Would you buy an electric car?

[poppyart]

DM has just found out she is entitled to a mobility vehicle which will be driven by my DF and probably myself as she doesn't drive, to get her to appointments and help out with shopping etc.
I've had a look and seen there are electric vehicles available but I honestly don't know the first thing about them, is there anything I should be looking for? When looking for a petrol or diesel car i was looking at MPG and the shape/size for the practicality of getting her in and out so not to low or too high.
Has anyone went electric and been converted?

A charger is for convenience and speed. My parents have 2 electric cars and have got by quite happily for the past 3 years just plugging it into the normal plug sockets in their garage. They could afford a charger, but they don't feel they need it.

I do have a charger installed on my driveway because we do a lot of miles daily and have a time-of-use tarrif so the speed ensures we get a full charge during the 4 hours of off-peak rates, and the convenience of it being right next to the car when we park.

Once you start seeing every plug socket as a potential charging point it really doesn't seem that restrictive anymore.

I genuinely thought it required a special charger 🤦‍♀️ ok back to thinking about it again!

How far apart are yours and your Mum’s, and how long will it be spending at each? Being away from your home charge point for a few days is not automatically a problem, depending on distance and range. My Mum is 105 miles away, and I can get there and back plus a little pootling around on a single charge (but my car has a longer range than most)

Plus there is the option of plugging in to a normal socket using a so-called “granny charger”. This is slow, adding typically 7-9 miles of range for each hour plugged in. It’s not intended to be used as a regular long-term solution, so if you are going to do that, you should get the wiring checked and ideally have a dedicated socket on its own circuit with appropriate protection. But for occasional use, it’s fine.

And then there are public charge points, although speed, price and availability vary.

I've just checked. There are no charging points within 5 miles of my home

But you wouldn’t need to charge if you are within 5 miles, you’d charge at home!

That assumes everyone has a house with a garage or driveway, though. Many people live in flats and, like I said upthread, I live in a house but it’s ‘landlocked’ by pavement and council-owned grassy areas - I have to park in a little car park off to one side. If I wanted to charge at home, I’d need to trail a cable 50ft across the pavement (and my neighbour’s front garden) and I’d be liable for anyone who hurt themselves tripping over it.

I definitely want an EV, I just need to wait for local infrastructure to improve.

My house is also not suitable for charging - there's parking, but it's away from the house and the cable would have to run through the garden, across a path and verge to reach the car.

That's fine IF you can charge at home. Lots of people can't and unless there's a massive roll out of street chargers then they're stuffed! People in flats can't run an extension leads from their flats to where they park!

We recently bought a terraced house - we already had an electric car. In the space of 4 months we’ve seen the number of chargers available increase considerably. It could be better - still surprised to find no charger at local Waitrose. But we went to a very touristy town on Saturday- the only available parking was for electric cars, even the disabled spots were full, so there’s an upside!

I fully agree that a home charger is far and away the most convenient, and usually cheapest, option.

For those who don’t have suitable off-street parking, there are a number of possibilities, including:

1. On-street or in car-park chargers, near enough to your home (or workplace, or somewhere else you go regularly and spend several hours at a time) to be convenient

2. Chargers in supermarkets, shopping centres, stations etc - but again, if they are going to be your regular solution they need to fit into your regular routine.

3. Workplace chargers - some enlightened employers are installing them

4. A charger at the house of someone who lives near you and rents it out - there are apps to facilitate this. CoCharger is one such, ZapMap has a ZapHome option and I think JustPark has an option to allow you to choose a location with charging.

5. Public rapid chargers, ideally in a location with facilities, like a mini service station. These are growing in number all the time.

A proportion of people without the ability to have their own charger will already have one of these options available to them at the moment. The others, currently, do not. If you’re in the latter group, then an EV probably isn’t workable for you at the moment.

However, the number of chargers is growing rapidly. When we moved last summer, there were precisely 4 public chargers in our small town (pop < 10,000) - 2 rapids at the leisure centre and 2 7kW at a country store. In less than a year, they have added 4x 7kW in Tesco car park, 4 x 7kW in the car park of the doctor’s surgery, and there is work underway to install 2 more rapids in the car park of a pub.

Remember it is more than 7 years until the ban on new petrol/diesel sales comes into force, you will still be able to buy hybrids for another 5 years after that, and of course existing ICE cars will continue to run - they are not being banned from the road.

All of which adds up to saying: by the time an ICE car is no longer an option, there WILL be a charging solution that works for everyone. My suggestion would be - if you would like to go EV and can’t install a home charger, just review what is available in your area from time to time, considering all the option. Sooner or later, it will become workable for you.

And with RAC saying today that the cost of filling a family car will soon reach £100, it can’t come soon enough.

We have found public chargers to be almost as expensive as petrol. We have a Tesla so we charge with Tesla and they are much cheaper and faster. The city we relocated to, has one person local willing to rent out their parking space/electric charge - but the costs are obscene - if we didn't have tesla we'd be selling our electric car (mind you their extensive network was one of the reasons why we bought one.)

@Pregnantcity

We have found public chargers to be almost as expensive as petrol.

Petrol is, what, £1.70 per litre at the moment? If you’re getting 50mpg (and many cars don’t), that works out roughly 15.4p/mile.

So, it depends which chargers are available to you.

Lidl - the 7kW ones are free, the 50kW are 26p/kWh, or 6p/mile in my car.

There’s an app called Bonnet which gives access to quite a few networks at 35p/kWh (8p/mile in my car), or less if you commit to a minimum amount per month.

The most expensive network I know of is Ionity, which is 69p/kWh, now that is roughly the same cost as petrol. Except if your car is from one of the manufacturers which owns that network, or you take out a subscription - then it’s a lot cheaper.

That has to be part of your investigation - what charging options are available to me, which are both convenient and cost-effective.

May not work now. May do next year. Or in 2025. That’s all I’m saying.

No, unaffordable for me. Also don’t like automatic cars, I like to be in control. The charging when out and about is still too patchy, I’m never at a service station for anything like 20 minutes, it’s still way too long. We drove back from Heathrow last month (about 200 miles) without having to stop at all.

For me to even consider they’d have to be a LOT cheaper and charge much faster and have a longer range.