EV for the main family car

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If you have made the transition to electric for your main family car, how has it been? Do you regret it or are you glad you made the switch?

We have been sorely in need of a new family car as our old diesel is on its last legs. Really wanted to go electric with this one, but with 3 kids and periodic live-in grandparents, we also needed something large and practical. When the Volvo EX90 (aka electric XC90) came out, we took the plunge and ordered one for 2024 delivery.

I am now second guessing our decision and am worried about how we will fare as a family on pure electric. 600km
on a charge seems okay to me, but now we have family members now telling us we will regret it. For day to day use I think it will be great as we can charge in our driveway or garage. We chose electric over hybrid for a number of reasons, and maybe by the time it’s delivered in 2024, the charging infrastructure will be better, but now I am worried we have made the transition too soon.

Would love to hear personal experiences of making the move to EV for your family car if you have done so!

*Many cars offering this range is what I meant to say.

We had a large ev as our main car , we have now swapped to a smaller cheaper ev being the school run and pottering about car . We have a petrol hybrid as main family car for the big journeys . In this cold weather our range has dropped by 30% which is common I think . No range anxiety , no difficulty charging which we definitely had with the ev as main family car

Yes I have had the same thought; it is unlikely that battery range will continue to increase as exponentially as it has done over the past 5 years. I was also reading that solid state battery tech is still a good 5 years away from mainstream use in EVs.

My brother has a Tesla and he reckons that EVs will have a longer lifespan than ICE cars because they have fewer moving parts to break down and the software can (in theory) be updated indefinitely. I wonder if we will be able to replace the batteries with cheaper and more efficient ones in future? 🤔 Is it possible that carmakers will do what Apple has (quite cheekily) done and refuse to offer OTA updates to cars that are more than a certain number of years old? I am hoping that there will be regulations obliging providers to continue offering updates for the lifespan of the cars.

We've got an electric Mercedes 7 seater people carrier.

Great for driving to school, in the city etc.

But for long distance, it's a nightmare. It's got a range of 400kms but with luggage, air con / heating and six people in the car, we were recharging so frequently. Our 8 hour journey easily became 12.

We've had our Tesla 10 months now and absolutely love it. Had no issues re charging.

We have an EV as a second car, we are replacing our large diesel car with another large diesel for our main car, we need it for towing our caravan and driving any distance. We use the EV for local journeys like shopping so only charge at home.

Should add we regularly drive to London and Devon.

DH and I have both had EVs as our only cars for several years. I had an eGolf and now an ID3, he previously had a Tesla Model 3 and has recently changed to an ID4. We love them and wouldn’t go back but the cold weather effect is very noticeable and you cannot assume it is a myth. We did a longish trip over the weekend in temperatures between 3° and -4.5°C and achieved about a third less range on a full charge than we would in warmer conditions, and that was with pre-warming the car. If you live in a part of mainland Europe with very cold winters you will need to take this into account for much of the year.

What’s the range on your Tesla? I’m wondering if the biggest distinguishing factor between those who find the road trips a misery and those for whom they are fine is the range on the car.

I can see how a 400km range would be miserable. We looked seriously at the Mercedes EQB but discounted it because of the range.

We've gone electric for our main car, though I still have a conventional car.
So far we're very happy, but of course there are differences and you do need to change your driving habits somewhat, for long journeys anyway.
We do most of our charging at home at night, whilst we are on cheap rate electricity, and can programme the car to do that - we don't have to go out at 1.30am to plug it in! That's by far the cheapest way to charge, though of course on a long journey we need to use commercial chargers.
We haven't had any major difficulties finding chargers or having to queue for a long time, utilising a combination of the car's own built in navigation and a couple of phone apps. Zapp Map is one, but I forget the name of the other sorry.
It's true that the roll out of charging facilities is lagging behind the sale of EVs in the UK ( no idea about other countries) and that more, and faster, are needed but we've found that if you plan long journeys ahead and are prepared to make some short detours it's ok.
We live in the far north of England and drove to near Leicester on a single charge the other week, and recharged on a commercial fast charger whilst we had meal when we got there. Over the Christmas holidays we saw a news report about people queing for hours to recharge at a motorway service station. We'd actually been that way but hadn't gone into the services (they only have 50kW chargers anyway) but instead drove a few miles off the motorway and went into a coffee shop for half an hour whilst our car charged on one of a bank of almost empty 150kW chargers. DH is off to London today and has planned his journey such that he knows where he is stopping to eat and will charge at the same time so there's no additional time used. Again, his planned stops are off the motorway so it does involve a little more effort, but overall it will probably be quicker (and definitely cheaper) than using the motorway services.
You do have to change your mindset a bit. Most of the problems I have heard about are when people are driving their EVs exactly as they were driving their ICE cars. If you expect to be able to do that you'll probably be disappointed, you do need to be prepared to make some changes to your driving get the best out of an EV, and be aware of things like how the external temperature affects range and plan accordingly. But of course there are advantages too. Even with the increase in electricity prices we are saving a substantial amount of money. And the best thing for a cold blooded creature like me...a car that's warm when you get in! In the recent freezing weather my DH very smugly presented me with his ice scraper and de icer saying "You may as well have a spare, I won't be needing these" as he opened the app on his phone and hit "precondition". 😂

This is a really great overview, thanks!

