Electric cars are NOT the future, are they?

[Isometimeswonder]

I am genuinely torn. I need want a new car but really don't want electric.
But so few smaller petrol cars are made now.
I haven't got a place to charge a car at home.
AIBU I should accept electric is the future.
AINBU I should get petrol. (Please recommend a small city car)

@Likeoohlaalaala

I still think it's ICE but with Hydrogen not fossil. Either way we're a long way off seeing petrol or diesel cars off the road

Hydrogen is not going to happen for transport, and the fact you post that suggests you need to do some better research. There are plenty of places where the whole “hydrogen is the solution for clean transport” argument has been utterly debunked. National Grid publishes their “New Energy Scenarios” every year, and now anticipate green hydrogen for industrial applications and long term energy storage - the energy losses alone rule it out for transport, never mind the manufacturing and storage of the stuff. H2 is a slippery little molecule.

There is big variability in EVs, for sure. We have a Polestar 2 because we hired a few of them over several years, and gave them a thorough trial. They often had 50,000+ miles on the clock (which speaks to their reliability - ICE cars are normally moved into 2nd and 3rd tier hire companies after 10-20,000 miles. There are plenty of poorer EVs out there that I wouldn’t touch either.

. but it’s clear to me that what you posted is blatant misinformation, which I will assume is not deliberate.

My figures were taken from various sources including the RAC.

Which, BTW, provides average figures for fuelling electric, diesel and petrol cars per mile.

Battery electric (using 7kW home charger and an Ofgem capped tariff) 8p per mile
Petrol 15p per mile
Diesel 16p per mile
Battery electric (solely using 'rapid' 50-149kW chargers) 25p per mile
Battery electric (solely using 'ultra-rapid' 150kW+ chargers) 26pper mile

But feel free to accuse the RAC of spreading blatant misinformation or shilling or whatever.

Aah I see you're just going to ignore what I do and why I bought an EV as that suits your view
And ignore what I said about prices coming down due to supply and demand (funded by taxpayers) with lower prices, as just recently demonstrated by another poster....
)

So overall your comments just aren't really connected to any reality that people are seeing now...never mind after all the (tax payers funded improve this).... ok

Thanks for this. Really have to force through realities here...

I have just responded to a PP that has posted similar misinformation about public charging, which is possibly just because it’s outdated. I have provided some actual invoices to prove that public charging is not the horror story that is being pushed out by the media (supported by fossil fuel companies conveniently pricing their rapid charging at a level that makes diesel look cheaper)

I think it’s important that people know that even if you rely on public rapid (DC) charging, in a lot of cases you can join one or other of the networks and pay only 39p/kWh, which is more expensive than home charging on a standard rate, but you don’t have to install a charger.

The subscription fee adds a little to the average cost of your electricity, for sure, but nothing like the cost of fitting a dedicated home charger. And the rapid charging that is not controlled by oil companies is available for 55p/kWh or less in a lot of places without membership fees. The Octopus Electroverse app is a fantastic resource in that respect.

I totally understand that it’s still the case that some people would struggle to make an EV work for them, but things have advanced very quickly from where we were even 3 years ago, and I expect it to get a lot better very quickly.

I have owned, hired and driven EVs since 2018 (home, public AC and public DC charged). I’ve also driven ICE cars for over 40 years, so know a thing or two about £/mile calculations thank you.

The RAC information is clearly based on the worst-case rapid chargers from around a year ago, when 89p-£1/kWh was the norm, and Tesla hadn’t opened up their network at more sites. I’m not going to accuse them of shilling for fossil fuel companies, because they support EV drivers too.

But it’s beholden on you to double check information that you post online, or at least trust someone that has actually posted copies of real invoices that prove you wrong.

Now the main DC networks have responded to Tesla’s quite recent competition by also allowing paid membership to access up to 51% discounts on their “open” rates, the idea of paying 25p/mile for rapid charging is just a joke.

We haven’t paid more than 62p/kWh for electricity, and frequently pay as little as 22p (see my actual Tesla invoice from Friday’s mid-journey top-up at Banbury) for proof.

Neutral lurkers can judge for themselves who is telling the truth.

