I bought one with my own money. Love it as the convenient everyday practical car. Also love my V8 for when I want to turn some money into noise! Edit - car not van
Just to bore you with a story. I did a bit of delivery driving for DPD in Burgess Hill, probably 30% of the vans, including the one I drove, were EV. They had one charger that worked but it wasn't hardwired to the internet, it was essentially SIM internet like your phone. However, on foggy days you couldn't connect to the payment system so rendering the charger dead. On a foggy day, charger inop, I had 30 miles of range (Ford Transit, max range 120 miles), the only other charger my delivery service provider could charge at was on the south coast I drove to Shoreham BP but they were shut due to a refrigerator fault in store so I drove to portslade and sat there for an hour waiting to charge. They had to take most of the deliveries off me. I was at work 8 hours, and because you get paid per stop, I got paid about £45. I didn't do another day after that.
I was caught up in the Manchester airport shutdown in June, I was supposed to be on a 6:15 a.m. flight, and all flights cancelled at 9:00 a.m. I have a VW T5 Caravelle, I rebooked the flights for the same day in Gatwick, 16:00, 233 miles away, having already driven 80 miles. I drove down and topped up the tank and grabbed a coffee near London. I made the flight and was in Gibraltar by 20:00. No way I would have made that flight in an EV, they are ok for pottering around town, but not when you need them most.
You summed it up, “If you are out there working hard”. If you must keep stopping to charge you must work harder to keep up. Or lose working hours = loss of earnings.
Great vans - have a 2014 1.9TDI VW T5.1 AUTO and get 650 to the tank. It’s about 45mpg. EV makes no sense. I sold my last T5 auto 2009 with 200,000 miles on last year for £6500. Efficient diesel and petrol cars cannot be rivalled or replaced 💪
Talking to a contract electrician whose firm has swapped from diesel vans to ID Buzz commercials, he’s nearly at gross weight all the time with tools, test gear, wire etc and he said the best range he’s ever got is 150 miles in summer and between 120/130 in winter. He left home (Cannock) down to Coleshill then to Telford and up to Stoke on Trent, he finished the job at 3pm but was on 9% battery so he had to find a charger, sit for an hour to get to 85% to go home to plug in for 100% charge ready for the next day. He said it was useless as a commercial vehicle.
An excellent concise video. In my opinion as more people wake up to the fact that EVs are only going to work for a small group of people with home charging the price of ICE cars will probably go up or not depreciate as quickly. I borrow my friends E Zoe occasionally and one of the major bug bears is why I cannot just plug into an on-street charger and pay for the electricity as I do for my diesel at the local garage. Why do we have to download the app? This, in my opinion, is just another excuse to grab all your personal details.
The majority of people live in homes that can have home charging and also do less than 175miles a week. But there needs to be infrastructure that’s cost effective and fast for the rest before they can move fully to electric vehicles.
No they don’t population wise also in terrace housing flats on one side nose to fail parking both sides of the street impossible for car charging totally useless, it’s the same thing with hundreds of streets around where we live, I’ll stop driving if we get taxed off the road as is looking likely in order to force people from owning a vehicle, when there is absolutely no reason other than politics pure and simple politics!
Artisan electrical did a video on their new electric Transporter, cold winter morning, windscreen completely iced up, they could not even turn the demisters/heaters on as fully charged the range was around 50 miles!
I bought a transporter T5 in 2006, it was the vw press van in the brochure that was registered in 2003, I paid £8400 3 years old & still have it today, I still think it’s worth about 5-6k & it has 240,000 miles on it & does about 600 miles to a tank of fuel. Keep looking at new one’s & the id buzz but what’s the point.
Speaking as a working life van buyer Transporters were dodged largely because of the "hippy tax" added to them. Also some of the higher output engines have some well known major issues with them which you could be straight into 10k plus to sort
sopt on ive said that from the start! tanks ,planes and ships huge colossal amounts of fuel yet never gets a mention does it ? and wars are never ending so all goes to show net zero and climate change is a con to take your money through propaganda.
The EV disaster is what happens when politicians start meddling in commerce, as they have no idea of what goes into making a business a success. The cost of moving to an all electric national vehicle fleet should not have been started until all the charging infrastructure was in place, and battery tech had been developed to allow vehicles to be able to cover aver 500 miles an a singe charge.
To my mind, the problem is that the Government has picked a single solution, EVs, for everyone. They are BRILLIANT for some people, but completely impossible for many.
