To ask if you'd buy an electric or petrol car in these circumstances?

No, it’s not usually plugged in when it’s preheating.

It has 350 miles of range and in an average week I maybe drive 90 miles. So it’s only plugged in to charge about once a month.

If I had to go back into the office, I’d definitely buy an EV for the five mile drive to the train station. Cheaper to run, cleaner, more convenient (warming up in winter), lower maintenance etc). No experience of Minis but the new Renault 5 looks perfect (too soon to have any secondhand tho).

Not necessarily. You don't have to charge it every day.

Wouldn't it still be plugged in while you were pre hearing though?

We plan to do this. Buy half a dozen in the last year for varying uses and keep them all on the road. If 2030 happens, we’ll be able to keep them going long enough for hydrogen to take over.

Since when did politicians know anything? I have no idea what car most of them drive.

Maybe I’m wrong about EV heating then.

But I’ll embrace the soundness of EVs when more politicians and other wealthy elite are driving them for personal use, instead of their petrol and diesel Jaguars, Range Rovers, and Rolls Royces.

OK, here’s an actual real-life fact.

In the winter, we often put our EV on to pre-heat in the mornings before we use it. The heating runs for 30mins, and gets the interior of the car up from cold (car sat outside all night in sub-zero temperatures) to toasty-warm, and that uses less than 1% of the battery.

So if I were sat in a traffic jam, even in the middle of winter, it would use significantly less to keep the car at a reasonable temperature inside. And at max 1% battery per hour, that’s a lot of hours I could sit in a traffic jam without it running out.

The main drain on an EV battery is driving it. If you are sat in a traffic jam, then you only need to use battery to run the heating (or air con). if you are not using the electric motor to move the car, then the motor draws no power from the battery. Whereas in an ICE car, you would need to keep the engine running in order to keep the heating going.

Yes, of course an EV battery is drained more quickly if you are using a lot of heating or air con. But the same is true of an ICE car - petrol is used more quickly as well. The mpg on our petrol car went from 52mpg in the summer to 43mpg over the winter. That’s a 17% drop in “range”, so why are you not similarly worried about petrol cars running out of fuel when stuck in the same traffic jam?

I get it, some PPs for whatever reason do not like EVs. But really that’s no reason to post such absolute tosh about them.

I think I would choose Reuters as a source over a second hand car dealer thanks.

I have a plug in hybrid. The electric range easily gets me to work and back, if I need more I have it, eg picking up daughter from uni. I’ve only filled the tank (£40) 4 times in the year since I got it. It costs me 80p a day to charge. I used to spend £100 a month on petrol, now I spend about £20 on charging it.

LOL

You might wanna brush up on FACTS:

https://www.perrys.co.uk/blog/what-reduces-the-range-on-your-electric-vehicle/117078

"Heating and Air Conditioning are two of the biggest features that drain the battery of your electric car. Heating will reduce the range by around 17% when you have it on full blast. Air conditioning drains the battery about 11% faster than when it’s not being used."

Is that misinformation?

Google is awash with it.....

I secretly hope the EV haters continue as I dont want the charging costs get higher.
I went from spending £60/month on petrol on a little car with only 67hp to spend £20 (home charging) with a car with 200hp 🤣
And that is with my partner now driving this car every other week, (my commute is 10miles and hers 60miles) so much more mileage than before.

According to the Reuters article above an electric car could safely heat the interior for 10 hours on half a battery
How long would a petrol car be able to keep the interior warm on half a tank I wonder?

Once again, using the heating on an EV does NOT drain the battery quickly. Please stop posting misinformation.

You can laugh all you like.

The important difference is that in a petrol car, you can keep the engine running to keep the heating. The heat to heat the car comes from the excess engine heat, in most cars. It would last until the petrol runs out, which is a long time when the car is not moving. Heat in a petrol car does not need extra electricity to run, unlike air con, which does use up the petrol quickly.

To heat an electric car, all the energy has to come from the battery, and would drain it quite quickly. So I unashamedly stand by my remark that heating an electric car would drain the fuel much more quickly than would happen in a petrol car, especially if we have more activists blocking motorways, with the police bringing them cups of tea, instead of banging them up.

And somebody, please tell me which politicians drive electric cars with pride.

Yeah bought the thing then changed jobs and worked from home Total waste tbh. No point upgrading it to get another to sit on drive lol

I didn't suggest he sell it, I was talking about Hybrids in general not urging people to stick them on Autotrader immediately

I don’t understand. He spent £40000 on a car he barely uses anyway ..

This. I have had an electric car for 3 years and never had a problem charging it. My range is over 300 miles and I do this regularly without ever worrying about needing to charge. I also live in a fairly small, fairly rural village, no issue. The talk of ‘just not the infrastructure’ is nonsense. I would never go back to spending £300+ a month on diesel, it’s pence to charge at home each night.

Well there's no point him going fully electric and spending thousands on a car to sit on drive. The car he currently has cost nigh on 40 k 9 years ago and has done 38k on the clock. Think I did at least half those miles borrowing it as it's larger than mine

Petrol only for me.

Hybrids are pretty pointless IMO and were originally designed to ease people into EV.
Now that ranges are 300 miles+ there is no need for Hybrids, if you want EV then go EV

I agree with this. We tend to keep our cars until they are uneconomical to repair. Typically 16 years. I'm not convinced that EVs will have a battery that lasts that long and thry cost something like £8k to replace. I'm sure some will last, but what proportion and will yours be one that does, who knows.

Hmm my.partner has a hybrid. Electric range is 31 bloody miles. That wouldn't be a bargain for anyone to buy. Works out quite expensive to charge also at hone

We have an electric car, we:
live in rural Scotland … no problem
Have just driven to Devon… no problem
Are currently in Wales visiting family on our way home.. in a premier inn with no charger but one within walking distance 🤷‍♀️