ᐅ BEV – Battery Electric Vehicle Experiences and Recommendations
Created on: 23 Jan 2025 15:14
T
Tolentino
Dear forum members,
I know this is a homebuilding forum, but relevant car forums tend to be either very brand-loyal or strongly critical of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Since I assume there is a significant overlap between homeowners and BEV owners, I’m posting my question here. I chose this subforum because it seemed somewhat related—discussing household technology felt off topic.
I’ll soon be returning my ZOE and am currently exploring options for a replacement. It should again be a small to compact car, with 80-90% urban driving and average daily distances of about 25 km (15.5 miles). Occasionally, I drive 40-50 km (25-31 miles) in the city (about once a month) and very rarely 180 km (112 miles) on highways and country roads.
Absolute exclusions:
Tesla, for ethical reasons
Vehicles with a new price over 50,000 EUR (approx. $53,000), because the financing rate would be too high
Less preferred:
VW Group cars
Obvious SUVs
Another ZOE
Models I am interested in:
Renault 5 (possibly too new and expensive)
Hyundai Kona Electric (this is my upper limit for SUV styling)
MG4
Opel Corsa-e (though it didn’t perform well in ADAC tests)
Mainly looking for personal experience reports.
So, please share your thoughts—thanks in advance!
I know this is a homebuilding forum, but relevant car forums tend to be either very brand-loyal or strongly critical of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Since I assume there is a significant overlap between homeowners and BEV owners, I’m posting my question here. I chose this subforum because it seemed somewhat related—discussing household technology felt off topic.
I’ll soon be returning my ZOE and am currently exploring options for a replacement. It should again be a small to compact car, with 80-90% urban driving and average daily distances of about 25 km (15.5 miles). Occasionally, I drive 40-50 km (25-31 miles) in the city (about once a month) and very rarely 180 km (112 miles) on highways and country roads.
Absolute exclusions:
Tesla, for ethical reasons
Vehicles with a new price over 50,000 EUR (approx. $53,000), because the financing rate would be too high
Less preferred:
VW Group cars
Obvious SUVs
Another ZOE
Models I am interested in:
Renault 5 (possibly too new and expensive)
Hyundai Kona Electric (this is my upper limit for SUV styling)
MG4
Opel Corsa-e (though it didn’t perform well in ADAC tests)
Mainly looking for personal experience reports.
So, please share your thoughts—thanks in advance!
Well, direct sales are off the table. They want to go the traditional route through a dealer network. But every few weeks, there’s news about them adding a new dealer. Service through ATU has always been available, and I don’t think any new locations have been added.
I read that they are building or taking over a factory in Hungary or somewhere nearby. Maybe that will bring some changes.
I read that they are building or taking over a factory in Hungary or somewhere nearby. Maybe that will bring some changes.
J
Jesse Custer15 Dec 2025 18:29Bold move – I simply wish you a lot of luck...
A quick update:
I had a few small issues, but the car was at the service center and I have to say the Vinfast service is always incredibly fast. Emails are answered within one or two hours. A breakdown service contacts you within minutes to arrange a replacement car. If the replacement car is not brought to the service center, I can take a taxi to the station and submit the costs for reimbursement.
I’ve had the car back since last night and have been driving around for half a day now.
So far, there are no longer any constant error messages.
The service center said various control units had crashed, so they reset and relearned them. They also installed a new update.
With the update, there is a new navigation system with Here, which is much better than whatever they had before.
The many small issues are gone for now.
Fuel consumption has noticeably decreased, but that might also be due to the much warmer weather in Berlin now, so I’m not drawing conclusions yet.
Apparently, the charging power should also decrease because of this, so I’m curious to see how that goes.
The whole process was a bit chaotic. An Austrian breakdown service was contracted to handle the replacement car. They were friendly and tried to help but messed up the return day right away. The appointment had been rescheduled, and I informed both Vinfast and the service representative about this. No delivery service to the service center happened, so I had to take a taxi to the rental station (cost reimbursed). However, there was no car available there because of the wrong day. Sadly, no other car was available either. So I went to work while they tried to find one near my office since there are four or more rental companies there.
That didn’t work either; I had to go to another station.
I picked up a replacement vehicle (VW Tiguan). So far, so good.
Yesterday morning I got a call from the service center saying the car was ready. I just picked it up in the evening, but to this day, despite multiple attempts to contact them, I still don’t know if I can return the rental car at a station closer to me or if it might even be picked up…
We’ll see how that develops.
By the way, the rental car is initially charged to your own credit card. You then have to get reimbursed, so let’s see how smoothly that goes.
The car can be improved, but the service is almost unbeatable, provided everything works out with returning the replacement vehicle and getting my costs reimbursed as I wish...
I had a few small issues, but the car was at the service center and I have to say the Vinfast service is always incredibly fast. Emails are answered within one or two hours. A breakdown service contacts you within minutes to arrange a replacement car. If the replacement car is not brought to the service center, I can take a taxi to the station and submit the costs for reimbursement.
I’ve had the car back since last night and have been driving around for half a day now.
So far, there are no longer any constant error messages.
The service center said various control units had crashed, so they reset and relearned them. They also installed a new update.
With the update, there is a new navigation system with Here, which is much better than whatever they had before.
The many small issues are gone for now.
Fuel consumption has noticeably decreased, but that might also be due to the much warmer weather in Berlin now, so I’m not drawing conclusions yet.
Apparently, the charging power should also decrease because of this, so I’m curious to see how that goes.
The whole process was a bit chaotic. An Austrian breakdown service was contracted to handle the replacement car. They were friendly and tried to help but messed up the return day right away. The appointment had been rescheduled, and I informed both Vinfast and the service representative about this. No delivery service to the service center happened, so I had to take a taxi to the rental station (cost reimbursed). However, there was no car available there because of the wrong day. Sadly, no other car was available either. So I went to work while they tried to find one near my office since there are four or more rental companies there.
That didn’t work either; I had to go to another station.
I picked up a replacement vehicle (VW Tiguan). So far, so good.
Yesterday morning I got a call from the service center saying the car was ready. I just picked it up in the evening, but to this day, despite multiple attempts to contact them, I still don’t know if I can return the rental car at a station closer to me or if it might even be picked up…
We’ll see how that develops.
By the way, the rental car is initially charged to your own credit card. You then have to get reimbursed, so let’s see how smoothly that goes.
The car can be improved, but the service is almost unbeatable, provided everything works out with returning the replacement vehicle and getting my costs reimbursed as I wish...
N
nordanney27 Feb 2026 19:02Tolentino schrieb:
A quick update: Thanks for that. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that after Vinfast’s withdrawal from Europe and the increasing billion-dollar losses, everything will continue to go well for as long as you drive the car.
P.S. BEVs are really great. Over the past 9 months, I’ve driven 25,000 km (15,500 miles) with my ID7 GTX. Lots of fun and zero issues so far. Efficiency is excellent too.
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