Any one have an electric car

[ShopTillYouDropp]

Due to get a new car and having a look and most of them (brand new) are electric. I'm a bit about getting an electric car, does any one have one and what are they like? How do you charge them at home (sorry if that's a daft question)
Thanks

Both DH and I have electric cars. They’re great. It’s taken me some time to get over range anxiety but I’ve not come close to running out of charge even once. We’ve got a pod point, which we had installed 4 years ago when we had a phev.
I don’t like how quiet mine is (Audi e-tron) and I’m always a bit worried when pulling out of my driveway because people can’t hear me. That won’t be an issue now as all new electric cars should have noise emitters. My DH’s car (Kia e-Niro) sounds like an alien spaceship
Range-wise, the e-Niro is much better than my e-tron. He can easily get 240 miles from a full charge. I’m lucky to get 210 miles but that’s fine for me as I rarely do long drives.

Thanks everyone. Had a look and I think I'm going to go for it

@MaisyMary77 I love the thought of an alien spaceship noise mine sounds like an electric train when it's going forwards but like whale song when it's reversing (I thought it was hysterical when I first reversed it)

Just reviving this thread. Does anybody have any electric car recommendations for long distance? We travel a few times a year to see family 4 hours away.
Not interested in a hybrid.

We have it and love it. For long journeys there is the added bonus that lots of places have really convenient parking spots for charging eg Chester Zoo is right next to entrance so you skip car park queues too!

Oh wow! How far have you gone in it? How many times did you need to charge and which model?
Sorry, so many questions 😂

We got an Audi Etron a month ago. I love it. We previously had a hybrid. For local journeys it’s great and we charge at home, it costs about £9 to get 140 miles range, but when our electricity tariff ends in April we will change to one with v cheap overnight electricity and set it to charge then and it will be about £3-4 to get 140 miles.

Did my first long journey this week (320 mile round trip). Used the 50kw chargers at the services, had to do that on the way there and back, and at the destination. Was easy enough, but one thing I’ve noticed is most chargers seem to have a time limit you can stay there, which isn’t long enough for a full charge. Eg at the services it was 45 mins which got my battery about 60% charged, which was enough for me that time but would have been a pain on an even longer journey where I needed a full charge. The one near where I stayed was really slow and let me stay 90 mins which only got me about 10miles! How to people manage this - have I been unlucky finding only ones which have a time limit?

This worries me, would need something with a longer range as it’s about 200 miles away so a 400 mile round trip a couple of times a year. Having to stop for an hour at least would be a pain with a 6 year old and a dog. Currently we just stop for quick wee breaks in our hybrid.

I think chargers are getting faster - there are some 150kw ones around (and some even faster but my car can’t handle any faster I don’t think), my husband says they are getting more common as more people get EVs. They would take my car from 0-100% in about half an hour I think.

At the moment we have a toddler so any quick loo break is minimum half an hour anyway 😂 but I know my dad couldn’t bare it on a long journey, he’s an ‘in and out the services in 3 minutes’ kinda guy. I think on a really long journey (300m+) which would require 2 or more charging stops it would become pretty tedious but we rarely do that.

Thanks @modgepodge. I know they want to stop selling petrol/diesel cars in 9 years so that should be a huge change in just a short space of time with what’s available charge wise.
Our journeys are quite long and we tend to just want to get there. It’s more stopping with the dog is a problem as there aren’t many places you can go and dog things. At least with just DD we could go to a place of interest en route for an hour whilst charging (if it had a charge station) but having to stop with the dog at a services station means someone has to be outside and there’s not a lot do outside other than wait.

We do. It's so lovely to drive. We don't charge at home at the minute but we'll sort that out eventually.

I've got an MG ZS EV. I absolutely love it! We have a pod point home charger and it's great - we recharge after 10.30/11.30 (depending on BST) as third rate electricity. It's our second car so we've not worried about waiting for a longer range car (this one does 144 miles). It's mostly a round and about car - my mum lives 40 mins away and my Dad lives 15 mins away and they regularly need me to help on the same day so it's often 100 mile round trip at least twice a week so we're saving on fuel. As we plan our distance and use our older Volvo for longer trips we've never had to charge up anywhere other than home and we've had it a year.
It's got great acceleration, especially in sports mode, and fantastic braking. Nice sunroof. Very happy!

We are replacing our second car in the next year or so for another fully electric - waiting until Volvo do one with a longer range.

I don't though I now have electric transport- the local bus route has gone electric.

