Electric car. How much are you paying extra in electricity?

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I am horrified to say I am putting in just shy of £400 per month petrol. I have literally just finished paying for the car (used car, bank loan) this month.

I'm sat here thinking that even if I borrow to get another car, an electric one, it is likely to be cheaper per month!

Does anyone have one they would recommend? I can't decide if second hand or in a lease. I've never bought a car on finance or PCP etc before so it completely alien to me. But I'm thinking at the moment, this may be the better option? I am really struggling financially. Working full-time in a decent job, but as a single parent, the cost of living rises are crippling me. I can't shake the feeling that signing a lease is a bad idea....but if I can save money...?

short commute daily (under 10 mile round trip) and a longer commute 3x a week, roughly 80miles round trip. I must be doing another 100 miles on pottering around too 😭

electricity tariff fixed until next October at a good rate. How much has your electricity bill increased with an electric car?

You need to work out the cost per mile factoring in all costs - the extra money you'd be paying on a lease or PCP, the installation of a car charger etc, insurance (electric tend to be more expensive to insure) - and compare it to your current car. You may find the saving isn't as big as you think, especially considering you now won't have any more payments on your current car. Definitely worth doing it accurately.

I think @TwistedSisters is right, the initial outlay will be expensive compared to your costs now.
imagine worst case scenario of £400 per month lease or pcp cost plus another £200 electric, can you afford it?
Electricity prices will also rise hugely in October.
You mention money is tight, I’d sit tight though as I think , factoring in the above you would be looking at increasing your monthly bills by at least £400-£500 per month.
Electric cars on pcp/lease that I looked at last Sept were £450pm minimum

It would take quite a number of years to offset the cost of the electric car.

Download the electric Audi app and keep it with you, it tracks miles and tells you how much you would have saved across the range of electric cars. It's surprising low.

I run a 3.0 diesel and was looking at swapping for the large electric e-tron, for the same reasons as you, but the maths doesn't stack up as the purchase of the electric car was so much!

If you do want to go electric, it's worth seeing if there's any free charging near you. We have no drive so no at home charging and charge for free at Tesco which is only 2 min away for us. But you could also charge during your weekly shop for example.

As others have said, the cost saving (if there is one) will take many years to materialise.

this Radio 4 programme (called Sliced Bread - Electric Cars if the link doesn’t work) looks at it & was really eye opening:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00162yr

I wouldn't bank on free supermarket charging as a long term strategy. What happens when more people are trying to do the same thing?

You could find there's never a space at the charging point when you need it. Plus tesco are also facing increases in electricity costs.

Is your current car very inefficient? Even at the higher petrol prices that seems like a lot for a not huge mileage. Should your employer be paying towards the longer commute if you're having to travel to a different workplace?

Swapping to an electric car could be worth it to you if you can find a good second hand one available or good value lease plan.

Dh recently calculated the savings based on his driving 100 miles a day. The results were not impressive. Then there are purchase costs and installation on top. As a result we have not made the switch.

Thanks all. @nonstoprenovation I will definitely look into that app.

You see, it's figures like '£200' a month I need to hear! Is that really how much electricity bills have risen using an electric car? Then I agree it wouldn't be worth it.

I'm rural so although there are chargers around, not as many as living in a city. I do have a drive though. The longer commute isn't really a commute as such. It's for my dd's hobby which she is now competing in. Long story but with ASD that conversation of reducing that drive wouldn't go down well and I want to avoid that for as long as I can.

Really interesting points raised and I'm very grateful for your time

Have you considered a hybrid?

We have a self charging hybrid (Toyota Auris), and it's the best of both worlds - our small petrol tank cost £50ish to fill up, and that lasts us a month.

Our precious petrol car cost £70 to fill a tank (2021 price) and we'd fill up twice a month.

Could you cut down the pottering mileage? Is it stuff like driving to shops for top ups when you could get everything for the week delivered for a couple of quid? Is cycling an option for the short commute? I know it's not always possible (we used to live rurally, and I had years of doing school run along with commute), but I have an ebike now and do a similar distance to your short commute daily. I would be doing it on a normal bike if it wasn't for the climbing involved.

You have to do the right sort of mileage with hybrids though and for it to be a small car.

