Doing 20,000 miles a year is only 385 per week. Given lots of EVs have a range of around 200 miles or more, you’d just be Charing it a couple of times a week. Realistically though you’d probably just plug it in every night anyway.

The range only becomes a minor inconvenience when you’re going much longer distance. But even then, if you’ve driven long enough to deplete a fully charged battery, it’s probably time to stop and take a break, use the facilities and grab a bite to eat, with the car plugged in and charging as you do so. By the time you’re back to the car, you’ve probably got enough charge to complete your journey.

I appreciate it’s not for everyone, but I do think people have to stop worrying that a range of 200-300 miles is such a barrier. Not many people are driving that many miles every day! Of course, it’s more of an issue for people without off street parking and therefore somewhere convenient to park and plug in.

And therein lies the rub. Where they are needed most is in cities and this is where there is a distinct lack of hoe charging.

Having done 6000 miles in our E-Niro now I can honestly say that range anxiety has gone away. SWMBO still racking up 100 miles a day, means charging every other day at home does the job nicely. If we didn’t have a driveway then it would be a non starter.

As far as fuel prices go my local Texeco is now 158 for the derv, but I’m lucky because my local costco Diesel is still at 143.7, which is not too shabby and unleaded is still at 139. Would pay for the membership in one fill up pretty much  There is nothing that can't be fixed with a hammer😜😜
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Full-fat-Lance wrote:

Doing 20,000 miles a year is only 385 per week. Given lots of EVs have a range of around 200 miles or more, you’d just be Charing it a couple of times a week. Realistically though you’d probably just plug it in every night anyway.

The range only becomes a minor inconvenience when you’re going much longer distance. But even then, if you’ve driven long enough to deplete a fully charged battery, it’s probably time to stop and take a break, use the facilities and grab a bite to eat, with the car plugged in and charging as you do so. By the time you’re back to the car, you’ve probably got enough charge to complete your journey.

I appreciate it’s not for everyone, but I do think people have to stop worrying that a range of 200-300 miles is such a barrier. Not many people are driving that many miles every day! Of course, it’s more of an issue for people without off street parking and therefore somewhere convenient to park and plug in.

Martin2 wrote:

Isn’t the 4p for 4 hours? if so, that 28-29kwh a day, which is only 70-90 miles. I had a look (different provider) because my wife now has access to a salary sacrifice scheme making an electric car a pretty cheap option, but and if you have one with a decent range that you use regularly, it was cheaper to stay on the variable tariff as the rate for the other 20 hours was pretty high.

The idea didn’t last long as with electric costs rising, expensive fast charging away from home and still limited range, it’s just not worth choosing something I don’t really want to save a rapidly reducing amount of money. It might be different if it was a low mileage second car, but it needs to do 15-20k miles a year and the only sensible way to do that in an electric car is to buy a Tesla.

All imho of course!

Our British Gas EV contract finished end of Jan so we defaulted to standard variable with the Price cap. We have had a Tesla, bmw i3 and now a vw id3 as a secondary car which now costs about £5 to travel 150 miles in winter. I revisited the quotes I had for Solar and battery a year back, still doesn’t quite stack up but given the outlook for electric and fuel prices plus the fact I have a Range Rover phev on order I’m going to do some more maths before Solar equipment prices go through the roof!

Solar prices arent really viable, the break even point is still 7+ years (well for me anyway). Battery systems however make sound economic sense and if youre comfortable nailing some batteries together and connecting to an inverter charger they break even in under 2 years. My Octopus tariff comes to an end this month and my day units rise from 13.2p to 29.2p, I'm just about to order the final parts to make up a 32kWh battery to feed an 8kW inverter. By doing this my daytime units will be 7.5p! When all this done my future electricity bills should go down rather than up. BMW i3 Electric Car
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AJGalaxy2012 wrote:

Martin2 wrote:

Isn’t the 4p for 4 hours? if so, that 28-29kwh a day, which is only 70-90 miles. I had a look (different provider) because my wife now has access to a salary sacrifice scheme making an electric car a pretty cheap option, but and if you have one with a decent range that you use regularly, it was cheaper to stay on the variable tariff as the rate for the other 20 hours was pretty high.

