New Fleet - Phase 1 complete

I guess the key question is what are you going to use this EV for? If it's replacing the Golf, does that mean you'll use it for work sometimes as well (as you do with the Golf)? In which case I'd say getting anything other than a Tesla (model Y with a hatch) will soon give you a stress related disease with range / charging etc. If you're not going to use it for work, then you'll be doing more miles in the Panamera and I'd have thought that would easily eat into / remove any savings / interest income.

If it's just Lindsay's go to work and run about - hence the 4 / 5 door need - and using the Panamera always for longer journeys, then get a smaller EV (that she'll accept) and keep the budget for that third car at some point.

I like the look of the EV6 and while it may be a bit plasticky inside wouldn't it be substantially more expensive if it had a prestige German badge?

I'd give the Model 3 a massive swerve - Musk appears to be on a self-destructive streak and there's talk of senior bods cashing in large chunks of shares recently.
Plus, of course, he recently fired the whole of the supercharger team!

There are plenty of i4s around here but they appear heavy hipped compared to a normal 4.

Can't believe you would consider a Roma with the Italian version of paedo grey leather?

I'm not a massive fan of the RS3, a Vorsprung saloon does look nice, but Lindsay would only have the hatch. A used one isn't that much more than an M240i, but still £55k+ and I've never really liked engines with an odd number of cylinder engines that much.

Tim...I have no idea what colour shoes the Italians prefer....I didn't even realise it was grey until I looked at the spec after sitting in the car! I'm not bothered about Elon or his share price, I'd never take the risk of using cash to buy any EV so it doesn't really matter.

Sport on James, that's where I'm at.

I don't have anything in my Autotrader garage that could be a potential Panamera replacement, I think that's a first with any car I've had as my daily.

A 4.0 Boxster GTS would also be my choice but its one big drawback is it only has 2 seats and there are 3 of you. My recent drive of the GT3 RS at Knockhill showed what a phenomenal car that is but it really is track focussed. On the road a 992S would probably be all the car you ever needed. The GTS is marginally quicker but a good bit stiffer and as a road car may start to grate a bit after a while unless we have massive road resurfacing in the UK.

With a need for more than 2 seats a 992S Cabrio would be high on my list but you would need to check is a child seat would fit in the back with a front passenger.

I've not driven a 992 yet, you may well be right about the GTS ride and the S would be plenty quick enough (as would a T really).   It's more about the spec as I think the Sport Design Pack is pretty much essential on the 992 and it's not as easy to find with everything else on my 'essential' list on the S.   When the time comes, I'll drive both and who knows what will turn up for sale later on in the year.   Lindsay isn't all that tall (which is why memory seats are so important), I know from a test sit with car seat that the coupe is fine but would have to try the Convertible/Targa as the bigger problem could be how upright the seat back is.  

Congratulations. That looks pretty good and the new front end is a huge improvement. Charging up when on the road will also be a lot easier with Tesla's network.

It's a big improvement, both the lights and re-shaped bumper.   The interior looks the same in pictures, but is decent step up in quality of materials and fit/finish, even vs the 2023 car I was in 2 weeks ago never mind the earlier US built cars which were terrible.   The other area that has improved a lot is the ride, especially at low speed.   I've read that over 50% of the car is new.  

Good call! Its annoyingly hard not to go Tesla, still, in the EV world. They are quick, drive well, have much better range than most, and mor chargers.

let us know - honestly - what you make of the lack of buttons/stalks however. I'm interested! The old one was bad enough.

Looks-wise, that's an improvement. But I confess it's still not a car that I can get excited about, particularly in London where every Uber is either a Prius or a 3. I have driven a friend's one and...it was ok. Mostly I absolutely detest the interior plus the fact that for a car that looks like a fastback, it in fact has a rear opening arrangement that I thought went out with the Allegro.

The entry level Model Y is £399 a month on PCH. Its a hell of a good deal considering all the savings on fuel and I guess low cost servicing. I have told the missus to go and look at one. The only way Id get an electric is on Contract hire.

I blame Boris for this. Life hasn't been the same since the first lockdown, not just for me but for many others.  It's as if the politicians are trying to force us to give up our cars and go back to the stone-age days where only the very rich/wealthy can afford to travel at will over anything other than a short distance.  It's not being helped by the car manufacturers who messed up so badly with cancelling orders for microchips that the microchip industry also had a "fit"

Assuming the cost is the same a PCP is just as easy to hand back (and often with less picky condition rules). Our eNY1 is on a 2 year PCP. 99.9% certain to go straight back to Honda.

The RWD felt quicker than the Golf from 30-60mph when joining a dual carriageway, so the LR should be feel 'naffin quick', more so than the standing start figures suggest.   I think some of that is down to it having a fairly soft initial launch rather than launch control, which makes sense otherwise people would be rear-ending cars all the time.   Harry mentioned something similar in his review of the RWD.

Back to Saturday.   There were two cars that put a big smile on Lindsays face, but only one that she really wanted which she was really surprised by as it wasn't even on the list to start with as already mentioned.