Isn’t it still cheaper than petrol and diesel though
so a saving for all

Irrespective of prices your post makes it sound like a even more massive ball ache than I imagined. Not only do you need to worry about chargers, but you need to worry about who owns which chargers and then have various membership, apps etc.

Neutral lurkers may also like to have a look at this Zapmap page for recent figures.

"The weighted average PAYG price to charge an electric car on the public charging network in January 2026 was 54p/kWh on slow/fast chargers and 76p/kWh for rapid/ultra-rapid chargers.

Using an average efficiency EV this equates to 16 pence per mile and 23 pence per mile* respectively."

https://www.zapmap.com/ev-stats/charging-price-index

So 23 pence per mile at PAYG rates. It does mention that "Some charge point operators will offer time-bound, location specific or partner specific promotional deals, and so for many EV drivers the actual amount they pay will be lower than the PAYG price."

Deflection away from the failed argument about price now I see
I dont know why its so difficult to understand that the investment in all these areas will improve all this and make it easier. Its already been proven both here and abroad
Be on the sidelines for the long term if you want
More fool you

And for us, the only chargers within walking distance are slow or fast, meaning hours to charge. If we couldn't park at the kerbside chargers (Evolt, slow) and used the ones in the car park (Connected Kerb, fast) we would have to pay around £3.50 to £5 in parking charges on top. Thanks, city council.

@Ayebrow it's obvious that you love your ev, but it's also obvious from your last post that you are prepared to put a lot of time and effort into charging it. You are fortunate that you live somewhere there are all the options you listed. I don't think you even accept that for a lot of people the regime you outline just wouldn't be possible,for example @cardibach who you and your fellow converts all piled on to yesterday.

Cardibach lives in Wales, as do I. The reality here, and very probably where she lives is that we have 2 chargers 7 miles away in a small town of 2700 people, and 2 in a village of 1700 people 8 miles away. So 8 cars could be charged at any one time, but no-one in their right mind would walk home 8 miles at midnight from a charger and then walk back in the morning. You have the option of driving a little further to Sainsburys, our Sainsburys is 25 miles away and I would drive past two petrol stations to get there and Waitrose is even further. The Welsh government ,even if it wanted to do anything about charging provision here, and I don't know if it does, is a financial basket case and presumably can't afford to fix it.

We all live in bubbles. In your bubble people want ev's because they suit them so you think everyone wants them. Here people appreciate a car with really good ground clearance so we can drive through a bit of water, and one that can pull a horse box if necessary. It's horses for courses.

You were extremely vituperative yesterday, after accusing me of trying to kill people, about the pollution I cause. I can assure you that both of my cars are ULEZ compliant, although I rarely go to London these days. I never sit in traffic pumping out pollution, we don't have traffic to sit in and I suspect that the sheer quantity of trees we personally have probably mitigates against car emissions.

I think the most sensible solution is just to ban ICE vehicles in large cities. You have the infrastructure there to support electric driving and are the most troubled by pollution.

I have no skin in this game. I will buy one of the last petrol or diesel cars and like all my cars keep it for ten years, after that I'll probably be too old to drive. Interesting about Stellantis, they also make Jeeps. My favourite car ever was a Grand Cherokee with a four litre engine.

I've never made any argument about price so I'm not sure that I'm deflecting it. Just making an observation as a fairly neutral observer. If you were trying to sell EV you're not doing a great job with that post.

My next car will probably be an EV. When I bought my last car 6 years ago, an EV didn't work for me at a price I could afford. I'm hoping by the time I need to replace that will change which is why I'm reading. I accept that they work well now for others with different driving profiles.

Just done some more detailed research, so hopefully this will win you over to realise that the RAC information is utterly outdated, or at the very least more than a little incomplete.

Just focussing on public rapid charging available through the Electroverse app, that anyone can download.

Our Polestar 2, at temperatures as low as 5°C, did the most recent 590 mile trip (with mixed motorway and urban driving) at 22.5kWh/100miles, so 4.44 miles per kWh

I have filtered to show Sainsbury’s charging hubs at 72p/kWh, so if we relied solely on those while shopping (some of our options locally are also shown) that would be 16p/mile. So roughly the same as petrol/diesel. And I’d be happy with that.