Maybe you should champion a resurgence of cleaner diesels-I drove a Prius for 13 years but now I’ve retired and bought myself a 2017 golf GT 2.0 tdi blue motion and love it. I’m exceeding the mpg of the Prius -still euro 6 rated so good enough for my environmentals and nearly 60 mpg on average - it’s a keeper!
I came out of my 992 911 for a profit, bought a Transporter to convert as a camper as it’s something I’ve wanted to do for ages. Base van is worth more than I paid so been quite lucky really. Wouldn’t mind something about leasing cars as wife’s Range Rover is probably 6 months away from being replaced and I think lease is where we are headed.
Why don’t you put a pallet of bricks in your transporter and the same in a buzz and a transit EV and take them on a direct comparison journey. See how long it lasts in the real world and how much the fuel costs. As a tradie there’s not a single video out there that does this direct comparison with a loaded van. There was a report out a few months ago that says companies using EV vans will loose seventeen grand on mid day downtime and wages per van Reguards Gerry
I have tired to get a Hybrid loan van but no success, as they said no demand, I will try again for full electric. I can try it with my fisheries guys although it will probably end up in the lake
I run x2 old Toyota vans for my window business, they are unbelievably reliable and the pair of them cost me less than £14k 7 years ago. I expect them to last another decade and will run them into the ground. It's the most cost-effective business Vehicle Solution I've ever had for the last 42 years. Ive had VW offerings in the past, but not satisfied with the over-all reliability.
Turn up to any Mountain Bike race anywhere in the country and it’s like VW Transporter show room. So prolific are Transporters in cycling that you will see Mercedes vans dotted around the track at any top level events as they desperately seek market share.. Diesel vans will always be a workhorse we need
PD Parts do 1.9 PD swaps in transporters, get a built motor and go from the ground up to sort out all the bushes, fuel and brake lines and you're still in for less than 10k of work. Grab one for 6k and unless you've got some horrific rust on the chassis you're drving for pennies for the next 15 years. The biggest issue is when ULEZ areas are all for euro 6 on diesels. The new Transporter is a Ford which honestly isn't that much of change from the previous generations as the engineering decisions at VW have been more in line with Ford than the reputation they previously built.
In 2016 I walked into vw and paid cash for a 2012 vw t5.1 t32 LWB, 46k, fresh service, fresh cambelt, a/c, grey.. £14600.. 9 years later with 91k on the clock and it's probably still worth 10-12k as someone will turn it into a camper.. returns 600 miles to a tank, and only needed rear brakes £112, a cambelt kit £125, a door check bracket £60, front side light bulb, 1 set of wipers £22, front arm poly bushes £60, down streem temp sensor £64 and 2 sets of brand new wheels costing £80 with new hankooks and £220 with new bridgestones, because dubbers get a new van and slap on phat alloys.. My point is, this van earns me money, costs fk all to run because I'm a ex mechanic, and has such little depreciation, I'm sad I don't have more..
All of these fuels have their benefits, we have an etron 50 for local journeys, which chargers from our solar panels. Living in Germany, our wallbox is 11kw. That means charging doesn't take long. For longer journeys, I have the new c300 petrol (non hybrid). Drive all day at 100mph plus, and do roughly 40k miles a year. 80% Autobahns. Flat out driving on a 66l tank, I get 300 miles, which is amazing, considering the average speed trip is showing 170kph on these runs. On the Autobahns, theres not many electric cars, still many ICE cars. This combination works for me.
Living in Germany, very different to the UK. Things work in Germany! When I visited Munich for a solar event, your have so much solar than in the UK, we are still way behind.
@Challengetheroad in the north here, Hannover, all of the Mc Donald's have 300kw chargers. Just within 10km, there's around 30 chargers, ranging from 300kw, 160kw, etc... All houses are 3 phase, hence the higher rates wallboxs. You can get a 22kw if you ask the network company.
best car i have bought is b5,5 vw 1.9 diesel passat 2004 750 miles on a tank/trip with servicing will do 500k 55 mpg.i had my own repair shop loookked after two of the same with two combined mileage 660k good solid cars.
On a business lease a buzz cargo is £200 + vat, not bad for a commercial localised option. Can’t buy anything these days for £240 a month. I need a commercial option soon trying to decide on a good 2 year deal. Defended commercial could work but expensive
Unless all you're doing is the most local of work it'll be useless. You have to go diesel while you can. Transit diesels are garbage, drive nice but avoid like the plague. Look at Renault Traffic. Renault diesels are very reliable and do starship miles.
