To think there are no real perks to driving an electric car?

All EVs have had to emit a noise when travelling below a certain speed (20mph?!) for quite a few years now. There’s also the noise they make on the road (tyres etc). I’m not sure why it wasn’t 30mph to be honest as that would have made sense for driving in residential areas.

They sound great but it’s yet again frustrating that people with money get to run a car cheaply while people on low wages have to buy petrol.

Only if you can charge at home.

From a Which? survey dated February 2025.
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new-and-used-cars/article/electric-car-charging-guide/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car-a8f4g1o7JzXj

Public ultra-rapid charging typically costs 79p per kWh, so 25p per mile.
For comparison, the cost to refuel a typical large petrol or diesel SUV is 16p per mile.

It’s so so much cheaper than petrol. That alone. hope that helps.

My hybrid is noisy in reverse but pretty much silent going forward.

weren’t they supposed to be introducing some sort of drive noise?

we’ve had issues here with blind/deaf people having near misses, guide dogs as well struggling with them.

as a cyclist I don’t like them as quite often I don’t realise there’s one behind me and when I check it gives me a fright to find a ton of metal close to my back wheel or have one suddenly appear in my peripheral vision to overtake. I rely on hearing quite a lot when preparing to turn or make a manoeuvre and it’s disconcerting to say the least.

Ours and those of our neighbours are quite loud in reverse

It's a shame EVs aren't louder. I thought they were supposed to make a noise now but they are still too quiet. DH is partially deaf and struggles to hear them and surely it must be awful for anyone blind or partially sighted.

Whereas an EV would always be my choice - runaround car, commuting car, holidaying car, rental car abroad. I’d always choose an EV given the choice. Was given an ICE courtesy car by the garage the other week. It was bloody awful and the kids did nothing but complain about how loud it was.

I’ve had an electric car and only had to use a slow charger twice, it’s really easy to find fast chargers.

General "you" or specifically me?

Because I haven't spread any misinformation.

@NoBinturongsHereMate A lot of the fast chargers don’t charge the car sufficiently. A car magazine found they didn’t charge in the advertised time and it just leaves people hanging around or with a battery below expectation. EVs certainly don’t meet every lifestyle and are often best as a runaround. Ours is basically this. It’s not our choice for longer journeys.

EVs don't fit everyone's lifestyle.
No, they don't. And if you don't want one, don't get one. Just don't spread misinformation.

Charging 'snacks' can be done while doing your shopping, walking the dog etc to keep it full enough for most purposes...

We don't use the car for shopping. We don't have a dog.

And a slow charger would fill most cars between someone arriving at and leaving work.

If one commutes by car (we don't) and if there's a charger available at work or nearby.

EVs don't fit everyone's lifestyle.

slow chargers. Which take between 6 and 12 hours to charge up one EV.

Fully charge. Most people don't let the battery run to zero, and you don't usually need to charge it to 100% (indeed like a phone battery it's recommended that you don't routinely do so).

Charging 'snacks' can be done while doing your shopping, walking the dog etc to keep it full enough for most purposes, with a bigger charge only needed when planning a long trip. It's a different way of thinking about fuelling a car.

And a slow charger would fill most cars between someone arriving at and leaving work.

Because 69% of EV drivers mostly charge at home, having off-road parking. As we have seen from this thread.

Almost 40% of households don't have off-road parking. Those who can't charge at work would have to use public chargers exclusively.

For people like our household, EVs don"t yet work.

Well yes...but only 31% of EV drivers use a public charger regularly...whereas 100% of ICE car drivers visit a petrol station :)

A quick look at ZapMap shows me that there are around 160 public chargers within 5 miles of my W Sussex home, which is at least 3 and probably 4 times as many as there are petrol pumps in the same area. 20 ~ 25% of them are fast chargers.

That means that 75 - 80% are slow chargers. Which take between 6 and 12 hours to charge up one EV. One petrol/diesel pump will fill up between 36 and 72 ICE vehicles in that time, allowing 10 minutes per vehicle - and it rarely takes that long to fill up and pay.

