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?

Most of the people I know that don't like EVs work in the motor maintenance trade.

Because more EVs means less work for them. People underestimate how many people rely on this trade for their salary, and of course there are a huge amount of people involved in the sale and distribution of petrol.

EVs require a lot less maintenance than ICE. No engine oil. No exhaust to fail. Brakes often last longer due to regenerative braking. No spark plugs/injectors to go wrong. The list goes on. I know a few taxi drivers that were forced on to EVs and they were quite unhappy until they started to realise how much they were saving on maintenance and servicing.

Really? Do you really think that none of us in Scotland have electric cars? And if you are thinking of a usage case of the arse end of nothing in the Highlands for a holiday maybe in 5 years time, then that is a poor usage case.

We went EV a few years ago - and would NEVER go back to ICE.

There's an absolute MASS of horesh*t written on facebook about them.

People will say theres no infrastructure - well there's only 80,000 public chargers, and 8000 petrol stations - so its out there. But, its often in places you don;'t see. So, you might use a motorway service station charger - or - you might choose to go a little bit further and sit in a lovely hotel and use theirs :)

Also, 99% of your charging is done at home and we pay about £6 for 500 miles
Our cars range is a claimed 300. We get 290 in the summer and 275 in the winter, with full heating on etc.

The absolute BEST thing is when you go out in the winter and see all the ICE drivers literally scraping their cars - we preset ours to be ice free and toasty a few mins before we leave the house and just... drive away.

Also, regarding weight - apart from some SUV's most EV's are only about 100kg heavier than ICE cars - which is the equivalent of a chubby man sitting in the car! :)

They aren't TONNES heavier as people claim.

We've driven everywhere from the south coast to the north of scotland in it - and had absoluitely no problems.

go for it - you'll never go back to petrol!

@Chiseltip· Today 16:15
You've never been to Wales have you . . .
Or Scotland . . .
Or Devon . . .
Or Cornwall . . .
Or The Cotswolds . . .

Yup, drove all around Scotland without issue, even finding a fast charger on the Outer Hebrides which was free to use!
MIL lives in Cornwall so drive there often,
Devon, only really drive through it so can't comment,
Cotswolds, live very near there so visit places often.

I've gone from spending £80 per week in diesel to £20-30 per month in electricity. And my EV is much nicer to drive :)

I would advocate electric. Especially in the circumstances you are, with a driveway for a charger and mainly short journeys. We've had an electric estate for 4 years and wouldn't go back. We've even driven to Scotland from Gloucestershire just stopping to charge twice. By which point we need the loo anyway! It does take a bit of prior planning to check what chargers are where. And I would say to get the longest range car you can afford.

I'd never buy an electric car. It's only a matter of time before they realise it just isn't going to be a viable option.

How long are you expecting it to take?
Its been a while now

The cost of electric is high so currently it doesn’t balance out enough for me so I’m sticking to petrol for now.

Looking at ZapMap, all those locations appear to have plenty of chargers. The network is expanding all the time. Many, many filling stations are adding them, as are out of town retail parks, public car parks, anywhere that people might stop for half an hour and top up en route.
Its about mindset. If your decide it is going to be hard, it will be.

I charge at 6p per KW at home
In March I saved £150 over using petrol

We have friends,he's an electrical engineer on the railway,he bought an EV Citroen, the battery became us. He said he'd never get another EV,he got a nissan leaf, no long journeys.. he suffered from charging anxiety, got a home charger
After 5 years,it broke down several times, again he swore he wouldn't get another one. Both vehicles it was the batteries.He's got a Tesla, then discovered it wouldn't work on his home charger
.we have recently got rid of a 17 year old astra diesel estate 260k on the clock.. friend has solar panels
DH was in the motor trade 40 years, vehicle technician, retired 2 years ago
Plenty of horror stories,you only hear the positive on here,he said he would have a self charging hybrid,if we could afford it ....
We can't not on a pension

I live in rural Scotland and our village has 5 EV chargers (nearest petrol station is miles away though!).

