Electric cars And Should You Buy One
There is a lot of Fake news and negative hype around regarding electric cars. Here is my personal experience of owning a 2017 Nissan Leaf 30 kW for twelve months now and covering 7091 miles.
Fear of the unknown is what will stop most people taking the plunge and purchasing a electric car. My advice is research your driving needs carefully and if they fit do it now. In a couple of years technology improvements will mean even high mileage business users needs will be met.
Here are some facts from me for my first year.
- 7091 miles covered at 0.27 kW per mile – total cost at 0.1383 per kW charged by BULB = £265 in electricity used. But wait, it is less than that.
- I had 10 fast and 6 rapid charges at free Podpoint chargers equating to £23.11 of free electricity so that is £240 for the year. But wait, I have solar panels and a zappi car charger so I estimate at least Half but probably a lot more of that energy pumped into the car at home was free energy from the solar panels. So the actual fuel costs for me are nearer £150 for the whole years motoring.
- In my old Jaguar XF doing 35 to the gallon on diesel at 1.277 per litre would have cost me £1161.50. Even without solar panels I have saved over £900 compared to my old dirty diesel.
- What about other running costs, zero road tax compared to £260 for the old Jaguar – just look up how much tax you have to pay post April 2018 for a new dirty diesel!!!
- Service costs – Zero for two years as included in my PCP contract but just £149 if you had to pay yourself – no oil changes,oil filters dirty DPF or exhaust thingy to mess with on an electric car. Insurance renewal just £199 – cheaper than the Jag as well.
But it is not all about costs, I have not bought fossil fuel for a year and I have not polluted you or your children with nitros oxide and other harmful particulates.
Range anxiety
Yes, I was nervous the first time I took a journey past the 100 mile safety limit I use for my leaf. But after your first rapid charge and safe return home the fear elapses quite quickly. In fact in the whole year I have only completed two journeys that needed me to stop at a rapid charger to get home.
If we exclude Tesla and the new Jaguar Ipace on costs grounds (I would love the new Jag Ipace but do not have £60 grand plus floating around) there are now two models on the UK market with 140 – 180 real life mileage range in the form of the 40kW Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe. Both of these are affordable with the Government grant. If you know you will not need this range there are now some super second hand bargains of earlier models of these two brands.
The Near Future
Cost of battery production is dropping rapidly, 2019 will see a whole new bunch of affordable mass produced Electric Vehicles from Audi, Mercedes,Hyundai, Mitsibushi and many more.
Many cities in this Country and Europe are soon to introduce bans on older dirty diesels cars entering. Leasing companies are seeing the value of diesels drop drastically and are scaling back purchases. Diesel sales collapsed by 26% last year and are falling faster this year. I am glad I sold my dirty diesel whilst I could still get a good price for it.
I am sure the Government ban on the production of diesel and petrol cars in 2040 will soon be irrelevant as the market forces will have dictated diesel is dead long before then. Many companies such as VW and Nissan have announced they will no longer be making them from 2019.
Fake News
The National grid will break – we will need twenty more coal powered stations to cope ete etc. These people need to consult the practitioners. The National grid has done various projections and states it can cope easily with projected demand. It is even installing the first super chargers capable of over 300 kWh at key motorway sites
What Needs To Be Better
Basically it is now down to the charging infrastructure. According to Zap Map there are now 9572 public devices in 5715 locations. There have been 507 new locations added to their map in the last 30 days.
These figures are not totally accurate as not all are recorded on Zap Map but the numbers and locations need to grow fast to encourage more users who cannot charge at home to have confidence to take the plunge and buy an Electric Vehicle.
Above is an example of a free Podpoint destination charger. This one is situated at Mount Gould Hospital Plymouth where we are daily visiting Karen’s Mum who has had a severe stroke (Kermit II is in the picture after being hooked up). This charger allows me to top up the car for a couple of hours for free during each visit. The down side is there is only two charge ports on the one post and during the working day staff plug in hybrid cars and leave them connected all day blocking the space for others. We find evenings and weekends we can generally find a bay free for charging.
Rapid chargers were to be found mostly at Motorway services see the video below.
However more companies are realising the potential to attract shoppers and Lidl have just opened one at its new store in Plympton.
A rapid charger does what it says on the tin, it will charge my leaf to 80% from empty in about 30 minutes.
Electric Cars And Should You Buy One – Conclusion
In my humble opinion 2019 is going to be the watershed year for Electric Vehicle Ownership. I recommend you jump on board now before all the Government Grants dry up and disappear.
Many families have a second car for running around, replace that now with an EV and you will soon gain the confidence to replace both in the future.
Many thanks for reading to here.
Regards
Steve
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