checked. Over the last 2 days I covered 85 miles (recorded by my tracker) and charged to 100% at home tonight. The 85 miles was probably 80%+ on very fast duel carriageways. Sometimes a bit over 80 and generally 70. The temp was about 15c. I also preheated the car on one of the days when it wasn’t connected. My charger says it took 31.5kw to 100% for 85 miles = 2.7 which allowing for preheat was probably nearer 2.9. I had the front seat on auto +2 and the radiant heater was on throughout. My dealer told me the upgrade is now on new cars and still expected available for current cars Q4 - fingers crossed.

But the 285 miles for the Tesla was in good conditions. The article was that the true range in cold temperatures was severely degraded. My point is that all EV’s suffer in cold temps but some manufacturers are misleading with the actual range in winter. Look at the tests for a Tesla Y Long Range in winter with the heating on at its 159 miles - no worse than the RZ, yet not any better. A similar article to the Telegraph reported that the very well considered Genesis G60 suffered 35% loss in winter - it’s inevitable with the current battery tech.

I am not saying the RZ’s range isn’t a disappointment but other manufacturers aren’t being as honest about range degradation. The EPA range (the test all US reviewers quote to criticise the RZ) of a Tesla Y Long Range with heating range is only 159 miles. Article in The Telegraph. No doubt the Tesla fans won’t believe this but it demonstrates there are more truthful manufacturers who are slighted and there are manufacturers who just lie.

The government stupidly banned car insurers from offering cheaper introductory rates, just when more competition is required due to the changed risks of EV’s e.g battery replacement costs but with far more safety systems as they are newer cars and have to comply with the new regs. Why they thought that banning cheaper ‘teaser rates’ would reduce the cost to everyone was naive and just shows that they are not living in the real world. It was the ‘teaser rates’ that were used to drive down the policies - how many people got a cheaper ‘teaser rate’ from one of the comparison sites and then have their current insurer meet it. I suspect we’ll see a load of MP’s and civil servants walk into well paid jobs in the insurance industry next year !

Just revisited Tesco and put retired in and got a quote -

Direct line was one of the insurers declined to cover - I suspect they quoted you as an existing client. I just tried Tesco and wouldn’t insure the RZ so tried to get one for a Genesis and that was declined ! North Essex, nowhere near London, max no claims, no claims or convictions, car on drive etc etc - 68 years old !

My RZ renewal quote was about £ 300 more, which is in line with what I’ve seen as general increase for insurance. However, I am thinking that I am lucky, as when I went to other market leading insurers for an online quote I couldn’t get past the page with the model details - presumably because they were refusing to insure. I just hope the insurers get more data in the next 12 months that means they are not so nervous covering EV’s.

Not helped by a much cheaper Toyota looking almost exactly the same - end of that ‘exclusive’ look then - at least the BZ did look a bit different

I’m sorry to be a doom monger but I think the thieves will keep finding ways to defeat the manufacturers as there are now so many functions dependent on chips & wiring. Look how often Microsoft & Apple have to keep updating to keep the hackers out - somebody took control remotely of a Tesla’s CanBus ! As long as used prices remain high, new cars on long delivery and spares costing a fortune it’ll remain a thieves dream - with no real policing the chances of getting caught are minimal and ill gotten gains high - they’ll find a way. With insurance claims and therefore policies rocketing, the government quietly grabs 12% tax, which a lot of people don’t appreciate. It was 2.5% when it was brought in and has doubled in the last couple of years. Yet another stealth tax.

I sold my Range Rover partially because of the insurance hike - NFU now refuses to insure RR’s younger than 5 years. My RZ (possibly confused by insurers as a RX derivative) cost £200 more to insure for next year compared to this one. The renewal was without a tracker. I spent 20 mins going through the whole quote in a call with NFU and the policy new includes my top of the range S5 Tracker from Tracker. The renewal reduced by 50p !

Had a strange, possible improvement yesterday. In the past, if I put the “front” switch on then the fan and ac kicked in and directed air to the windscreen, which made sense. Yesterday, with a bit of misting, I turned it on but this time I didn’t turn it off when it cleared but turned the main unit “off”. The “front” remained lit and the screen remained fairly cleared whilst the side had a bit of misting. With the unit off but “front” lit there was no loss of range (as you say, no fan = no loss of range). Next time it mists I’ll repeat and see if it was just a coincidence yesterday. I finally understand the “auto” switches above the seats. The car reflects the external & internal temp and switches the seat heating / venting accordingly. With “auto” on yesterday with a relatively cold day, the seat heater came on and also the radiant heating. Hours later when the temp went up to about 18, when I drove away the seat cooling came on. I never noticed this in the summer as the ventilated seats never made as much of an impact as the heating does. John & ruds - have you worked out the customisation of the “auto” - there is an option to increase / decrease the setting by up to +2 or -2. I can’t get my head round does that increase the heating and ventilation or just the heating ? IMG_4696.heic

Malc - Thanks for your commiserations but because of the vastly inflated px I got for my Range Rover and intending to keep the Lexus, I won’t feel the loss for quite some time - which helps. Have just got my renewal though for the insurance and for my RZ and wife’s new Yaris on a dual car policy, it’s gone up £ 300 - I was expecting a lot more. I am paying £ 500 less for both cars than Lexus wanted just for the RZ. NFU couldn’t tell me back in May, when I bought the RZ, how much more the Range Rover would be other than lots ! The Range Rover Velar forum I was on had guys saying they were being quoted up to £ 3k, where they could get a quote and add to that servicing was about £ 800 / year. I think the car market is all over the place at the moment - European & Japanese EV’s are still too expensive just as the Chinese are making big moves into the UK with much cheaper offerings. Dealers don’t know how this is going to pan out so are rightly being cautious about bidding for expensive / prestige EV’s. Not at all helped by the government moving the goal post by 5 years. I suspect that if or when buyers start reporting quality and reliability issues, together with a lack of service centres, the value will return to the prestige marques. I for one don’t want to drive a car that could be monitored and taken over by someone in Beijing ! The government banned Huawei from providing 5g equipment but are not stopping Chinese cars full of surveillance tech (over the air updates for instance) to UK buyers.