I went electric 18 months ago and have zero regrets. It’s lovely to drive, and I have replaced a £780 a year bill for diesel with about £100 extra on the electricity bill. With the rise in prices, the difference is even greater. They are also cheaper to service and more reliable than ICE cars, i.e. less likely to break down. Don’t believe the doom mongers telling you the battery needs to be replaced after 5 years or whatever - it’s a myth, the reality is that there are 10 year old Teslas around with well over 100K miles and minimal battery degradation. Some early Leafs had no thermal battery management, and their batteries did degrade quicker. New cars - not a problem.
Two key things to consider. Firstly, what is your longest regular journey? Secondly, what options are there for regular charging?
If you can charge at home, then your car only needs a range which will comfortably cope with your longest regular journey, with a comfortable margin for safety. EV’s are more sensitive to temperature and weather conditions than ICE cars, e.g. mine can do 330 miles in summer, 280 in winter. Driving fast is also less efficient (also true for ICE cars, but people tend not to notice that as much). Range is dependent on efficiency of the car, driving speed and terrain, and also the size of a the battery. Batteries are heavy and expensive, so if your usage is mainly local with just an occasional long trip, a 200 mile range could well be more than adequate, and will save you money compared to buying a vehicle with a longer range. Very few new EV’s now have a range less than 200 miles.
Charging at home gives you access to EV tariffs, which can bring your fuel cost per mile down to less than 2p. Work out what it is for a petrol or diesel car, and you will soon see why we love our EV’s so much! For example, £1.60/l and 50mpg works out roughly 14.5p per mile.
Charging away from home is not as straightforward as charging at home - and is significantly more expensive. But it’s getting better all the time, as more chargers are installed. I’ve just had a trip away, covered 460 miles. Charged 3 times: once during a loo and coffee break at a motorway service station, so no impact on our time; one at a visitor attraction where we spent 2.5 hours (and that was FREE); and once in the car park of Lidl, where we spent 29 minutes to get the charge we needed. LIDL rapids are the cheapest going at 26p/kWh, which works out about 6p per mile for my car.
For those who can’t charge at home, there are solutions which can be workable, depending where you live. Again, it is improving all the time.