Hi, perhaps you could discuss how falling ev values affect monthly PCP type contracts. I thought you should choose a vehicle with a high residual value to make the monthly payments low, how does this look on, say a Taycan or ID3 deal compared to three years ago? Enjoying your videos but would like a few videos on 'cheapies' mixed in. Many thanks 👍
i would like to see you buy a brand new top of the range Porsche tycan for 200k and then try and sell it six months later and see how much money you lose ?
Don’t think EVs are a good option for commercial vehicles for a few years but certainly an option for a lot of people. Most people do 130 miles a week, that’s often half the charge of the average EV. But for high mileage drivers it’s not the way yet. When solid state batteries come along and giving 600+ miles and charging in under 15mins then it’ll suit a lot more use cases. MG are supposed to have something in 2025, Hyundai 2026 and Toyota in 2027 .
Nobody paying their own money will go near EVs
💯
I bought one with my own money. Love it as the convenient everyday practical car. Also love my V8 for when I want to turn some money into noise!
Edit - car not van
Just to bore you with a story.
I did a bit of delivery driving for DPD in Burgess Hill, probably 30% of the vans, including the one I drove, were EV. They had one charger that worked but it wasn't hardwired to the internet, it was essentially SIM internet like your phone. However, on foggy days you couldn't connect to the payment system so rendering the charger dead.
On a foggy day, charger inop, I had 30 miles of range (Ford Transit, max range 120 miles), the only other charger my delivery service provider could charge at was on the south coast
I drove to Shoreham BP but they were shut due to a refrigerator fault in store so I drove to portslade and sat there for an hour waiting to charge.
They had to take most of the deliveries off me. I was at work 8 hours, and because you get paid per stop, I got paid about £45.
I didn't do another day after that.
I do not think it works on a commercial basis, fuel is so fast and we would have just made better efficient engines
@Challengetheroad I agree 💯
Why would you ever consider a ev if you don't have a charger at home?
@@Birmingham_racing it's a company van genius.
You have a brilliant way of confirming and discussing issues that we all are thinking ❗️😊
Thank you Mark 🙌
I was caught up in the Manchester airport shutdown in June, I was supposed to be on a 6:15 a.m. flight, and all flights cancelled at 9:00 a.m.
I have a VW T5 Caravelle, I rebooked the flights for the same day in Gatwick, 16:00, 233 miles away, having already driven 80 miles.
I drove down and topped up the tank and grabbed a coffee near London.
I made the flight and was in Gibraltar by 20:00.
No way I would have made that flight in an EV, they are ok for pottering around town, but not when you need them most.
You summed it up, “If you are out there working hard”. If you must keep stopping to charge you must work harder to keep up. Or lose working hours = loss of earnings.
VW Transporter - what a vehicle and they drive like a dream - a million times more practical than the Buzz
Great vans - have a 2014 1.9TDI VW T5.1 AUTO and get 650 to the tank. It’s about 45mpg. EV makes no sense. I sold my last T5 auto 2009 with 200,000 miles on last year for £6500. Efficient diesel and petrol cars cannot be rivalled or replaced 💪
100%
I paid £39,000 for a new transporter in 2019 and sold it last year for £37500.
It cost me only £1500 for 4 years of use 😂
Its amazing how they have held their value!
Talking to a contract electrician whose firm has swapped from diesel vans to ID Buzz commercials, he’s nearly at gross weight all the time with tools, test gear, wire etc and he said the best range he’s ever got is 150 miles in summer and between 120/130 in winter. He left home (Cannock) down to Coleshill then to Telford and up to Stoke on Trent, he finished the job at 3pm but was on 9% battery so he had to find a charger, sit for an hour to get to 85% to go home to plug in for 100% charge ready for the next day. He said it was useless as a commercial vehicle.
Thank you, I just cannot see how it will work - Hybrid maybe but they are too heavy compared to engines.
An excellent concise video. In my opinion as more people wake up to the fact that EVs are only going to work for a small group of people with home charging the price of ICE cars will probably go up or not depreciate as quickly. I borrow my friends E Zoe occasionally and one of the major bug bears is why I cannot just plug into an on-street charger and pay for the electricity as I do for my diesel at the local garage. Why do we have to download the app? This, in my opinion, is just another excuse to grab all your personal details.
