Any EV owners about who can reassure me about charging costs?

[HinchcliffeandMurgatroyd]

I have a e-Mokka on order and now I’m wondering if I should be worried about charging costs.

I will only be able to trickle charge at home. So will rely on charging stations.

Are charging station costs going up as sharply as domestic fuel prices?

(For anyone who recognises my NN, Yes I have too much time to think this week and yes, I am preoccupied with living costs.)

YABU = it’s quite affordable
YANBU = yes it’s expensive and increasing - panic.

Oh come on there must be someone about at this time of nought who charges their EV at a doodad place?

I have a Mokka E! I've got a podpoint at home though so usually charge it overnight.

I've only really used public chargers when either I'm near a Tesco and it's free, or I've gone a long way and had to charge to get back. I've found 7kw chargers a bit hit and miss, but the higher ones were better.

I think it was about 30pkw when I got the car in March, it's anything up to about 60p paw now.

Honestly, just trickle charge at home. Much cheaper if you're on a variable tariff. Costs are going up at chargers, 45 to 50p per kWh at the moment. It's still much, much cheaper than petrol or diesel.

It will take like a whole day to charge at home that way I think. They are very very slow charging that way. You'd probably have to plug it in for a day and night to get a full charge.
I have pod point so charge at home but the last time I used a rapid charger earlier this year it cost me £10 to get 165 miles range.

Hey! Tesco does free charging?! Wow.

Do you like the mokka incidentally? I’m a bit nervous because it’s smaller than what I currently drive.

Okay. That’s reassuring. Thanks.

I've a different EV but it costs about £16 at a super charger point, and about £8 at home with a charger I had installed. I charge at work once a week which is free.

Trickle charge at home whenever you can, it’s the cheapest way.

prices are going up on EV chargers out and about, but I think it still works out cheaper than petrol/diesel.

I use trickle charge 99% of the time, it is rare I need to use a public charger. It charges back to 100% overnight. Yes the electricity costs are increasing, but as pp said it is still much, much cheaper than petrol or diesel. And I find it much more convenient too since I can charge it at my house rather than going out.

This is the problem. We have a strange layout. My garage and driveway are en bloc - and some way away from the house in cable terms - and there is no power supply round there. So the only option is to park on the road and trickle charge.

Oh that’s cheap. Okay. Real world figures in £s are reassuring.

I am now paying three figures for a tank of diesel so it would take a lot for that gap to close.

It’s going up but it’s still much cheaper than petrol. If you’re reliant on public chargers then rapid chargers will be much more expensive than the slower ones, and you can even charge for free at Tesco and a few other places. Some public chargers will even be cheaper than your home electricity tariff. I live in a block of flats with a communal charger that’s currently 20p/kWh, cheaper than my electricity rate in my flat!

Is there any scope at all for you getting a proper charger at home? I think you will find using the ‘granny’ charger alone very tedious and it’s not really recommended to use it all the time, although plenty of people do.

Depends where you are - locally we have a fast charger in a council run car park that is free to charge (£1.50 to park for 1 hour and I can get over 80% charge on that - we have a 64KW battery Hyundai Kona). However we were elsewhere in the country (Somerset) and for a similar set-up it was about £30 to charge AND 80p to park for the hour!
We have a PodPoint (7KW) at home and didn't notice a major cost - we've had our electric car since May 2021 - but with electricity prices rising we are trying to make the most of our local council's amazing provision. Not just the fast charger - there are many regular chargers which are 'free' but you pay for parking. It does mean an adjustment - e.g. I will park in the swimming pool car park and intend to spend a few hours in town ticking off errands purposefully to maximise charging time. We still use our home Pod Point but much, much less than we used to. Provision elsewhere is much more hit and miss but it's all expanding....locally, here, it's great.
Enjoy your car when you get it...!

We trickle charge our zoe a couple of nights a week. Our local aldi has medium fast chargers to use for free while shopping so we use those sometimes (sometimes they have been out of order though).

I was hoping to mainly use public chargers and trickle charge when a top up is needed.

I was wavering about how sensible that was but the heatwave pushed me over into eco-fervour.

I nearly always have something work related I can do on the tablet. So I don’t mind taking a coffee and waiting for a charge at a charging point once or twice a week.

And yes - many Tescos have PodPoints - usually limited to 3 hours or whatever the parking restrictions are. I've found when using it for the 3 hours (I was having to get out the house to study last year) that in that time with a 64KW battery I'd get maybe 40 miles added in that time maximum. For an more usual 30 mins - 1 hour I'd get maybe 15 miles...so enough to more than replenish the journey to get to the store but not really adding significant mileage. I'm still grateful for it. One observation is how popular in Somerset the PodPoint at Tescos was - no wonder when the Council or their contractor was fleecing the population with the fast charger costs elsewhere....

Thanks. This is all really helpful.

can I ask why you chose the e-mokka (?!) and not the Corsa electric?

Motability. Limited choice.

Lastly - we also took our car to France this summer - we planned to use the Ionity network which is ££ but still significantly less than fossil fuels. We attempted using the Lidl chargers but none worked for us so we ended up sticking to Ionity - although Monet's gardens had a super network which was cheap as chips - I think 1€ 20 for 2 hours....you seemed to pay for the time you used rather than the energy taken...

How far did you travel across France? Was it stressful thinking about charging?

I’m sure it will be fine, really.

It was just uncharacteristic for me to make a sudden emotional decision and tear up all my sensible thought processes.

You’ve all helped. Thanks.

I have the Corsa-e and a home pod poin. Program it to charge 2am-7am, it’s more or less full in that time.

I don’t commute any longer and kids bus, so is definitely cheaper

I have one through work. We charge it overnight. It is fantastic for pottering around town and short journeys but I must admit, we are starting to get frustrated with longer trips as so many chargers are out of order on the motorways or the cities near them.

The charging costs now are fine but they are going up fairly quickly. What you will find though is that your usage will depend how you drive. If you are mainly doing city driving (ie slow!) you won't use much at all. Even motorway driving, if you stick around 60mph, it is enormously efficient!

At least 90% of my journeys now are just me around town.