I also filtered to show a sample of Be.EVs network, with their 79p public rate, but also show that £9.99 gets you a 51% discount, so it’s actually 39p. I lived around Manchester without home charging, I would sign up with them to get my driving at 9p/mile.

I also show a sample of the Tesla public network, where you can access even lower prices, because they control by time of day more than the other networks do. That suits us, because escaping London just before 6am means we can avoid the traffic and reach a mid journey point for breakfast and top the car and ourselves up before the peak (41p, shock!) hits us. I already posted that invoice with the 22p rate (5p/mile)

Tesla just opened a 20 stall hub just south of us that costs 24p/kWh off peak. That only suits us for some journeys, but that would be 5.4p/mile.

So you see, it’s trivially easy to show that the RAC figures need to be updated, or at least explained better.

I would want the RAC to put it like this: “if you’re a journalist wanting to write a Daily Mail article headlined “EVs cost 75% more per mile than petrol cars!!!” then find a rapid charger which costs £1.00/kWh (sadly still possible) and assume that all rapid charging costs that much. For all other drivers, use what’s between your ears and don’t be conned by the oil companies wanting to undermine the transition to cleaner driving.”

It's not really any different to the faff of comparing mobile phone tariffs or energy tariffs or even supermarkets.

Some people will spend ages making the right choice, track all the points and use all the discounts. Some people will value convenience and just pay higher prices. Most people will fall somewhere in the middle and have their "main" provider that they have an account with based on where they will charge most often, but outside that routine use whatever charger is handy.

(Actually I suspect EV charging for many of us will end up as a tariff bundled into your electricity bill, so you will use your home electricity provider app at away from home charging points and they will sort out the wholesale costs in the background. That would also make using friends and family's home chargers super sinple as well, the cost would just be charged back to you via your electricity bill)

Investment in Wales

• Rapid Growth: Between October 2024 and October 2025, 780 new public chargers were installed, bringing the total to 3,813, which exceeds the UK-wide growth rate of 23%.
• Funding and Strategy: A £15m investment from the Welsh Government is aimed at boosting charger numbers. The plan includes installing rapid chargers every 20-25 miles on the strategic road network.
• Regional Expansion: Projects include 1.8 MW of infrastructure in North Wales and new, high-speed 50 kW chargers with grid upgrades in South Wales.
• Key Network Players: Osprey Charging Network has established the largest rapid charging network in the country, including hubs with 300kW chargers

So looking to the future ie the thread subject it looks like Wales is exceeding the U.K. wide growth rate re installations

@Scotiasdarling

I will buy one of the last petrol or diesel cars and like all my cars keep it for ten years, after that I'll probably be too old to drive.

And that is your absolute right to do so. As I made very clear yesterday, no-one is trying to control you or make you do anything.

But if you have an open mind at all, have a look at the YouTube channel “Electric Classic Cars”. That is a Welsh business that is thriving on converting, amongst other things, Land Rovers. It is run by an ex-Rally driver who values electric traction mostly for its performance, and not so much for its environmental or cost benefits (ECC conversions don’t come cheap)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ugj_wEEtZZY

That’s not to say that a conversion would suit you, for sure, but just to illustrate that the off-road capability of an electric vehicle (because of better torque and power curves) is such that JLR (and other SUV manufacturers) need to release their EV models soon, because it won’t be long before the Chinese do.

I do love the Polestar 2, but I also loved the Volvo petrol estate we had before that. If it hadn’t died at 18, and kept running as I hoped it might (it was in superb condition, except for the engine, sadly) we’d be driving that still. We had a lovely Volvo diesel too, but it was one with a Ford engine in and it barely made it to 10.

I will repeat what I have posted before - we have an EV mostly because they are superb to drive. If you love driving as much as I do you would be well advised to give one a proper test drive.

We only got an EV as our old car had to be scrapped and DH could get one through his company – thought we'd give it a go as there was no tying into a big commitment. But crikey – we love it. It's so easy and has saved us SO much money. Would really struggle to and resent going back now.

That said, OP, if you don't have anywhere to charge it, then surely that rules it out.

That last paragraph is the babe, so is all that really matters. It confirms exactly what I have posted, so thank you.

