If you have an electric car…

[NewMum0305]

how easy it is to run? Are there lots of charging points near you and do you find it easy to go on trips and charge on the way if needed?

And if you’re willing to say, how much did your car cost?

My DH and I are considering getting one but I want to be sure it’s practical and worth the substantial upfront cost.

Thank you

@Thunderpunt

We have one, without a home charging point I wouldn't consider it. You have to factor in the time taken to charge a car each time, even on the fast charges, and I couldn't do with the hassle of that

It’s not really feasible if you can’t charge it at home. Have you considered a hybrid?

My SIL has one -- she's got a DS 3 Crossback. It's full electric (although DS make petrol ones too).

Theirs is their local/small car. It claims about 199 miles on a charge, although she says in reality it gets about half to two-thirds of that.

She uses it for supermarket shops, picking my brother up from the station or the airport (he works away a lot) and any weekend jaunts of up to about 40 miles away.

She doesn't reckon it's saved them any money compared to petrol though. The (slightly) cheaper electricity advantage is being eaten away month by month as home electricity tariffs rise. Public charging stations are similarly getting more expensive. Plus the car was expensive to buy in the first place -- close to 40 grand for theirs (although it is the top of the range model) which is a lot for a small car.

Charging is in the lap of the gods, quite frankly. She reckons some days it's seamless and some days it's a total nightmare. Clearly for them, charging at home is handy. But they can't always, and the public charging is much patchier. More often than not they get to a charger and it either doesn't work, or there are five other EVs surrounding it hungrily and they'd be waiting four hours for their turn.

She's said if they didn't have home charging it wouldn't work at all.

It's a really lovely thing though, extremely interesting bit of design. Different to the usual Audis and BMWs and Teslas that are everywhere in their area. The interior is particularly lovely. Although there isn't much room in the back (it's about the same size as a Nissan Juke, roughly).

I have a Tesla and its amazing. Had it for 8 years now, so its a pretty old version.
The range is crazy. It lasts for ~250miles without charging. When i first bought it, it was 280miles. So it didnt decrease much at all in those 8 years.
I never had any issues with it so far at all.
I can charge it for free at tesla stations and they are everywhere.
It would be inconvenient to travel by car really far i guess, because the charging does take longer than getting gas, but when we travel for hours we usually stop to eat with the kids anyways and try to arrange it at a charging station.
Its an expensive car. We paid £80k ish i think? Im not in the uk so i just converted it. Compared to other cars that size its still on the cheaper side though. We compared with mercedes, audi etc. and their models around that size were similar in price or even more.
We save a lot in gas. We spend £500-600 on electricity in a year (again, converted. Im not sure if electricity in the uk would be more or less). To compare, with my old car (mazda 2) i spent £80 a week on gas.
My country has road taxes which we dont have to pay with an electric car and it doesnt require service. I think in the 8 years i had the car they sent someone over to my house twice for a quick check up and to replace fluids which was really cheap each time.

Love mine. We have a Tesla model 3 Long Range and have had it for two and a half years now. We’ve driven it across Europe several times, and are planning to drive all the way up to Bergen this summer. We charge it at home most of the time, so I can’t comment on local charging issues, and use the Tesla supercharger network on long journeys. It’s all very easy. Superchargers are pretty quick; we never feel like we’re hanging around getting bored. The dc love the charging stops because they get to play the computer games that are available on the car’s screen - no need to fork out for endless snacks.

I’m very happy knowing I’m not putting money in the pockets of various oil regimes.

I have a hybrid and can charge it at home. The EV charging network still isn't brilliant and longer journeys need more planning. Add in the possibility of not always getting access to a charge point - there are some in supermarkets and car parks, but what if they are full?
Personally I wouldn't swap to 100% electric as my only car yet.
Hybrid have a pretty limited range (mine is less than 30 miles) but fine for most of the use it gets. Longer journeys we need to use the petrol option.

I have an EV without a home charger. Live in the city though, so charge on the lamp posts in the street over night. Much cheaper than petrol.

We lease our electric car.
We thought it was best to lease for 2 years so we can see if it suited us. Also, technology is moving on so fast we didn't want to buy at this point.

We have a home charger and a car charging tariff. We charge at night for 4 hours. This gives us up to 80% charge and costs around £1.40

We have plenty of free chargers in the area and plug in when we see one just to get the free charge.

There are plenty of apps for the chargers. So you can see where there are and whether they are available.

Our car costs us £300 a month. There is no road tax. Servicing is cheap too.

If you are going on a long journey I find you have to plan your route to take charging into account. But with a petrol car I would always stop on a long journey for a coffee or a break so it's no different.

We have now ordered our next one for when this lease expires. We will not go back to a petrol/diesel car.

It's also not accurate mileage. My 30 miles will go much further on flat roads with little change of momentum (motorway driving for example) but will vanish driving uphill. I live 1 mile uphill - uses at least 5 miles of charge.

Do you need 3 phase power at home? I was wondering about the cost of installing a charging point at home.

Id4.
Charge at home mainly.
Local supermarket, parking lot and near playground are all free chargers as well. So it’s easy to just plug in whilst you shop, take kids to playground, etc..
The school and kindergarten are adding chargers this summer

My home charger cost £850 including installation. There is a government grant of £350 but I didn't qualify as my hardstanding is too small.

We're getting one (ID4) but definitely with a home charger. I wouldn't if I couldn't have one.