The majority of people live in homes that can have home charging and also do less than 175miles a week. But there needs to be infrastructure that’s cost effective and fast for the rest before they can move fully to electric vehicles.
No they don’t population wise also in terrace housing flats on one side nose to fail parking both sides of the street impossible for car charging totally useless, it’s the same thing with hundreds of streets around where we live, I’ll stop driving if we get taxed off the road as is looking likely in order to force people from owning a vehicle, when there is absolutely no reason other than politics pure and simple politics!
I don’t think customers care if your company is net zero. When I see ‘net zero’ or similar slogans it makes me question their integrity.
Artisan electrical did a video on their new electric Transporter, cold winter morning, windscreen completely iced up, they could not even turn the demisters/heaters on as fully charged the range was around 50 miles!
I will watch that later 👍
@@Challengetheroad It's certainly an eye opener. No business could survive with that range.
I bought a transporter T5 in 2006, it was the vw press van in the brochure that was registered in 2003, I paid £8400 3 years old & still have it today, I still think it’s worth about 5-6k & it has 240,000 miles on it & does about 600 miles to a tank of fuel. Keep looking at new one’s & the id buzz but what’s the point.
Speaking as a working life van buyer Transporters were dodged largely because of the "hippy tax" added to them. Also some of the higher output engines have some well known major issues with them which you could be straight into 10k plus to sort
How much diesel is being used on Ukrainian battle fields? Governments not bothered how much pollution they generate from war!
sopt on ive said that from the start! tanks ,planes and ships huge colossal amounts of fuel yet never gets a mention does it ? and wars are never ending so all goes to show net zero and climate change is a con to take your money through propaganda.
All b/s to get as much money out of us as possible.......... Its B/s, all of it.
As good as they are I hate transporters for one reason - the woosh slam of the side doors on nice quiet caravan sites.
They are loud for sure, we have the 9 seater
The EV disaster is what happens when politicians start meddling in commerce, as they have no idea of what goes into making a business a success. The cost of moving to an all electric national vehicle fleet should not have been started until all the charging infrastructure was in place, and battery tech had been developed to allow vehicles to be able to cover aver 500 miles an a singe charge.
To my mind, the problem is that the Government has picked a single solution, EVs, for everyone. They are BRILLIANT for some people, but completely impossible for many.
Maybe you should champion a resurgence of cleaner diesels-I drove a Prius for 13 years but now I’ve retired and bought myself a 2017 golf GT 2.0 tdi blue motion and love it. I’m exceeding the mpg of the Prius -still euro 6 rated so good enough for my environmentals and nearly 60 mpg on average - it’s a keeper!
If you can charge at home and do less than 300 miles a day then why wouldn't it work? Many ppl seem very happy with EVs that meet their needs.
I came out of my 992 911 for a profit, bought a Transporter to convert as a camper as it’s something I’ve wanted to do for ages. Base van is worth more than I paid so been quite lucky really.
Wouldn’t mind something about leasing cars as wife’s Range Rover is probably 6 months away from being replaced and I think lease is where we are headed.
I have a video on car financing for 2025 - you done well on 992
Why don’t you put a pallet of bricks in your transporter and the same in a buzz and a transit EV and take them on a direct comparison journey. See how long it lasts in the real world and how much the fuel costs. As a tradie there’s not a single video out there that does this direct comparison with a loaded van. There was a report out a few months ago that says companies using EV vans will loose seventeen grand on mid day downtime and wages per van Reguards Gerry
I have tired to get a Hybrid loan van but no success, as they said no demand, I will try again for full electric. I can try it with my fisheries guys although it will probably end up in the lake
The ins and outs of car finance ect would be great. 🙏
I run x2 old Toyota vans for my window business, they are unbelievably reliable and the pair of them cost me less than £14k 7 years ago.
I expect them to last another decade and will run them into the ground. It's the most cost-effective business Vehicle Solution I've ever had for the last 42 years.
Ive had VW offerings in the past, but not satisfied with the over-all reliability.
Turn up to any Mountain Bike race anywhere in the country and it’s like VW Transporter show room.
So prolific are Transporters in cycling that you will see Mercedes vans dotted around the track at any top level events as they desperately seek market share..
