A Family Visit and a New Car

It’s been a while since we’ve seen any family – other than a flying visit from my parents a week or so after my heart attack. Lockdown and various Covid restrictions have been the main reason for this. We did see some of them this weekend though. My parents and my sister Trudi came to visit, along with my niece Kia, her husband Max and their children Ryder, Iola, Athena and Revna. It was the first time we’d seen Revna.

We did of course keep them at bay so as to minimise contact indoors! They all stayed in a caravan in Borth and met up with us outdoors for lunch. They spent plenty of time on the beach as it’s a novelty for them so we met them there as well. I took Ryder ‘on an adventure’ up to the ‘swing with a view’ above their caravan park too.

They weren’t here for long but we think they all had a good time. There are of course still loads of family members we haven’t seen. We haven’t seen my brothers and their families for ages. Jay has a new house that we haven’t seen as well. We haven’t seen Anna’s Mum for almost 2 years now – she is however planning to visit in September and she will also be staying in a caravan on a park a little closer to us. I think it’s about time Anna and I had a night or two away as well.

New Car

We’ve also been looking into buying a new car. We want to go all electric and have therefore been test driving a few. The first we tried was the 2021 Hyundai Kona which we liked. The Next was the Peugeot e208 which was nice too but felt a little dark and dingy inside. The VW ID3 was nice, but not quite as nice as the Hyundai Kona. Next we had the Vauxhall Mokka-e for the weekend. That too was nice and in bright green looked cool too. They couldn’t do such a good deal on it as the Hyundai, nor did it have such a good range. We were therefore still keen on the Kona so had another test drive in it and borrowed it for the weekend. We still liked it and the family visitors seemed to like it as well so we are going to buy one.

All electric is of course new to us so that will be exciting. With a 300 mile claimed range I don’t think that range anxiety will be too much of an issue. The performance is amazing, so much better than a petrol car in the same price range. We’ve never had a brand new car before so all of the features will be quite an upgrade for us too. Things such as parking sensors, reversing cameras, cruise control, automatics lights, automatic windscreen wipers and even bluetooth and wireless phone charging will all be new. Not to mention some of the ‘autonomous’ driving features such as ‘Lane Keep Assist’, ‘Smart Cruise Control’ and Emergency braking. We won’t get the car until the end of October (apparently) but we’re looking forward to it already.

We’re leasing it too which is new to us but we think it’s the sensible thing to do. As all electric cars are relatively new and still progressing at a rapid rate buying one outright doesn’t seem sensible. We’d have to buy a second hand one so it would already be a few years out of date. Very few at this age have a good enough range for a start. Secondly, the batteries themselves will be one of the first things to degrade so buying 2nd hand might not be a good idea from that respect. On top of this, anything that we did buy would likely depreciate in value pretty quuckly as newer models with upgraded technologies are released.

Leasing covers us as far as these issues are concerned. The depreciation and battery degradation aren’t really our issue as we simply hand the car back at the end of the lease period. On top of this, by the end of the lease period, things will no doubt have moved on considerably and we’ll simply be able to start a new lease on an updated, improved, newer model. It is an additional monthly payment that we are committing ourselves too and you do of course pay some interest on that but it’s nice to treat yourselves sometimes!

Tags: CarFamily