No, they are very expensive and if you run out of juice you can't just go and fill it up. I work in the NHS and have to travel long distances to far flung clinics and I just wouldn't be able to keep on top of the charging. Fine if it's your second car for running about town.
The technology will have to get much much better and the price will have to come right down before I get one.
I compensate by driving the smallest petrol car I can find.

We have an e207, with a PodPoint to charge it in the garage. We have 6 months' free public PodPoint access but haven't activated it yet as there's nowhere to go yet.
There's about 200 miles range, the acceleration is amazing, and it's so lovely and quiet to drive.
We charge during the day to use our solar panel electricity, but it only takes a few hours every couple of weeks.

Reading this thread with great interest! I just changed my car a few months ago but I wasn’t ready to bite the bullet and go electric. We live in a square of houses with a little car park set over to one side but the way that the pavement/grassy areas are set out means it’s impossible for us to have a driveway, so a home charging point isn’t an option. I never drive more than 70 miles in one go, I generally just pootle around locally so the range doesn’t faze me and it’s great to hear how quickly the battery charges up. I had visions of plugging in at my local leisure centre and having to leave it there for hours

I recommend Teslas. We’ve done fairly long distances in it and manage to only stop to charge when we would have needed to nip in to services for food/toilet breaks for the kids anyway. The superchargers are so fast, by the time we’ve queues for food/toilets it’s put loads of charge in.
It just takes a bit of extra planning. On a long drive we’ll plan which services to stop at to charge.

The Tesla longe range model 3 looks interesting but it doesn’t look like it has much boot space. Which model do you have and what’s the space like?

If you do regular long journeys then it’s well worth looking at a website/app called abetterrouteplanner.com you can set it with the car you are interested in and then plan routes to see what type of chargers are available on your route and how long you would need to charge etc. Good to have a play around with this to get an idea of what’s possible.

Also there’s a Facebook group called UK EV drivers which might be of interest, and lots of EV reviews on YouTube, look at Driving Electric channel and Fully Charged.

I love my electric car. I charge it overnight on a variable rate tariff which in the 6 months I’ve had it has averaged at 2.6p per mile.

Do your homework though to make sure you get one which suits your driving needs. Are you going to be just doing lots of short journeys or frequent long ones etc.

Cars which I’ve seen people on ev groups particularly rave about are Kia e-Niro, ID3, and Tesla model 3.

@amusedbush

Reading this thread with great interest! I just changed my car a few months ago but I wasn’t ready to bite the bullet and go electric. We live in a square of houses with a little car park set over to one side but the way that the pavement/grassy areas are set out means it’s impossible for us to have a driveway, so a home charging point isn’t an option. I never drive more than 70 miles in one go, I generally just pootle around locally so the range doesn’t faze me and it’s great to hear how quickly the battery charges up. I had visions of plugging in at my local leisure centre and having to leave it there for hours

There are different charging speeds. The one at your local leisure centre is likely quite slow, especially if it’s free, and it would take hours. The super fast chargers aren’t as common and do cost a lot more.

@JennyWreny

If you do regular long journeys then it’s well worth looking at a website/app called abetterrouteplanner.com you can set it with the car you are interested in and then plan routes to see what type of chargers are available on your route and how long you would need to charge etc. Good to have a play around with this to get an idea of what’s possible.

Also there’s a Facebook group called UK EV drivers which might be of interest, and lots of EV reviews on YouTube, look at Driving Electric channel and Fully Charged.

I love my electric car. I charge it overnight on a variable rate tariff which in the 6 months I’ve had it has averaged at 2.6p per mile.

Do your homework though to make sure you get one which suits your driving needs. Are you going to be just doing lots of short journeys or frequent long ones etc.

Cars which I’ve seen people on ev groups particularly rave about are Kia e-Niro, ID3, and Tesla model 3.

Cracking post, thank you!

@MiddleClassProblem I have a model 3 standard range - the boot is the same size on the long range. It’s pretty big but it’s not a hatchback so the opening is quite narrow. There is another storage area under the boot which could take a couple of full “bags for life” - that kind of size. Also under the bonnet (pic with blue rucksack) there’s another area. I’ve attached some photos of ours fully loaded with uni kit. Those suitcases aren’t pushed right back into the boot btw - we had the back seats down to do that journey.

The model Y is a hatchback slightly bigger version of the model 3 but I don’t think there’s a confirmed date for those in the uk yet.

Thanks @JennyWreny, that’s really useful!

@MiddleClassProblem no worries. If you have any other questions feel free to PM me.