Hello everyone! After moving house I made the switch for the first timing to an Electric Car (EV) a few months ago. EV’s are something there are a lot of opinions about online and in the newspapers, so I thought I’d conduct a review my own experiences with my car and the good and bad for anyone thinking of making the switch and answer the Wildernesses classic question – are Electric Car’s worth your money?
I’ve now got quite a bit of driving data, so I’m able to share some of my real life stats on how I’ve got on driving the car in a range of conditions to illustrate the point.
The biggest point that’s going to come out is that if an electric car is beneficial or not will depend on your specific circumstances, so we’ll also try and tease that out.
What Electric Car did I get?
After much deliberation, I went for a Hyundai Ioniq 6. I was looking for a largish car that would be suitable for family life whilst being comfortable and enjoyable to drive.
Beyond knowing what sort of style of car I wanted by far the biggest concern for me was range – I absolutely wanted to maximise that and limited my search to cars over 300 miles.
I test drove a number of similar models, including the BMW i4, Tesla Model 3 and Volkswagen ID7.
I could happily have gone for any of these – ultimately it came out to particularly enjoying the driving style of the Hyundai and the fact the cars design is about as distinctive as you where many cars look incredibly similar. (A slight bugbear of mine as a car lover, but I understand the practical reasons this is the case unless you’re buying a supercar!)
What are the key plus and minus points of an electric car?
Here I’m summarising the key points of advantages and disadvantages of the car, and then have written up each point in greater detail below.
I don’t run through these in sequential order from now, but if you’re interested in a specific point clicking the point will take you the relevant section – or just keep scrolling down to cover everything.
Advantages
- Cheap running costs
- High performance
- Efficient as a company car
- Simpler to Maintain
- Climate Friendly (long term!)
Disadvantages
- Expensive initial Purchase
- Can require advance journey planning
- Insurance Costs
- Mechanic expertise remains limited
- Home charging setup needed to be logical
Circumstance Dependent
Electric Car Running Costs
Is an Electric Car cheap to run?
One of the biggest plus points of an electric car is that with the right setup they are incredibly cheap to use on a continued basis versus fuelling up – but only in a specific circumstance, namely if you can charge at home.
The reason for this that you can take advantage of a number of EV specific charging tariffs to get cheap rate charging with a home charger. I’m with Octopus Energy who have tried to take a leadership role in the EV space – their tariff presently lets me charge overnight for approximately 7p per kwh, which is approximately a fourth of the cost of standard electricity charges.
(You can find our full review of Octopus Energy here, which includes our experiences using them for EV charging).
The charger is smart – if you plug in the car, you can input when you next plan to use it and it’ll do the charging at the cheapest rate available.
Electric Car Vs. Petrol Car Fuel Cost
We can compare the miles/kwh usage of an electric car with the mpg of a petrol car to evaluate their relative fuelling costs.
For those who want the quick version the fuel costs of the electric model is about a fifth of that of the petrol equivalent based on the calculation below, but only if we charge at home.
(This figure is based on what I think are some reasonable assumptions below, but always has the potential to be better or worse in reality depending on the electric or petrol cars used).
The next couple of sections cover the detail on how I’ve got there and exact figures.
Electric Car Mileage Cost
Making a conservative assumption on driving efficiency, I get 225 miles in my electric car at a cheap rate charging cost of £4.97 (based on a 71 kw charge at 7p per kwh assuming an efficiency of 3.1-3.2 miles/kwh).
However if I don’t charge at home I have to use a public charger. These vary massively depending on brand and speed but tend to be much more than the home charging costs.
I can find fast chargers near me that can recharge me quickly at a 55p per kwh cost – but we end up hitting a £39.05 charge for our 225 mile journey using the same calculation, much more expensive than our home charge.
Petrol Car Mileage Cost
For my petrol comparison I’ve taken what’s presently the UK’s most popular car this year – the Ford Puma. This has a 1 litre engine and operates at 49.6 mpg, which is pretty good in petrol terms.