We had booked the Tesla test drive first and it was a painless exercise as they have a facility to upload driving licences online, so we gave our name, had a quick demo of the controls and were told although it was a 30min slot as there were two of us who wanted a drive, we could take it until the next booking 90mins later.   The one pedal driving feels very strange at first, but doesn't take much getting used to.   It feels normal when you're driving along at varying speeds, but not when you're approaching a roundabout or when someone in front brakes you, the natural reaction is to lift off, especially for me as I'm not one of those drivers who keeps going and brakes at the last minute.   However, you do get used to it and it's great, I only used the brakes twice in 30mins of mixed road driving.   I'm pretty sure it uses the GPS to vary the level of regeneration, as it always seemed to do the right amount and stop when you wanted it to.   As I've mentioned already, the ride and refinement feels like quite a big improvement over the old model and its kept the 'sporty' feel, difficult to articulate, but the suspension feels like it's made from high quality components (a bit like when you compare a MINI to another small car).    The seats go down nice and low, the steering wheel is small / the steering is very direct and it handles pretty nicely, much better than you would expect.   Lindsay particularly liked the seating position as she normally needs to raise the seat higher than she would like but with the low dash she didn't need to.    She had moved from not being interested in a Tesla to feeling a bit apprehensive about driving it (mainly the one pedal part), but took to it really quickly.   Her first comment when accelerating down a slip road was it felt like a spaceship, later on it was described as feeling like a go-kart and by the end of the test drive she would have been happy to cancel the other ones and buy one.  Can't ask for any more than that.

Moving to the interior.   I don't like tablets in cars and this has one of the largest, but it didn't annoy me, maybe it's because it isn't stuck on as an afterthought?   The screen is super quick and very intuitive, no sub menus like you have in other cars and the voice control works really well, which is the safest solution of all.   It would definitely benefit from a HUD, but the speed is pretty easy to see.     The lack of stalks is harder to get used to initially, but I don't think it will take long.   The buttons on the wheel have a really good, positive haptic feedback which helps and it uses the GPS to cancel them, but as well as it works it will always be better to have a stalk.    The drive selection is also on the touchscreen, but most of the time you don't need to select anything because it knows whether you're most likely to want drive or reverse and I tried a 3 point turn in a narrow road and it was fine.    There's a decent amount of space inside, both for people and storage, the boot should have a hatch of course but it a decent size with a huge storage area under the floor.    The overall quality has improved and is very good for the price, there is less hard plastic than before (eg door bins now slush moulded) and it seemed well put together inside and out.   Really good level of std equipment...memory seats/wheel, front seat ventilation, heated rear seats, rear climate control with screen (can watch movies/play games), good surround cameras (inc dash cam and sentry mode) and even though it was the basic 9 speaker / single amp stereo, the sound quality pretty decent and easily a match for BMWs HK.   The LR has 17 speakers / 2 amps and is supposed to be excellent.  The panoramic roof is great, it lets so much light into the cabin but was good at keeping the heat out. 

Onto the Ioniq 5.   Loads of space inside, but felt more like an SUV to sit in.   This was the AWD model which has a low 5 sec 0-60 time but it didn't feel that quick and it felt like an SUV to drive, very heavy and the body moves around more than I'd like.   The ride is soft, so pretty good around town, but too soft when you up the speed imo and lacking in control.   Lots of options for regen, 3 levels that only work when you lift completely off the throttle and ipedal which is one pedal driving.   You go through the modes with the paddles behind the wheel, I think I’d just leave it in the intelligent mode.    A good level of kit as standard, but no glass roof which made it feel really dark and a bit claustrophobic for a large car.   Not a lot more to say other than Lindsay didn't like it at all, it was pretty obvious when she drove off and when the salesman asked her which route to take, she chose the shortest one back to the garage.

BMW next and drove the i4 first, in 40 M Sport flavour.   Not a great spec, cloth seats and the awful manual seat adjustment BMW persist with, but that didn't matter.   It didn't feel as sharp as the Tesla, both in terms or acceleration but also steering (in sport mode), the ride was a touch softer in comfort but firmer in sport.   Neither of us liked it as much as the Tesla to drive, Lindsay thought it felt a bit dull, I don't completely agree, but I do think it felt really heavy and a bigger car than it is.   Interior wise, it felt slightly higher quality than the Tesla but there wasn't much in it.    Having been a fan of iDrive for years, I'm now not so much as the latest system is a lot less intuitive and is overly complicated in terms of menu structure and graphics.   You need to add a lot of options / packs to the i4 to get it to a decent spec, I got the 40 to a list price of £71k which is too close to the £78k an M50 would be (without full leather or laserlights), that's a lot of money, although the difference in lease cost isn't as great.   Finally, the styling...I might be in the minority here in preferring the Model 3, but I just can't get over the grille and lower rear end.

The M240i...what a cracking car that is, I was going to say cracking little car but it's so much wider than you expect, it feels like a 3 series when you sit in it and it has a bigger / heavier car feel.    The engine is more subdued that you'd hope, but we know the reason for that and that aside it's a really good engine.   It doesn't feel all that quick in normal driving after EVs, but it is when you want it to be.   I wish it wasn't an accompanied test drive, as I didn't push it as much as I would have liked to, but the steering feel was good and it flowed so much better than small BMWs used to (last one I drove was an M140i) and felt rear drive.  It was a lot less refined than the other 3, but wasn't that bad.   Negatives:  It felt a bit cheap inside after the i4, still don't like the screens (better to find an earlier one without), it looks great from some angles but terrible from others (what's with the 216d tailpipes?) and it was awkward getting our little one in and out of the back even when we could open the doors fully which could end up being tiresome.    It would cost more than the other options, even going lightly used and I don't think a coupe is the right second car for us, maybe if we were going to stay with 2 it would be different but that's not the plan.  Finally and quite importantly, Lindsay did like it and it was clear favourite going into the day, but she didn't feel all that excited about getting one at the end of the day.  

So as I said yesterday, an easy decision in the end even for me and for the person who's car this will be, there wasn't even a decision to be made.   She did make the comment that it wasn't the first time I'd suggested a car she didn't think she would like and I ended up being right....I'm sure it's not just cars I'm right about, but I'll take it!