Hello EVie!

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Today, we said goodbye to Robert, our very first EV – and hello to EVie, our second! (EVie… geddit?!?!)

It’s 29 October, and just a week or so after placing our order, we took delivery of Kia’s top-of-the-range: ‘eNiro all-electric 4 Plus’.

Our plans had always been to keep Robert for pretty much the whole of the finance term (three years), but a once-in-a-lifetime set of market conditions for cars changed all that!

For the first time in my motoring life, we actually ended up being offered a better deal by trading-in Robert for a brand-new car! As a result, our monthly payments went down from £544.77 to £475.16. It sounds counter-intuitive I know, but it was down to the uniqueness of the used car market during 2021. I’d never seen conditions like it before, and thanks to neighbour Paul, who knows a lot about the said market, we were able to track the rise (and rise) of used car prices during the year and pick the perfect moment for ‘moving on’.

So why such a unique situation in the market? Well, a number of factors:

• People hanging onto their new vehicles because they hadn’t been doing the mileage because of you-know-what – so there were fewer cars reaching the used market
• Motorists buying USED cars instead of new partly due to the long waiting times for ‘new’, in turn due to a shortage of ‘chips’ that just about every car needs in 2021!

All of these factors created a unique supply/demand scenario for pre-owned vehicles that put their prices up, up and further up!

Additionally, in our favour, there was also a spike in demand for electric cars – especially low-mileage ones, accelerated by the recent so-called ‘fossil-fuel shortage’ perpetuated by the media! (there wasn’t… it was a shortage of drivers!)

The result? A combination of unfortunate circumstances that all worked totally in favour for ANYONE looking for a used car – especially EVs!

Lucky us!

So, with just 20,388 miles on the clock (instead of a projected 35,000) and with around 8 months still to run on the current deal, we did a quick ‘back-of-a-fag-packet’ calculation and worked out that the equity in our car was almost into five figures (officially £9,486.74) – and that was after paying off the remaining finance of £18,263.26. Unbelievable!!

I can’t think conditions will ever be like this again – totally unheard of in my lifetime of motoring. As a result, we now had a handsome deposit for Robert’s successor.

Incredibly, in spite of chip shortages causing long waits for new cars, Kia would deliver our new EV in the colour of our choice, in less than a month. Amazing! Why wasn’t Kia affected by the chip shortage? – Simples! Kia making their own in-house!

OK, it has pretty much the same tech as her predecessor, Robert, but with a few more whistles and bells clothed in their new colour for 2021 – Yacht Blue.

Incredible value!

We also took the opportunity to have the registration plates remade to bring them up to standard (BS AU 145e) ensuring they conform with the major changes introduced from September 1st, 2021. This new standard makes the old ‘GB’ designation and the newer pseudo-3D characters non-compliant, and so we chose suitable D.O.T.-friendly alternatives. We also added an optional green flash to denote that EVie is all-electric.

Et voilà…

So, here we are, at Bell’s Kia, Northampton with Jack, our Sales Handler, eagerly awaiting the official handover – and saying goodbye to our first EV.

We were there for a good hour-and-a-half and received a very thorough handover. My worries about the car NOT having a three-phase charging cable – just a single-phase – were unfounded, so that was a good start!

Even in the two years we’d owned Robert, the in-car tech has moved on leaps and bounds and consequently, there’s a lot to learn about the UVO/Kia Connect app. What fun!

In closing, I suppose we’ll look back on the ‘EV numbers’ in years to come and quietly giggle at their ordinariness – but for now, these are impressive for a family ‘hatch’

Now, where’s the handbook, I’ve got some reading to do…