I live in a little town with loads of chargers close by (Morrisons, McDonalds, Lidl etc) but they're ALWAYS in use with cards lined up! And I'm sure this will only happen more as more people are going electric.

A friend of mine seriously considered it, but she didn’t have a drive or garage, and the council don’t allow on-street charging from home. Her idea was to charge at the nearest supermarket five minutes away, but she eventually discounted it as too impractical.

With the current number of chargers at service stations the more people who get an ev the less likely you are to find a free charger. It won’t just be a thirty minute wait whilst it’s charging but also queuing time. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have a driveway

I work for a very well known German car manufacturer and I was considering a second hand fully electric car from our brand but after talking to a tech there he put me off tbh

Once the battery is out of warranty if there's a problem it could be extremely expensive to fix. I would like an electric car but I think it's too soon for me

On the plus side, my local council have installed free charging points throughout the city. There's two within 5-10 minutes walk from my house. I see one used by a Merc A-Class daily and I'm yet to see the other used

We have 2 electric cars, and have had at least 1 since 2016 onwards, various different ones at different price points. We are currently broke so we’ve ditched the luxury ones for cheap and cheerful

Currently we have a cheap VW E-up on lease at £155pm and an old Leaf that we bought for just under £10k

We charge at home 99% of the time, we are on an electric car tariff. We live rurally so limited chargers locally but that’s not an issue.

Happy to answer queries

We have a Tesla and either charge at home (currently costs about £5 to fill up, so even when it goes up it won’t be anything like the cost of petrol) or use the super chargers if we need to do it quickly while on the road. Even then it only costs around £15 to “fill” so I’m not sure where those posters who say it’s almost as expensive as petrol are getting the prices from.

It’s fine when we charge at home, electric is still cheaper than petrol (just) but there’s hardly any charge points out and about that actually work. Ikea charge points are the worst, local council, Sainsbury’s all have points but they are always out if order or have been vandalised.

So on the whole I’d say your better with a hybrid, as charge points in the uk are very hit and miss they can be expensive too Lancaster council charge £5 for a thirty min charge which is ridiculous!

@Garysmum you don’t need a charge plug at home, an extension lead in a normal plug works it just takes longer.

We've been experimenting with ev cars for the past year or so, by having a subscription with a company called Onto. It's been expensive, but has helped us see what works for us long term and we are going to go ahead and buy an ev in the next few months. Charging is fine if it's somewhere where you are shopping anyway, or passing on the way somewhere. Our only problems have been where the charger is broken (happens quite frequently) or where there are just people on them already and you don't know how long you will have to wait. Once you are on a charger, I don't mind it as I answer emails, shop online or whatever (Mumsnet obviously) but then I'm never usually in a hurry as I don't have young children at home. Best scenario in my opinion is if you can charge at work. I'd recommend having one for a month or so to see how you cope, before buying.

Hey @NewMum0305 I got an E-golf in June 2020 on a lease scheme through my employer.

We live in a mid-terrace and don’t have a drive but we do have the ability to park in the back garden so my husband ran an outdoor cable from our extension to an outdoor plug socket which allows us to charge on a normal 3 pin plug, it takes anywhere between 10 and 12 hours but we only charge overnight once a week (short commute to work, only done 7500 miles in 18 months!).

Charging in public, from my experience, has been challenging due to the lack of reliable infrastructure and the fact that every other charger has a different bloody supplier and you need an app or a RFID card for each sodding one!! It can get overwhelming, especially if you’re caught short and need to download an app but have sketchy mobile signal….

Zap-Map is great for plotting journeys and locating charging stations, but do beware that sometimes the charging stations will be out of order, and usually there’s only 1 fast charger, and if it’s already in use you’d have to wait for at least 30 mins.

EVs are great though, and I LOVE my E-golf! I’ll be so sad to hand it back in June (only got it on a 2 year lease). Hopefully the infrastructure will get better and better 🤞🏻

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions

I have a home charger as it was mostly covered in cost by the government grants but I had to wait 3 months to get it and tbh I don't use it that often. We have a few local council run 7Kw chargers that are cheaper than my home electric and generally pop the car on there a couple of times a week, walk the dog there and back - kills two birds with one stone. Most of our journeys are local and short. When I was researching I really thought about how I would work it and tbh it was a mind shift - it honestly thought I needed range but now realise I don't. I do one trip a month to visit my friend about 70 miles away. She lives rurally and doesnt have a drive near her house, but there are two rapid chargers nearby so a 20 minute stop on the way home sees me enough mileage to get back. My DH visits his best friend (40 miles away) twice a week but he lives next to an office building with free charging and no one uses them during the evening. They are slow (3Kw) chargers so no one else does either! DH gets enough charge to cover 40 miles and its free.

I would say - have a play with Zap Map and look at the journeys you are likely to do and see if they are viable. You would need a couple of chargers around each planned charge as reliability really isn't there yet. You may be able to use the granny charger when you visit people, at 3KW p/h you can work out the cost if you needed to offer payment to them and it's not going to be a huge cost. See what is local to you and realistically how often you would need to access it. Ask around, a local businesses may be happy to allow you usage in the evenings if you approach them and see if they want to consider a deal? All the railway stations around here are on great tariffs (about 19p per KW).

I love the car and the way it drives. It has a timer you can set the car to heat up for you getting in - great for the commute and not having to scrape frost! I don't regret the purchase in the slightest and it is working out significantly cheaper than my old diesel.