To ask if you'd buy an electric or petrol car in these circumstances?

[minniecoop]

I'm looking to buy a 2 to 5-year-old old car. I work from home, and the car will mainly be used for short local journeys on the weekend. Maybe once or twice a year I will travel 100 miles to see family, but I'm more than happy to stop off to charge the car and have some lunch, etc. I have a driveway and so I can charge the car at home.

I'm really not sure whether to go for electric or petrol. Petrol is obviously more familiar as it's all I've known, and as I drive so little I've never really noticed or been bothered by fuel costs. I would fill my car up with a tank of petrol and it would last me weeks. I'm looking at MINI Coopers specifically.

Would you go with an electric car or buy a petrol car for (probably) the last time before they're no longer made?

I have an electric car which is 11 years old. I use it mainly for local stuff. It was v cheap to put a charging point in as we just use a normal plug so got it put through to outside. It's take longer to charge but I usually do it overnight. I haven't used it for a long journey. We kept our old diesel for longer journeys (1.5+ hours). If you are using it for short journeys I really recommend the electric and then just research where you need to stop off to charge it.

I hate when you see people waiting in ICE cars with the engine running to keep warm. Sat there making a noise and polluting the air. It’s especially annoying when people leave their cars running in the morning to warm them up and de ice them.
But hey, better that every day in the winter than the once every ten years (if that, in my 30 years of driving I’ve never once been stuck for longer than about 3 hours) chance that you are stuck in traffic for 20 hours and run the battery down.

20 hours sat in my ev with the heating on would use around 30% of the battery. if I added on watching movies on the entertainment system and keeping my phone charged, it would take it to 35%. I never leave home without at least 50% charge so I'm confident that I'd be absolutely fine

Exactly, but the EV doomsayers will have you believe that if you sit still for more than 5 minutes with the power on you’ll be stranded.

Me again, with another question (hope you don't mind me hijacking, @minniecoop). Am I right in thinking that a charging box needs to connect to the house's fuse box? In my case the fuse box is under the stairs in the middle of the house, and I can't see a way of running a cable out to the front wall without it needing lots of ugly housing. I had presumed it just connected to the 'back' of a normal plug socket, IYSWIM.

@minniecoop If it’s the old electric mini, the range was awful! We have had two Mini Countryman 4x4 Cooper S hybrids and, although they only do around 25-30 miles purely on battery, that’s enough for shopping and local journeys. I’d look for one of these if it’s your only car.

I drive electric and love our 2 electric cars. However, I wouldn't buy a 5 year old electric car as my only car. We have a 7 year old Leaf which I use for local journeys as its range is only 60 miles. It's fab to drive and cheap to run as a second car. We also lease a 3 year old Kia which we'll be handing back in September. It's a fabulous car with range of 230 miles but the lease is expensive - about £370 a month. This does cover repairs and servicing. Charging is no bother. We plug in both, usually on a slow trickle charge at home (all electric cars can be charged on a 3 pin plug socket at home but it's very slow) we also have a charging point at home and use service station charging on longer journeys. The infrastructure has improved immensely over the 7 years since we started driving electric cars.

IBloodyLoveMyBlanket - Our charging box is connect to the house's fuse box. This is for safety. Like you the fuse box is under the stairs in the middle of the house. However, the electrician was able to hide most of the cable inside, by going a roundabout route to the front. It is worth speaking to them and getting their advice.

Thanks @LittleLlama, sounds like I need to get someone out to look. The hall floor is tiled so maybe there would be an option to go above the ceiling or something, but I presume that would all add to the cost.

Our fuse box is on an external wall, so it was an easy job. However, we got Octopus to install it, we sent them pictures of everything rather than someone come round to check. We were really happy with the work from them.