Here in South Africa I’m seeing more and more BYDs all the time, the high fuel prices due to the Iran war is making their entry level EV pay for itself for people with any kind of commute.
I’ve been super happy with my Sealion 5 (PHEV) I bought in May, tank is still over half full since last filling it up mid July and having done about 4,500km since.
I have had two minor software issues. One time the one parking sensor warning indicator kind of got stuck on the centre screen (no noise though). The other was my wireless CarPlay refusing to connect. In both cases they self corrected once the car had been turned off (and unplugged) for a little while. A bit annoying at the time, especially as there seems to be no manual way to force a reset, but super isolated.
You're well over the 90 day mark where E10 is well into its degradation and standard unleaded is starting to sour. A nice problem to have in many respects, but just to be aware!
I drive a Mitsubishi PHEV. And it enforces this by not letting you drive on battery until you fill at least 20L of new fuel. So you're forced to use a portion of the tank at least every 90 days.
I appreciate the warning, will certainly do some homework here.
Apparently petrol here is almost never mixed with ethanol so at least I don’t have that to worry about.
I’ve already topped out the tank with 95 (as it apparently has a better shelf life than 93) and will be driving in HEV mode until it’s nearly empty, thereafter I plan on generally only filling up with 10l at a time unless I’m going to be doing a long distance trip.
Chery brands have 24% market share car sales in S.A - it was ironic seeing the BMW dealership closing in my town and being replaced by a BYD one.
It will be interesting to see how VW responds next year with the locally manufactured small SUV Tengo targeting the Chery Tiggo 4 Pro 4 - why bother with an old Polo Vivo when you get something WAY better and modern.
It needs to retail at R269,000.00 or cheaper.
VWs are decent cars, but they've been somewhat "premiumly" priced since at least 2000, in my view the brand is irrationally overvalued by South Africans.
When I looked at a Polo around 2018, the finishes were a bit nicer, but compared to the Honda Jazz I went with (with CVT, cruise control, climate control) it was considerably more expensive.
BMWs and Mercedes are apparently having a really hard time here right now. Chinese cars are really comparable in terms of features and finish but for like half the price, the only other reason to buy a luxury German car is as a status symbol, but for the genuinely affluent here, a Mercedes or BMW isn't exclusive enough.
They're not dead yet as there are still quite a few South Africans who deem it essential to their social status to have the nicest possible car at the absolute limit of what they can afford. My theory on why they do this is because others can see the car they pitch up in, but don't see that each night it's parked outdoors of a rented apartment worth barely more (possibly less) than the car.
> the high fuel prices due to the Iran war is making their entry level EV pay for itself
Is this that 4D chess thing people keep talking about?
sounds like you shoulda just gone full EV then, if you basically never use the gas?
It only has 13kW/h of batteries and an advertised electric only range of 50km making it considerably cheaper than a full electric SUV, and I can still use the same vehicle for the occasional long-distance trips with zero stress or concerns about charging infrastructure, e.g. 600km drive to holiday destination which I've done once already and have already planned to do again soon.
I work from home and my wife is hybrid, special school for my daughter is 8km away which is 22km from where my wife works. In practice we manage to cover about 98% of our day-to-day driving using electricity.
A while back I had a job which was 40km from where I lived, if I still had a work commute like that, I would have purchased (from BYD) either a Dolphin Surf (I think ZAR 340K for 300km range) or their Sealion 6 (I have a 5) with advertised electric range of 100km.
People should purchase the vehicle which makes sense for their circumstances.
Price is a fair argument. After going full EV I personally couldn’t imagine going going back to the hassle of a PHEV