I’ve then taken the UK average price for unleaded petrol, which was 134.8p per litre at time of writing.
Converting this to litres, fuelling up for the same 225 mile journey would have a petrol cost of £27.58.
Conclusions
An electric car is significantly cheaper than a petrol car to run where you can either charge at home consistently or only use a public charger occasionally. If you’re reliant on public chargers, you actually lose money versus the petrol option.
So access to a home charge becomes absolutely key (and for some people in flats or rented accommodation a home charger is a difficult option).
Where you can’t access one, I think the argument for an electric car does look weak which I elaborate on in the conclusions.
Electric Car Efficiency
How efficient is an electric car?
On my real-world results, I’m generally achieving a better efficiency in the Ioniq 6 than the 3.1 kw/h calculation I’ve used above in my cost calculations.
At present I’m consistently seeing about 3.4 miles/kwh, and on my best journeys hitting about 4.2 miles/kwh.
Update: The above was mainly in the colder months and as we head into April with limited need for climate systems I’m now seeing much higher efficiencies – an average journey is 4.1 miles/kwh and my record now somehow is 6.5 miles/kwh
What other factors affect electric car efficiency?
Beyond the fact that different cars will have different efficiency baselines, your results are affected by driving conditions on a number of points (this will also be similar to a petrol car).
Let’s cover some of the things that have an impact:
Cold Weather
An electric car’s battery is slightly less efficient in winter weather, as it reducing the efficiency of the underlying chemical processes. It’s highly likely that you’ll also be diverting a bit more power to internal climate systems to warm you up as well which will also reduce efficiency!
I have noticed a drop in efficiency on the colder days of of about 0.2 miles/kwh with the weather dropping below 5 Celsius in the UK, and became more like a drop of 0.5 miles/kwh in a period where we dropped to minus Celsius temperature this winter.
If you’re in a country which sees really harsh winters, this may be more of a concern. I will just note I never had any challenges with the electric car starting, even in the coldest of weather.
Journey Time
Very short journeys (less than 10 minutes) are at the lower end of efficiency in an electric car.
This is because substantial energy is used in the startup and accelerating and climate systems starting – but just as it’s got all running nicely you’re stopping again.
I’ve found those quick trips are generally resulting in efficiency rates of about 2.5 miles/kwh, with longer journeys more trending towards the 4 miles/kwh end.
Traffic
A journey full of start stop traffic means constant acceleration and deceleration – whilst regenerative brakes counteract this to some degree, having to move from a still position will always been the most energy intensive thing the car does.
On the flip side, maximum efficiency is reached with a nice long smooth cruise on a motorway or highway.
What does an electric car use it’s power on?
Helpfully, there are stats within the linked app for my car showing exactly what the power usage has gone towards.
Whilst more detail would be helpful, this does provide some insight how much energy things aside from driving are using.
I will note that this data is taken from a period of November to March, meaning it’s largely extracted from winter months when climate systems and lights are going to be far more in use, particularly with an especially cold January. I’ll try and post some comparative stats of summer months.
- 72% of battery consumption used by driving
- 8% on other electronic devices (I understand this is everything non-driving, so includes radio, lights and in-car screen dashboard etc.)
- Remaining 20% on climate control.
Electric Car Performance
Do electric cars have better performance stats than equivalent Petrol cars?
Obviously there’s an element of car dependence here, but in terms of acceleration (but not top speed) a mid-range electric car will match usually beat the raw stats of a high end petrol car.
The Tesla Model 3 Performance edition is the most extreme example of this – with 0-60 acceleration of less than 3 seconds, which puts alongside higher-end Porsche 911’s and Ferrari’s.
Now obviously if you need this on your daily commute is a separate question, but it shows what electric models are capable of.
Are Electric cars nice to drive?
Yes! I enjoyed driving everything I test drove – as with petrol cars, each of them has their own feel and there’s no real best, it’s just about finding a car that matches your driving style.
