Have you regretted getting an electric car and if so why?

[willieversleep]

Just as the title says really.

I live rurally and am considering an electric car as a second car. We have a diesel mild hybrid Volvo XC90 so it would be the smaller run around.

Can I ask how people are paying for their cars? Only I’ve heard that due to the cost of replacing the battery after a few years it’s better to lease rather than buy. Or apparently you can buy battery warranty?

The batteries don't need replacing after a few years? They will begin to degrade in time but typically retain about 85% of the driving range after a decade. And that matches the battery health of my old Leaf when I sold it.

Oh ok. That’s good to hear. Thanks.

We have ours on a Novated lease which means it is paid for out of pretax income. In Oz there is an FBT exemption for full EVs if you do it this way.

Originally signed up for 4 years with a view to turning it over at that point, but we might just extend to 5 for ease.

Though there is encouragement from our governments to turn over so that there are more EVs in circulation.

Will see. The stereo in the new base Model Y is not as good as our current one. And I lurrrve how good ours is.

Love it. Had one for about 5 years.

Yes and no, so cheap to charge but needs new tires every twenty thousand miles or so due to weight. A smooth drive and nice and quiet, but for longer journeys we still use the other (petrol) car as the charging infrastructure just isn’t there. It’s better than it was, but still crap. I’ve never struggled to find a petrol station. I have struggled to find chargers at motorway services when the chargers are broken, despite the apps saying they’re working, at services when the charge is suddenly divided between you and the car next to you, so it takes twice as long, and in rural areas where there simply are no chargers. Visiting family rurally is a joke. Much easier to charge if in France/Belgium/Germany - so ironically we would be happy taking the car further afield in Europe, less so in the UK!

We’re on our second one. No regrets at all.

One more thing. We now have to factor in the new tax on mileage that’s coming in. Plus when we first bought, there was no road tax. So by stealth, they are becoming less and less economical.

We love having an EV, hate the fact that ours is a Tesla, bought before Elon revealed himself as a megalomaniacal, murderous cunt. I think we're going to sell it and buy a Volvo EX90. We would find it very difficult to go back to a petrol car.

Yes. We have a BMW hybrid and it just stopped working and cost £2500 to fix! It was an error code that had to be fixed/reset by BMW HQ inn Germany.
Also electric malfunctions weren’t covered by the insurance because we hadn’t specifically insured the electric part of the car. Clearly we had no idea this was necessary, since you don’t have to also insure the engine when you take out insurance on a petrol car…

We haven’t had this because it’s a hybrid, but when we meet for the weekend with friends it’s a nightmare for the ones with electric cars because they have to find DC a charging station before they can drive home. Ranges are still pretty low.

All in all I won’t be getting rid of my petrol one any time soon.

I don’t understand all this “it’s a nightmare to find a charger” when away from home. My Skoda shows all the chargers en route on the sat nav screen, not only that if you use the Zapp Map app for your journey it picks them out too.

We had to take a de tour, because of a closed road, the other day, and noticed there was a large charging station on the side of the A1 that has been built within the last year. When we travel to Norfolk we don’t go on motorways, but there’s plenty of chargers along the way should we need them. We haven’t yet, we’ve always got there with plenty to spare, and there’s lots of charging points near DS2’s. He’s looking at getting an EV next year so we’ll just charge it at his house, then.