Electric Cars

RubySlippers123 · 2021-09-04T08:34:17+00:00

What are your experiences like of having them? Anyone know the cheapest way to get hold of one? Really need a new car but can't see the sense in buying petrol again. Posting here for traffic! 🤣

Original poster

RubySlippers123 · 04/09/2021 10:00

🚗🚙🏎🚕🚓🚘

OP posts:

HotSteppa · 04/09/2021 10:01

I love mine, I'll got it on an NHS Fleet deal, it was heavily incentivised. Government scheme ment free installation of home charger if you have a drive way.

For what I do it works really well, I use my car for work and I drive between 10 and 70 miles a day so we'll within the 180 mile range. I usually charge it once a week/every 5 days or so but I believe they would rather you charge little and often rather than 1 big charge so they don't have these big pull down on electricity as more people get them.

We have a petrol car too and when I have had longer drives that would require a charge on the way we have used that as I didn't want to build in a charging break and we didn't have an easy local place to charge while we were away.

I reckon perfect for commuting , longer cross country journeys just take a bit more planning

Original poster

RubySlippers123 · 04/09/2021 10:07

Thanks for replying.
Hopefully the journey length ability will increase as things develop!

Anyone know of any incentivised schemes for non-NHS staff??

OP posts:

H1978 · 04/09/2021 10:59

Don’t know of any scheme but I love our electric car. It’s amazing for those like me who are travel sick as the drive is so smooth. It makes for a longer journey with the charging but we’ll worth it.

Geekygeek · 04/09/2021 11:04

Bought ours second hand (mk 1 leaf) with a small bank loans (2% APR over 3yrs). It’s been great and does the vast majority of runs, with the bigger “family” car barely moving other than very long trips and going to the tip.

Great to drive, very cheap to run and very happy with it. Looking forward to changing the family car for EV when it reaches end of life.

Re-charging. We installed a pod point for £500 and on a very cheap overnight tariff. Costs < £1 to charge. 😊

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 04/09/2021 11:25

Do you have a driveway? I have a plug in hybrid but it wouldn't suit if I lived somewhere that was either on street parking or a separate car park.

I initially wanted to go full electric but couldn't find a car that suited my needs, so I bought the PHEV instead. I get 50 km on a full charge. I plug it in every time I'm at home and it hardly ever tips over to the petrol engine. That only works because all of my journeys are quite short, if I had a long commute with nowhere to plug in at work then it wouldn't be as cost effective because once you click over to the petrol engine the mpg isn't as good as a normal petrol car. I used half a tank of petrol between mid Dec and mid June. Then I did a holiday trip which was two and half hours each way, the journey down was a full charge and a quarter of a tank of petrol which I think is not terrible milage (I think it's around 220 km), the journey back was a half charge and a third of a tank of petrol.

mrsdavegrohl · 04/09/2021 11:45

Check with your HR dept. Lots of companies will now offer full EV as a salary sacrifice scheme. Good value if you a high rate tax payer. Those cars are all inclusive, nothing at all to pay aside from electricity top up

mrsdavegrohl · 04/09/2021 11:51

Also, look up a company called on to. They do electric car subscriptions. Can keep the car for as little as 1 month so you can get a chance to see if EV is for you before being tied in

Original poster

RubySlippers123 · 05/09/2021 19:41

@Geekygeek

Bought ours second hand (mk 1 leaf) with a small bank loans (2% APR over 3yrs). It’s been great and does the vast majority of runs, with the bigger “family” car barely moving other than very long trips and going to the tip.

Great to drive, very cheap to run and very happy with it. Looking forward to changing the family car for EV when it reaches end of life.

Re-charging. We installed a pod point for £500 and on a very cheap overnight tariff. Costs < £1 to charge. 😊

Ooo so you can get 2nd hand ones. That's a good plan thanks!

OP posts:

Original poster

RubySlippers123 · 05/09/2021 19:42

@mrsdavegrohl

Also, look up a company called on to. They do electric car subscriptions. Can keep the car for as little as 1 month so you can get a chance to see if EV is for you before being tied in

Will do thanks 👍

OP posts:

Original poster

RubySlippers123 · 05/09/2021 19:43

@mrsdavegrohl

Check with your HR dept. Lots of companies will now offer full EV as a salary sacrifice scheme. Good value if you a high rate tax payer. Those cars are all inclusive, nothing at all to pay aside from electricity top up

I don't have an HR dept.

OP posts:

Original poster

RubySlippers123 · 07/09/2021 06:48

Forgive the possibly stupid question, but are all electric cars automatic?

OP posts:

generalexpert · 07/09/2021 06:56

@RubySlippers123

Forgive the possibly stupid question, but are all electric cars automatic?

Yes they are. Electric motors have high torque at zero rpm, so no gears required. No so much automatic but entirely without gears.

riverpebbles · 07/09/2021 07:02

We have a newish Leaf (£££ 2 years ago) with a long range. It is great GREAT for most of our use, which is running around our small town or driving to and from the large town half an hour away. We can even visit my family who are about 1.5 hrs away and come back without charging, at least in the summer - in winter the heater uses up more battery. We kept our old diesel for long journeys.

Found a FB group called Electric Car Owners useful, and also specific groups for the cars we were considering.

If you regularly make long trips that need a charge where there isn't a convenient fast charging point, that will be an issue. Not all charge points work on all cars and not all of them are fast.

Interested in this thread?