Peugeot iOn Available On Contract

(Friday 10 September 2010)

The all-electric Peugeot iOn city car is simply a rebadged Mitsubishi i-MiEV, but the two companies are offering it to customers in quite different ways. While Mitsubishi is selling the i-MiEV outright, Peugeot is making it available through a four-year rental contract.

Customers are to be charged a monthly rate of £415 plus VAT (which will be rated at 20% from January), making a total over the four years of around £24,000. This covers the lease of the vehicle and its battery pack, full warranty, full servicing and maintenance (including tyres, brake pads and brake discs, but with a 40,000-mile maximum) and, from April 2011, access to Peugeot Connect Services.

Even with all that included, £24,000 is still a lot of money. Peugeot calculates that the cost of recharging the iOn over 10,000 miles is £1515 less than that of fuelling a conventional petrol or diesel car with an urban average of 30mpg, and that the exemption - where applicable, which basically means London - from congestion and parking charges are £1696 and £1939 respectively, making a total of £5150 per year.

Across the period of the contract, this all adds up to £20,600, effectively bringing the cost of the iOn down to around £850 per year over that of a comparable city car. It's worth noting, though, that this applies only if you drive an average of 27 miles each day and never stray from London.