OP is going to be charging almost exclusively at home anyway, it doesn’t sound like she’s going to spend three months in the outer Hebrides or be driving across continental Europe. It’s for short day to day use and the occasional long journey that’s still within EV range, which is the perfect case scenario for an EV. Charge at home for super cheap, tootle around locally, enjoy. Never have to fill up with petrol, worry about going to the petrol station, any of that. We are a long way from a petrol station so being able to have a car always charged up at home is great.

I just plug my car in when I get home every night, it automatically charges at cheap rate overnight and it’s fully charged and ready to go in the morning.

Have just got a new EV - still getting used to it after a petrol car but so far I love it - it’s so so easy to drive. If you can charge it at home, and given as you say you only do short journeys, then I don’t see the issue. 100 miles is generally well within the range of EVs these days. I also think that the infrastructure is improving and will increase rapidly (albeit probably slightly less rapidly now that the government has delayed the ban on the sale of new hybrids). If you can also invest in solar panels on your house at some point then even more reason to. Also the more people that get EVs the faster the infrastructure will increase.

I have been considering an EV for later this year. British Gas will fit a home charger with an offer of free charging for a year, so some payback of the cost. We have just started to look at the pros abd cons, but there are some new models coming out this year which look v practical.

I’ve actually just looked and you can get a mini electric hatch for under 12k 2-3 years old so I’d consider that. I have a year before I’m looking so I have time to decide. It’s our second/run around car so main car is petrol.

Indeed.
This argument would be a bit like me warning people off buying a petrol car because the cam belt snapped with no warning on the last one I had and totally trashed the engine. My car had a full main dealer service history and the cam belt wasn't yet due for replacement. The sudden and total failure to proceed whilst I was a long way from home was highly inconvenient and the subsequent engine rebuild was very, very expensive.
But shit happens. I was extremely unlucky. Most people who own an ICE vehicle will never experience anything like that, hence it would be a ridiculous reason to tell anyone not to buy one.
I don't actually give a toss what cars other people choose to drive but I do object to largely illogical, fact free anti EV rhetoric that has the potential to put people off making an informed choice.

I think a self charging hybrid would make even less sense than my PHEV.

Basically with self charging you get all the complexity of 2x different power sources and zero of the benefits of electric (cheap charging and low maintenance).

I wouldn't go for something like that over ICE unless it was a comparable cost to ICE.

Hybrid - great for short journeys but if needed can use petrol for the odd long journey. We just have an outdoor normal socket and charges in3-4 hours overnight on cheap rate

I agree with this. Not everyone earns the magical £100k wage that people on MN do and they’ll be forced into buying second hand and I don’t think they’ll keep going for as long as a petrol or diesel car. It’s great to go electric if you can afford it and have a drive to charge it overnight but where I live is mostly terraced houses and you are lucky if you park 5 doors away. We are a long way off them being affordable for everyone right now.

We went electric about a year ago. I love it and wouldn’t ever go back now.
But being able to charge at home is important. Not just for the convenience but also the cost.

To charge my car fully at home costs about £5. To charge it publicly is about £35.

We mainly charge at home but when I’ve charged publicly I’ve never had to wait.

Your circumstances appear to be ideally suited to an EV.

Low mileage? ✔️
No long commute? ✔️
Mainly local journeys? ✔️
infrequent longer journeys? ✔️
Driveway to charge at home? ✔️

Why not drive a few to see how you get on? Of the ones I have driven, I liked the Polestar & Kia but wasn’t so keen on the BYD & Tesla.

Until there is much better infrastructure and they can tell people who don’t have drives how they will be able to charge without waiting in a great long q as everyone in the street tries to charge I would go petrol

i would never do a long journey in an electric car

Our EV is 9 years old.
We only ever charge at home.
Battery health is still 11/12 bars.

Thanks, everyone. I think I am more persuaded now to get an EV. I would never be driving it down to Cornwall or anywhere rural as it's just going to be a small runaround. If I was going further, we'd go in a bigger car.

Does anyone on here have an electric Mini Cooper specifically, and would they recommend it? I've always had Minis.

My mum has an electric Mini and loves it! It’s much more speedy than her ICE mini. The range is quite short, although I presume by paying extra you would get a bigger battery.