All those years I refused to even think about getting an electric car. While some friends, colleagues or my brother already got a electric car (Skoda Enyaq, Elroq, Tesla Model 3, Auto e-tron etc.) we had no thought about that. Ok. we had a 7 to 9 Seater the past 16 years (Citroen Jumpy, Berlingo...) for our "little" Family. Now Jonathan has his own car, Fabian uses more the public transport we finally could downsize the car. It is hard and very expensive nowadays anyway to find a Van with more than 6 seats for a reasonable price. Also the "cheaper" alternatives from Citroen, the e-Berlingo (or similar Peugeot, Toyota, Opel, Fiat) had only realistic ranges of around 200km in the electric Version.
A family like us, that usually drives in one shot to Hanover, Magdeburg (around 570km) that would mean around three recharge stops, each at least 30 minutes. That makes a relaxed 5 hour ride a delayed 7 hour ride. Not our DNA.
This year I got a letter from Toyota, that I can already return my Yaris Style Hybrid a year earlier if I want. Well, then came the smart Orange Head that started a war, gas prices went from 1,50 Euro per Liter Diesel to 2,50 Euro...
A friend already ordered a Tesla last year and got it in March. He took me for a ride, and it is really fun in a electric car. My brother has his second electric Skoda. He is happy as well. Another friend ordered a BYD Hybrid. So we took a look also at BYD. Tesla was out of question for us. Sorry Elon, the chinese BYD cars instead are a very good deal. Fully loaded, most modern battery tech. We looked a the BYD Tang with 7 seats, but the price of 75000 Euro is way too much, even with the BYD offerings. Then we looked at the BYD Sealion 7. We were immediately "in love". That car really has everything you need or do not need, but might want :-) Really a great car, but with the 313HP it is just a rear wheel drive. My brothers Skoda Elroq is also rear wheel and he said, in winter it is really a pain. So the 530HP BYD four wheel drive is already 6000 Euro more, the range is still ok, but for a 107kWh battery the average is around 20kWh+ for 100km, so that also makes "just" 400-500km when you are lucky.
Then I checked the insurance and besides the in general higher Insurance prices, the BYD would be almost 1000 Euro more than other cars I checked.
So we drove to my Toyota Dealer. I had the bz4x in mind, as the the Touring Version, or the RAV4 as the Hybrid. When we came, there was also a greyish C-HR, it looked good, but I though it is just the Hybrid. The salesperson said, no that is the new fully electric C-HR+ ... hmmm. It really looks great, better than the usual C-HR. We took a seat, looked at the car and really loved it was well, right away.
They had of course the most luxury Version there with 4WD, 343 HP, Glasroof, 20 inch wheels...
77kWh battery. A bit too much for me...They have three versions, 165HP with 57kWh battery, the range is too small for us, then the 224HP 77kWh Version (which we finally bought) and then the 4WD Version.
Forst we made a test drive with the similar (from size, interior, battery,.) bz4x. With the 343 HP 4WD drive, which was fun, but the car is limited anyway and the range goes down with the 4WD. But it was a good first impression.
Then I calculated a few days, returning the loved Yaris Hybrid or not, Insurance comparsion etc. I calculated everything. Sure, a normal gasoline car is still much cheaper but we were ready to go the full electriy way. the 224HP C-HR+ has a WLTP range of 607 - 835km. Realistic tests shows a 13-17 kWh cosumption so 420 to 500+ km are managable. Which means a single stop with a 150kW recharge(10-80% in 28 minutes) would be ok. Of course it is just a 5 seater, 420l trunk compared to our Berlingo is small, but enough. We decided to get rid of the Yaris and then later get rid of the Berlingo as well. Since I use my electric bike very regular we would go that way with only one family car. We still have the Trabant and during April to October the Cougar.
So we went for it. On april 1st (no joke) we signed the contract for the Metal Oxid Orange (brownish) 224HP C-HR+ Teamplayer. After more than 30 years at the DEVK insurance I move to BavariaDirect. DEVK was very expensive compared to our other Insurance Comapny HUK. They wanted 1500 Euro a year (20000km), after calling them they went down to 1200 Euro, but still too much. HUK24 was right above 1000 Euro and then my inurance broker provided me BavariaDirect with around 800 Euro. So that was 200 to 400 Euro less than my old insurance comany. Let's see how it goes.
After just two months we received the info from our Dealer - Emil Frey Toyota Filderstadt, that the car has arrived (we got that info June 1st).
We were excited. I already got some charing cards (our local electricity company has several charing points in 100m distance to our house) for 38 cent per kWh. Just a little higher than my contract (31 cent).
We will install a Wallbox later this year, but for now it is ok.
Since it is hard to get quick appointments to register your new car I went the new online way. That was easy and quick as hell. The fasted date would have been a week later, June 8th. On June 2nd I returned my Yaris, I deregistered it online in a few minutes. Then I got the Papers from my dealer, online registered the new car in like 20 minutes. Got the paperwork I need to put in the car until i get the original Papers and seals /decals for the license plates. I had the license plates reserved and produced, gave them to the dealer and on June 3rd we picked up the new car. Woohoo.
On June 3rd in the evening we already received the new papers, seals etc. per mail.
So yesterday I put all the decals on the license Plates. That was amazingly quick.
The first trips were amazing. I had average trips from 11.7 kWh to 15.7 kWh (with 160km/h top speed on the Autobahn):
I tried the re charge at home with the normal single phase adapter, worked fine, but well, it is slow with around 2.1 kWh.
So let's see what the future brings. The silence in the car is just fantastic, the 224HP are powerful enough to have also fun while driving.
The C-HR+ Lounge with 343 HP
The bz4x we test drove
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