In my experience, the current Tesla range is quite enough. Thete's little point in adding to it, as it adds a lot of weight and cost for not much advantage. You really don't need more unless you are driving to Alice Springs or something. I've driven from Melbourne to Brisbane without issue, and I don't think I would have been any faster in an ICE.

Most people drive less than 200km per day. On those days, you just charge at home overnight. No thought required.

On longer trips, you just need to plan your stops with charging in mind, and eat or take a toilet stop while charging. You should stop every two hours while driving anyway. Tesla has a huge advantage here with their own charging network, and the car calculates where it needs to stop.

Yes, it does mean that there is an extra factor to consider when planning long trips, but it far outweighed by not ever having to fuel up in your day to day life, and by not having to have your car serviced.

Tesla has a huge advantage here with their own charging network

This is one reason I won’t be swapping my Tesla for another brand any time soon, much as I like the look of the Taycan. Although they are starting to open up the supercharger network to non-Teslas.

Aren’t these already available to non-Tesla cars? Or is that still mainly just here in Europe?

Only a handful.

In mainland Europe all Tesla chargers are open to any other brands I think. It’s not every European country, but majority. There’s a list on Teslas website

Yes, it’s just a pilot of about 15 sites atm. I believe you pay a higher rate /kWh than Tesla owners.

Yes this was my understanding. Shame it’s so few still in the UK! We looked on the Tesla website and could easily do our long trips using just the supercharger network. They added Italy recently which was exciting!

The holy grail for EV range (according to my dad, who's an engineer and has been working on battery tech for 50 years) is to get it to 500 miles. That's the watershed which will put EVs on parity with the average petrol car. (I know, some do more, some do less, but 500 is the rough average.)

Lucid already has one, Mercedes apparently has EV cars in the pipeline which will do 500 miles on a charge and I'm sure Tesla is working on it too. (In between bellending around with the sodding Cybertruck.)

The other big win will be no more rare earth metals in the batteries. Kids in the DRC scraping cobalt out of the rock with their bare fingers ain't a good look and the auto industry knows it. And reduced battery weight, of course. Both of these things are also in the offing. (A lot of EV manufacturers are already working towards cobalt-free or cobalt-minimal batteries.)

In terms of keeping vs changing, I think it's a tricky time just now because we're at the 'rapid rate of progress' phase. Old Nissan Leafs with their 100 mile-range and old-tech chargers are a great option for a lot of people but they're not holding their value. Will they be worth anything at all in another five years when no one's supporting CHAdeMO any more and even basic EVs will do 350 miles on a charge? I don't know.

Is it possible that carmakers will do what Apple has (quite cheekily) done and refuse to offer OTA updates to cars that are more than a certain number of years old?
I would assume so. It's an established principle and people seem happy to do it with smartphones, so why not cars? The car industry is going to have to claw profit from somewhere if it's not getting it from servicing! Personally I think the bog-standard £600 every year or two for essential software updates is going to be the new 'servicing'.

Again, the principle is already in place; many modern ICE cars include software updates as part of regular servicing costs. And part of what you pay when there's an engine fault is software related; usually getting someone who knows what they're looking at to interpret the OBDII reader.

Personally I think the bog-standard £600 every year or two for essential software updates is going to be the new 'servicing'.
I think we are already heading that way. Our EV is a BMW and there are various features you can subscribe to. The car already has the features installed but they are only activated if you pay the annual subscription. So many options now are actually software related rather than physical pieces of equipment that I guess it's relatively easy to produce cars that all roll off the production line with the potential to have particular features and then spec them by switching various bits of software on or off. My DH is a mechanical engineer who has worked his whole life in the automotive industry and he says he us quite pleased to be approaching retirement now as things are just changing so fast.

Oh - one thing that has driven me MAD with my ID4 is that the charging point is where the petrol cap usually is. This is fine when you are the only car at the charging station, but if there is a car on "my" side, then I have to try to park at some weird angle over two spaces in order to get the charger into my car (this is using the fast chargers, not my slow charger cable which I could use if I wanted to wait 7 hours rather than 40 minutes). Sensible cars have the charging point at the front or the back so you just reverse in or go in head first. To me, placing it at the side of the car like a normal petrol can is ridiculous. At a petrol station you park side on - at a charging point you never park side on.

We lease our cars. We did before we went to EVs though. So we only keep them 3-4 years regardless.

I have to say I have never found this to be an issue. The petrol cap location seems to be by far the most common.

I have done a very bad diagram - I use the centre charger (I cannot use the one on the right and the one on the left is the very slow charger which I do not want to use. The centre charger is not long enough to reach my car. Too short by about a foot - so I have to park diagonally, extremely close to the middle car, in order for it to just stretch far enough. Actually the diagram is useless, but I did my best 😂

I have to say I have never found this to be an issue. The petrol cap location seems to be by far the most common.

Not so sure any more, many manufacturers have figured out front or back is more practical - our office garage is full of various electric cars (we have chargers) and very few have petrol cap charging.