Anyone paying PAYG rates on public rapid chargers, all the time, without paying attention to the price and how they might reduce it, has more money than sense. But I don’t think even those ZapMap numbers properly reflect the aggressive competition beginning to happen now Tesla have opened up their network at more sites. It’s just like when Supermarkets began selling fuel and the oil companies had to respond.

I fully expect rapid charging to drop further in cost. I was at an almost full Tesla public site with 12 stalls yesterday, and the nearby 12 stall Osprey one was empty. What was the price there? 89p/kWh. That’s daylight robbery now the wholesale price of electricity has dropped back after the Ukraine war caused spikes in the cost of natural gas.

And responding to price pressure is important, particularly in such a young market - I grew up with an engineer father who once spent 30 minutes driving me around trying to find the cheapest petrol, back when it was around 50p/gallon (11p/l) and even now we use Supermarket loyalty cards to bulk buy stuff when it’s on offer 😀

That’s not true. Almost all lampposts in the UK are capable of supplying several KW of power. Remember these were wired up in the days when incandescent bulbs of several 1000w were the norm. Even though they now all use LED the wiring is unaltered. So a 3.5KW slow charger should be no issue at all. Maybe up to 7.5kw with newer cabling

I stand by my basic point though, I don't think ICE cars will ever be completely gone and I don't think EVs are there just yet.

I'm glad you love your Polestar, they look like lovely bits of kit and if I ever did go down the road of EV it would be one something higher end where I know the technology and quality is. My main argument was that EVs have been pumped out into the world as a planet saving exercise when in reality they're just another product we're convinced we need to buy when we actually don't, much like any new vehicle I suppose, but EVs come with an 'I'm saving the planet' badge too.

Plus where I live the infrastructure for charging is woeful, though there are plenty on the road so people must make it work

@LupinLou

your post makes it sound like a even more massive ball ache than I imagined

My post was solely aimed at correcting misinformation around EV public charging costs, since what was being posted was information that is out of date at best.

It is not a “massive ball ache” at all. It’s no different from the ICE world. When I lived in Edinburgh, I would happily drive 15 minutes to a supermarket for petrol, because it was significantly cheaper than the Shell garage that was closer.

Once Tesla opened up their network, I got their app and worked out whether they would work well for us, and so far they have been fantastic on longer journeys. I worked out once that the £9.99/month fee was cost efficient, and since then that’s what we do - joining and cancelling is a single click in the app. We wouldn’t have to do that if we did long trips frequently enough.

Now other networks have followed suit, I keep a watching eye on them via the Electroverse app, just like I do with supermarket prices.

I know where all the Chargy chargers are locally for our overnight local stuff, but in fact have only ever used one of them - it’s the closest to the house. And that’s a website with a couple of clicks to kick off the charge.

When we had the car parked in Belgium, a simple swipe of the Electroverse card kicked the charging station off, and that card sits in the glovebox.

The only reason I posted at such length and in such detail is to show that all this “EV public charging is more expensive than fuel” nonsense is just that, nonsense. If I just said, “that’s wrong” it turns into a “he said, she said; my dad is better than your dad” type argument that convinces no-one.

Armed with hard facts, I hope that people might begin to work out that I don’t BS on forums like this.

So it’s a bit ironic that you decide “it’s all a balls ache”, when in truth it’s not. Just two apps and one website have covered everything we have done with our EV. Plug in, couple of clicks and go do something else.

We have more accounts and use more payment methods to buy shoes FFS.

@Ayebrow So you reckon the RAC have got it wrong? And the Zapmap page I linked to above?
https://www.zapmap.com/ev-stats/charging-price-index

From your link:

"Some charge point operators will offer time-bound, location specific or partner specific promotional deals, and so for many EV drivers the actual amount they pay will be lower than the PAYG price. Thus we should expect that the actual average price paid for EV charging is lower than the prices above."

Which is pretty much what @Ayebrow is saying, no?

The main issue with them is the weight and size of a lot of them. I’m happy to accept that what you say is completely right for 2 small cars but it would be good for the environment also if people switched to smaller, lighter vehicles. The idea that some 3 tonne EV tank is better for the environment than a petrol fiat 500 is just nonsense.