Yes, exactly that. A quick look at ZapMap shows me that there are around 160 public chargers within 5 miles of my W Sussex home, which is at least 3 and probably 4 times as many as there are petrol pumps in the same area. 20 ~ 25% of them are fast chargers. Charger availibility is a non issue. I did 26,000 miles in my EV last year across the UK and France without a moment of stress

The cost of public fast chargers is higher than domestic electricty, for sure. But most people rarely use them and even if you do, on a cost / mile basis they are similar in price to running a petrol car. Google tells me that petrol is £1.35 a litre, so at the 33mpg my last petrol car did that's 19p a mile. The fast chargers in the same location are 72p / KwH - and at 3.8m miles / KwH that's 19p a mile as well. There are more economcial petrol cars and there are more economcal EVs than mine. The economics are similar however you look at it. Diesels are more economical but, rightly is a noxious fuel that is taxed much higher and increasinlgy being legislated out of urban areas but again, on a cost / mile basis its just not an issue

Sure, in rural Scotland availibility will be more of an isue - but that's also true for petrol stations...

Yes it is. That's where virtually all our fossil fuel generated electricity comes from and it is still significant - unless we become more reliant on nuclear I can't see us ever using no gas. But it's nowhere near "most" electricity. There will be some days when we use quite a lot of gas - when it's neither sunny nor windy- but other days when it's barely any. At 15.00 today just 7.5% of electricity going into the National Grid was coming from gas and a little over 48% from wind. Over the last 12 months less than a third of UK electricity came from fossil fuels (mainly gas, tiny bit of coal).

I think gas is a fossil fuel though?

But, not to derail - I am happy to know that UK is moving towards green energy more and more. I'm leaning towards buying a hybrid and it does make me feel a bit better about it.

electricity (mostly) comes from power stations which operate on fosil fuels,
Except it (mostly) doesn't. Not in the UK anyway.
Obviously it varies from day to day depending on weather conditions, but as I type only 8.7% of the electricity going into the National Grid is being produced from fossil fuels. 67.5% is from renewables and the rest is coming from nuclear, biomass and we're importing a bit from Denmark and Norway this morning. I confess I don’t know how Scandinavian electricity is produced but I'd be prepared to take a guess that it's not coal fired power stations.
There's been a steep downward trajectory with something approaching a 70% decrease in emissions produced by electricity generation in this country since 2012. If you live in a country that does still produce most of its electricity from coal powered power stations (I think Poland does) then obviously the arguments are different, but in this country, in terms of emissions, EVs get greener the longer you have one - they'll have paid off their manufacturing debt and, assuming the trend continues, be using greener electricity to run. I doubt there's an internal combustion engine in history that can claim it gets cleaner as it ages!
You can tailor when you charge to tie in with renewable energy production too. I don't know about other companies but we use Octopus and the app tells us when it's a "green day" - usually when it's windy and there's a surplus of electricity nationally - and we get a cheaper rate if we charge then.
Of course there is an environmental cost to all forms of transport and all forms of power generation, but in terms of emissions in general, and air quality in particular I think it's very hard to argue in favour of ICE vehicles. Hopefully the environmental credentials of transport will continue to improve with time and some of the other issues with EVs will be overcome but right now I think they're the best we have. The "you're just shifting the emissions to filthy power stations" argument certainly doesn't hold water.

They really, really aren't. There were over 750 publicly available chargers at the end of last year in Cornwall. And more are being installed all the time.

I used to think the same way, completely believed the industry propaganda about chargers being infrequent. Husband decided to get an EV and we have never had a problem charging away from home. I am completely converted. It is a far more enjoyable driving experience.

Yes, they were. But there's more than one type of emission. Have you never had a car MOT'd and read the emissions report? Diesels are better than petrol regarding CO2 production - that is a global, climate change issue and the government of the time was tasked with decreasing national CO2 production. But diesels are poorer on particulate emissions and oxides of nitrogen - a more local, air quality issue. Both important but separate issues. NOx is important in both respects actually. The primary concerns are around air quality and respiratory illnesses but they're also significant greenhouse gases, and over half of NOx production is estimated to be from transport.
And EVs are better in both respects.
Of course they have their own environmental issues and it's perfectly possible, indeed desirable, that something different will be recommended in the future. It's called progress.

Most electricty in the UK is not from on fossil fuel sources. For 2024 26.3% was generated from gas and 0.6% from coal. 14% was nuclear, and 14.1% imported, mainly from France but also Norway and the Netherlands. Most of that will be nuclear (France), hydroelectric (Norway) and a bit of gas (Netherlands). So the majority of electricity used in the UK is actually from renwable sources, with nuclear and fossil fuel making up the rest, in roughly equal proportions

www.neso.energy/news/britains-electricity-explained-2024-review#:~:text=How%20was%20electricity%20generated%20in,%2C%20averaging%2051%25%20during%202024.