I've been sent mid size 'small pretend SUV' type hybrids as work hire cars that I generally do 100-200 miles in a day in and they've used alarmingly high amounts of fuel, generally 50-100% more than my small petrol car would have used for the same journey.

Whatever you choose, do your own very thorough research including a calculation as to how long it will take for the return on the investment to pay off.

Don't rely on people saying they run their car all month on an extra £30 of electricity when you have no information about how their circumstances compare with yours or even if what they say is true. MN loves an electric car and while I can see that they'll pay off for some people (generally people who can afford the outlay and commitment of a new lease plan, get some sort of tax break and do a decent amount of mileage in small to medium journeys so they can charge at home or work and never have to pay service station prices for electricity, but there's plenty of people for whom to payback time will be measured in decades not months/years compared to keeping their existing car).

I’ve just made the switch. My Zoe is £200pm on pcp, I did have to pay £600 to get a charger fitted (there was a grant to help at the time, that has ended now) but my old car was costing £120 per month to fill (which would be more now), and for the £80 extra at least I have a new car to show for it rather than supporting Shell

In terms of electricity usage I am on Octopus Go so as long as I only charge overnight it’s around £2.50 per week which is about 120 miles for me. Out and about costs vary from free for a slow charge in Tesco to probably £15 at a services for a rapid 50% top up (which as yet I haven’t needed to do).

It’s a dream to drive and I’m loving it so far!

How much was the deposit on that deal @FlyingFlamingo ?

All the deals on the internet for £200 pm for a Zoe also need an £8-10k deposit. That's more than many people spend on a car without an ongoing £200 pm payment.

I think I'm right in saying my dh costs around 9p a mile on our energy tarrif, although he's lucky that there is free charging at his work so we rarely plug it in.

He leases his by salary sacrifice on the octopus scheme. It includes all insurance, tyres, maintenance and they came and fitted a charging point at home free of charge

Scratch that, it's 5p a mile

All the deals on the internet for £200 pm for a Zoe also need an £8-10k deposit

Wow, really?! I don’t think that’s something we will be doing for a while :(

My work have paid around 2k per charger, we've had 4 installed, I was quite shocked how expensive they were, so factor that in too.

Dp is supposed to be getting an electric car through work, 6 months later we've had British Gas out fiddling with the meter, electricity NW, and now waiting for our energy supplier to come and do their bit. I'm sure we could speed it up if we were in control of it but it seems a long process if you don't have an ideal meter position at home.

DD has one and charges it either at the local free charger, supermarket car park or work. She never leaves it to get too low as often she can't get a space at the chargers. That said the car is around 6 months old and she has never had to use the rapid charger which you pay for yet.

The car cost £10k more than its petrol equivalent.

The deposit was my previous car - an 8 year old Clio, I was lucky in that due to current second car prices rocketing I got £5000 for a car I paid £8000 for 6 years ago!

We lease an electric car at £300 pm.
I sold my petrol car for a huge profit as second hand prices went through the roof and it was worth £4k more than I paid for it in 2020. (Sold it on Motorway)

We are on an Octopus go tariff. Charge at night for 4 hours. This gives us 180 miles and it costs £1.20.

We also charge for free whenever we see a charger that is free to use.

We did have a car each. But went down to one as we both work from home now.

I wouldn’t own an electric if I was in a rural area unless I could afford a car with 300 mile range. Mine does around 120, which is fine for living in London, but a pain for long m’way journeys. I charge for free at work or use the street chargers, which are v cheap. Don’t think I’d have the stomach for charging at home with energy price rises.

Cars are really inefficient in cities though. Most efficient typically is cruising at somewhere around 50-60mph. So @Shitscared123 's 120 range in London might be much extended if the journeys were rural. Electric better suited to the stop start nature of city driving than petrol/diesel is though.

We’re considering electric as we’re moving soon which will double DPs commute and he can charge for free at work. We’d keep my petrol car for longer journeys.
I’d be interested to hear about any finance deals available. His current petrol car is £250 a month with VW and they keep asking if he wants to swap to a new one due to the increased value in used cars so I was thinking of looking into what they have to offer electric wise.

We have electric cars and some supermarkets have stations where you can top up for free! So can get almost a full charge whilst doing the shopping.