people with plug-in hybrid or fully electric cars...

[fucknuckle]

...what made you choose one and how do you manage it?

i have a self-charging hybrid and find myself idly wondering what people who need to plug in and charge do.

have you had an outside charger installed at your house? how do you know where public charge points are? do you pay to use them? what do you do about long journeys?

i know it’s not very interesting but i thought i’d ask! there are loads of tv ads for fully electric or plug-in hybrids and it always makes me wonder who’s buying them and why.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat www.comparethemarket.com.au/blog/car/how-long-does-petrol-last-before-it-expires/

Oops! Thanks for that, it's interesting reading. I'm not sure what else I could have done during lockdown other than a few non essential trips though.

We have a Renault Zoe which is an EV. I love it. Particularly for the burning people up at the lights point that a PP mentioned.

OP asked:

so, if you get to a public charge point at a service station and it’s in use, how long would it take to charge the person in front of you? i don’t like the idea of adding time to a journey when i could just put petrol in.

We had this at services near Worcester on Tuesday. There are 4 chargers but only one suits our car. The rest are for Teslas and Leafs. The Ecotricity chargers at services only allow you to charge for 45 minutes, so if someone has been there we would have just had to have waited but the precious person wouldn't be on it fir more than 45 minutes. This will be a problem when there are more EVs if there aren't more chargers.

You need a plan a, b and c.

This is why we've kept one ICE, for when we need to whizz around the country and can't take that risk. But 95% of our journeys can be done in the Zoe.

Love love love my Zoe.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat it's a situation that not a lot of people could have don't anything about the fuel they already had!

Apparently u don't have to use it all before refuelling. Adding new fuel "refreshes" it. But u don't know what ratio that has to be

I have a golf GTE and a charging point outside my house. £150 to have it installed.

Can I ask those of you who have mentioned scheduled charging overnight how you do that?

I charge overnight.
When I come home from work (and it’s not raining though it only takes seconds) I plug in.
There is a weekly scheduler in the car, so I can change radio station or change the charging times for Friday night on the same screen. There is also an app on my phone.
Then at night the charging starts.
Unplug in the morning/when I next use the car.

I think charging points will pop up everywhere eventually for those without driveways.
We live outside of the Uk, in another Eu country. We live 30-40 min drive from town. However in the last 2-3 years charging points have popped up in various places.
The village has 2 outside the post office, several B and B places have chargers on their forecourt.

We have two parking areas, one at the front and one at the back of our home ( it’s remote ish). We can get a government grant to add a public charger to our land and might do at the back eventually. These combined across the country will help people travelling in rural areas

Dh has been experimenting with various charging options - instavolt was pretty quick - but the lack of EV charging infrastructure was on of the main reasons we choose a Tesla. For anyone lucky enough to have a company car option full EV makes complete sense, the tax breaks are beyond generous - you'll be taxed a lot more on a hybrid but you'll still benefit a little.