The idea didn’t last long as with electric costs rising, expensive fast charging away from home and still limited range, it’s just not worth choosing something I don’t really want to save a rapidly reducing amount of money. It might be different if it was a low mileage second car, but it needs to do 15-20k miles a year and the only sensible way to do that in an electric car is to buy a Tesla.

All imho of course!

it's 5p and yes it is for 4 hours. Mine charges at 7.5kW which gives me 30kWh over the 4 hour period, I average over the year 4.6 miles per kWh and thus gives me a range of 120 miles in the current temperatures.
Octopus go didnt have high daytime rates the one i'm on now which due to expire was 5p and 13.2p, the new one is 7.5p and 29.2p, still considerably cheaper than other offerings. Using the new day rate unit price it's 6p per mile compared to 24p per mile for a 30mpg diesel.

4.6 is really good I don't think we got anywhere like that with our BMW I3, Model S or current ID3 Electric is indeed great for short trips but still doesn't work for everyone. If your lucky enough (like me) to have 3phase EVSE on the drive its pretty slick if you treat it like your mobile phone and plug it when you get home but without available infrastructure it doesn't work too well.

I think the EV is cheaper argument is dangerous to factor into the purchase justification you could be caught out. We jumped on the EV band wagon when the I3 first came out in 2014 primarily for the perceived Eco aspect (and the fact I'm a geek) and back then many of the public chargers were free and I ran that I3 as my daily commute for peanuts.

The one cost advantage (for me at least) is Sheffields Green parking scheme that allows me to use any council carpark or street parking for free. I'm fully expecting that incentive to demise over the coming years, the carparks are very busy with EV's now and I expect they will bring charging back in at some point, probably when they introduce the clean emission zone and we get entry to that for free. I also expect the road taxation model to change at some point too.

Batteries for domestic, like the tesla power wall? I've got a few old full fat batteries I could lash together.. There'll be folk ransacking motors for their batteries soon like those scrotes stealing cats..

AJGalaxy2012 wrote:

My Octopus tariff comes to an end this month and my day units rise from 13.2p to 29.2p, I'm just about to order the final parts to make up a 32kWh battery to feed an 8kW inverter. By doing this my daytime units will be 7.5p! When all this done my future electricity bills should go down rather than up.

AJGalaxy2012 wrote:

Solar prices arent really viable, the break even point is still 7+ years (well for me anyway). Battery systems however make sound economic sense and if youre comfortable nailing some batteries together and connecting to an inverter charger they break even in under 2 years. My Octopus tariff comes to an end this month and my day units rise from 13.2p to 29.2p, I'm just about to order the final parts to make up a 32kWh battery to feed an 8kW inverter. By doing this my daytime units will be 7.5p! When all this done my future electricity bills should go down rather than up.

Mr Tee wrote:

There'll be folk ransacking motors for their batteries soon like those scrotes stealing cats..

Martin2 wrote:

4.6 miles per kwh is pretty good, presumably due to the small battery / lighter weight than a lot of EVs.

Quote:

I think it’s more likely to be 2.5 miles in something with a longer range.

Quote:

If you can get most of your electricity at 5p or even 7.5p then that’s great, but if you get less than half at that rate and the rest at nearly 30p the gap to a combustion car starts to close.

Quote:

Add in fast charging away from home, which I understand can be as much as 69p per kWh and it could be more expensive than running a diesel if you cover a lot of miles (I do 30-35k a year across 2 cars).

Quote:

Just confirms my point that for a low mileage car, electric can work, but even with high petrol/diesel prices the gap is closing and will continue to do so.

€1.58 locally, I had ~150 Kim’s range when I filled up, still came to €120. Normally I don’t look at fuel costs…don’t need to as I work from home. But this week it got my attention! A full tank will last around a month or more.

It’s odd, our electricity has come down in price! But gas bottles and fuel (cooking & supplemental heat) have shot up.

Seriously time to go solar and get a Renault Zoe for a sun-fuelled car. 2012 4.4 TDV8 Westminster - Baltic Blue, Jet interior
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Like most on here I could easily afford an electric vehicle, perhaps if I had one I would simply focus on how many miles I get per KW and how many charging stations there are (some even free - yippee) but I don’t have a Range Rover because it’s cheap I have it because I like it Geoff

Last edited by supershuttle on 5th Mar 2022 8:58am. Edited 1 time in total