Diesel vans will always be a workhorse we need
PD Parts do 1.9 PD swaps in transporters, get a built motor and go from the ground up to sort out all the bushes, fuel and brake lines and you're still in for less than 10k of work. Grab one for 6k and unless you've got some horrific rust on the chassis you're drving for pennies for the next 15 years. The biggest issue is when ULEZ areas are all for euro 6 on diesels. The new Transporter is a Ford which honestly isn't that much of change from the previous generations as the engineering decisions at VW have been more in line with Ford than the reputation they previously built.
In 2016 I walked into vw and paid cash for a 2012 vw t5.1 t32 LWB, 46k, fresh service, fresh cambelt, a/c, grey.. £14600.. 9 years later with 91k on the clock and it's probably still worth 10-12k as someone will turn it into a camper.. returns 600 miles to a tank, and only needed rear brakes £112, a cambelt kit £125, a door check bracket £60, front side light bulb, 1 set of wipers £22, front arm poly bushes £60, down streem temp sensor £64 and 2 sets of brand new wheels costing £80 with new hankooks and £220 with new bridgestones, because dubbers get a new van and slap on phat alloys..
My point is, this van earns me money, costs fk all to run because I'm a ex mechanic, and has such little depreciation, I'm sad I don't have more..
That’s a good point, it can be updated to a Camper Van. I did think about that with our one, great value on your one.
All of these fuels have their benefits, we have an etron 50 for local journeys, which chargers from our solar panels. Living in Germany, our wallbox is 11kw. That means charging doesn't take long. For longer journeys, I have the new c300 petrol (non hybrid). Drive all day at 100mph plus, and do roughly 40k miles a year. 80% Autobahns. Flat out driving on a 66l tank, I get 300 miles, which is amazing, considering the average speed trip is showing 170kph on these runs.
On the Autobahns, theres not many electric cars, still many ICE cars.
This combination works for me.
Living in Germany, very different to the UK. Things work in Germany! When I visited Munich for a solar event, your have so much solar than in the UK, we are still way behind.
@Challengetheroad in the north here, Hannover, all of the Mc Donald's have 300kw chargers. Just within 10km, there's around 30 chargers, ranging from 300kw, 160kw, etc...
All houses are 3 phase, hence the higher rates wallboxs. You can get a 22kw if you ask the network company.
I bought a new California 4motion in 2011 for 46000 did 95000 miles just sold it for 32000 can’t complain.
best car i have bought is b5,5 vw 1.9 diesel passat 2004 750 miles on a tank/trip with servicing will do 500k 55 mpg.i had my own repair shop loookked after two of the same with two combined mileage 660k good solid cars.
I offset my carbon footprint by living next door to 2 idiots with electric vehicles!. 😉
I love the id buzz styling but the range is terrible for type and size of vehicles it is
On a business lease a buzz cargo is £200 + vat, not bad for a commercial localised option. Can’t buy anything these days for £240 a month. I need a commercial option soon trying to decide on a good 2 year deal. Defended commercial could work but expensive
HI Barry, its not easy to choose an option, but Diesel vans just work and good mpg etc.
Unless all you're doing is the most local of work it'll be useless. You have to go diesel while you can. Transit diesels are garbage, drive nice but avoid like the plague. Look at Renault Traffic. Renault diesels are very reliable and do starship miles.
Hi, perhaps you could discuss how falling ev values affect monthly PCP type contracts. I thought you should choose a vehicle with a high residual value to make the monthly payments low, how does this look on, say a Taycan or ID3 deal compared to three years ago? Enjoying your videos but would like a few videos on 'cheapies' mixed in. Many thanks 👍
The id buzz has bombed in deprecation
Will be an interesting one for 2025! I do like the concept but it felt out of control on the road test I done for a day
If you want to retire at 55 don't waste your money on EV cars for Christ sake throwing money down the drain.
Ps "If the wheels ain't turning, it ain't earning" HGV world.
The government knows it won’t work for everyone, that’s the idea to restrict movement
i would like to see you buy a brand new top of the range Porsche tycan for 200k and then try and sell it six months later and see how much money you lose ?
I wouldn’t 🤣
Cost me a fortune! 🤣
Don’t think EVs are a good option for commercial vehicles for a few years but certainly an option for a lot of people. Most people do 130 miles a week, that’s often half the charge of the average EV.
But for high mileage drivers it’s not the way yet.
When solid state batteries come along and giving 600+ miles and charging in under 15mins then it’ll suit a lot more use cases.
MG are supposed to have something in 2025, Hyundai 2026 and Toyota in 2027 .
Ev vans are killing british gas cant complete a days work