To think there are no real perks to driving an electric car?

[MyHeartyBlueShaker]

You’d think there would be more incentives - cheaper parking, easier charging access, or some kind of priority. But in reality, it often feels like there are just extra costs and hassle. What are the actual rewards?

Cheap to run.
Infrequent servicing.
Never having to scrape ice demist etc on cold days.
Being able to "refuel" at horse.
And ours has fantastic acceleration- it's so much easier to overtake in than any of our other cars and we have a couple of fairly powerful ICE vehicles.

I also love the speed when you put your foot down! It’s like driving a dodgem or go kart 😂

as someone without a home charger. My little petrol car is cheaper to run.

it will be interesting to see how costs and residuals hold as they become more trustworthy as second hand cars

I presume everyone is charging at home. It cost us €700 for a home charger no cabling underground or anywhere else, it's just attached to our wall on the side of the house. We have an electric car plan with our energy supplier, it charges between 2 and 5am and we get really cheap electric for those times. Sitting in traffic doesn't use charge really at all, that's a none issue. Petrol cars go on fire too as far as I am aware the risk is higher in a petrol car. I have never travelled far enough that range is an issue. I live in Ireland, it's not that big, you just charge when you get to your destination if you have to, with fast charge it's not an issue.

Haha I love how fast it goes out of junctions! It’s brilliant. We have an awful junction onto a dual carriageway by us and the EV is amazing for it.

I call mine a fancy go kart. So simple!

Electricity during a power outage.

We had no power for a week in the last big storm. My friend, who was in the same boat, used his car battery to power appliances.

This again. You should only be allowed to comment on EVs if you own or have owned one in my opinion! I would never go back to an ICE car. Mine is easy to charge at home, cheap to run, speedy and quiet.

I had no idea they were so much cheaper to run! Really eye opening reading some of the comments, but we can’t afford to buy one

You do need to be able to charge at home to get the benefit. Most energy suppliers have EV tariffs. We pay less than 10p per kw/h at night and also use this run the dishwasher, washing machine and drier.

Lovely to drive and costs so little to run if you have a home charger. Nothing much to go wrong with it.

Have never met anyone who’d gone electric and then decided they wanted to go back! They must be out there of course but I’ve never met one ….

So easy to drive too!! None of that gear changing with your left hand and clutch operating with your foot. Mine brakes when you raise your foot off the accelerator so I barely touch the brake pedal either. It’s like driving a very high spec safe hi tech golf buggy 🛺

Here we go again, more negative nonsense about EVs. The main benefit is not releasing greenhouse gases every time you drive anywhere, it’s quite simple. As a plus, it’s cheaper to run but I appreciate they can be out of a lot of people’s price range on the initial cost.
For those saying it’s a nightmare with no driveway to home charge not so everywhere. I live in a very small city and in a terraced house. We charge with on street lamp post charging overnight. It couldn’t be easier!

I have a plug in hybrid but almost exclusively drive it in mode. It’s the smoothest car to drive I’ve ever driven and quick.

The electric range is 75 miles and it costs me £1.80ish to charge it at home overnight so around 2p per mile. I claim 45p per mile for work travel which accounts for about 300 miles a month so my lease cost is offset by about £125 a month.

I agree that the infrastructure is not right yet hence why I didn’t want fully EV yet (DD is looking at heading to university 270 miles away!) but I would never go back to a non-hybrid car now.

I have a Fiat 500e which is a fairly small car and its range is 199 miles. I know that I will mostly charge at home but if I do a longer journey I will suck up using a public charger!

The fuel saving is HUGE.

My parents have solar panels so charge theirs for free. Over 2 years they've saved around £40 a week in petrol.

Then they're easy to drive.

My next car will be electric.

There is reasonable charging access - the only hassle is the different systems, but once you've set them up they're pretty easy. The fast charge points are great for long journeys. You just need to plan a stop en route which isn't hard.

EVs are lower fire risk than ICE.
Our range on a full charge is over 300 miles. Costs only a free pounds to charge at home. For the same distance, in my old diesel car is more like £80 for the tank full. At £1000 for a charger, it doesn't take long to recoup that cost in fuel savings.
Sitting in traffic really doesn't reduce the range. You have to be sitting for a very long time to use even 1% of battery.
Running costs are so much lower than ICE. And EV are just so much quieter, cleaner and fun to drive.

Different cars have different batteries with different ranges? Yes the range is impacted by things like weather and driving style but plenty of EVs will get 250+ miles from a charge even in winter these days. Plus the car has a battery level indicator as well as a range. I’ve always found mine fairly accurate. Like most things you will get used to knowing how many miles you can get on 1/2 battery etc, the same as a petrol or diesel car.

on affordability:

Depends how much you’d normally spend on a car. Mine is three years old and currently valued at around 16k. It’s just as good as it was new.

You can’t afford a Tesla, but then neither can I ;) But you might find a Nissan, Kia or other is in your price range.

It’s not hassle. We never visit petrol station. Visit charging stations when we drive long distance which is rare. Charge once a week while we sleep. It’s powered by solar panels on our roof so costs nothing in summer, very little the rest of the year. Less to service and insure than an ICE.

I can be smug that I’m not contributing to the local pollution (yes I know the carbon footprint of making the thing is significant)

I’d never ever go back.

Instead of spending £450 per month on petrol we spend £70 on electricity to charge the car. I love the feeling of nipping to the coast for lunch and the cost of getting there is not a thing.

Lots of comments about ‘inconvenience’ of charging but IMO there is nothing better than getting into my car in the morning finding it ready to go and not having to go to the fuel station on the way to work!

They are only beneficial if you can charge overnight at home and only do short journeys.

I couldn’t wait to go back to petrol in March. It will be a long while before I try an EV again.

How do you get that mileage for £3!?

Pros.

Tax break.
better parking by virtue of charging facilities.
cheaper to run.
beautiful to drive.
better for the environment.

not a single downside.

I’m learning in an electric and it’s very nice to drive. I wish I could afford one and had somewhere to charge at home. Unfortunately I can only afford a second hand auto petrol. I’m annoyed about it lol