As a more generalist comment, electrics often slightly different feel to driving a petrol car, but you’d still absolutely recognise it as driving.
The key differences tend to be found in two places.
Weight
Batteries in an electric car tend to be heavy, and so you can notice a slight difference in the weight distribution relative to what you may be used to. Often the heavy part (the battery) will be found in the middle of the car, under the driver.
Pedal
Electric cars make heavy use of regenerative braking. It’s possible to put a number of cars into a 1-pedal type mode which maximises this (take your food off the pedal and it brakes quickly, whilst regenerating energy from slowing down).
It takes some getting used to, but is actually incredibly intuitive and a nice way to drive once you get used to it – but definitely different from driving a petrol car.
(This is an optional setting the way – it’s entirely possible to configure the pedals in such a way as to be pretty much the same as petrol driving).
Buying an Electric Car
Are electric cars more expensive than petrol cars?
Right now going for an electric option does have a significant price premium compared to a regular car.
Part of this is caused by economies of scale, and as the technology continues to evolve you would expect electric car prices may drop as production increases.
However there are a number of cheaper options in the electric car space, especially if you’re willing to look at the Chinese manufacturers where BYD (Build Your Dreams) is becoming a leading producer in the affordable segment.
What is the most sensible way to buy an electric car?
There are two real approaches that make sense right now – buying second hand or leasing as a company car.
I would usually lean towards buying a car – after all with being a personal finance site we usually advise trying to avoid debt based approaches wherever practical.
However, in this case I have leased mine as a company car. This is partially because of the tax benefits (more below) but also because I can still see the technology continuing to evolve in the next few years, and battery performance and milage continuing to evolve.
Second Hand
There have been some real bargains in the electric second hand space where values have been quite low.
You’ll want to check the condition of the battery and well as make sure the cars milage at full charge remains strong.
Many electric cars also come with fairly long manufacturers guarantees on the battery as well, so it will make sense to check what’s there (as this is the expensive bit of an electric car!)
Leasing an Electric Car as a Company Car
If your company offers it, taking a leasing arrangement as a company car can work out economical for a new car.
The reason for this is the ability to take your payments as a salary sacrifice, which minimises your ongoing tax liability. Some schemes will also have provision of insurance and maintenance via this as well for additional savings.
An electric car tends to be better than a petrol car for this because the Benefit in Kind (BinK) charge you pay is determined by emissions – so being electric it’s right at the bottom of the scale.
Unfortunately, this benefit will slowly begin to erode – with the BiK charge now on a 1% escalator each year. (However, this will remain competitive against petrol cars for the next few years).
Electric Car Maintenance and Insurance
At their core, electric cars are actually pretty simple in their underlying mechanics.
Do electric cars need much maintenance?
Less so than a petrol car – a number of manufacturers say that services should take place half as frequently on their EV’s as on a petrol car.
Specifically, different areas are affected differently between EV’s and petrol cars.
A petrol car has a much more complex engine – the actual underlying mechanics of an EV will generally require very little ongoing maintenance and issues for this bit are very easy to fix.
Equally, the use of regenerative braking tends to mean brake discs will degrade much more slowly on an EV vs. a petrol car.
As we’ve mentioned elsewhere in this article though, EV’s tend to be heavier. This means that that tyres and suspension can degrade faster than petrol cars, albeit will still have a fairly long life.
Do electric cars cost less to service than petrol cars?
Comparing the service plans from a number of manufacturers, EV’s are about 30-40% cheaper to service than petrol cars as a result.
The challenge can occasionally be finding somewhere to service your car – things are improving but EV’s require slightly different knowledge in some parts to traditional mechanics.
I found around me I could easily find options for servicing at big name providers like Kwik Fit, but couldn’t easily find independent mechanics that I would be a petrol car.
Do electric cars cost less to insure than petrol cars?
Unfortunately, insurance costs are the flipside to the cheaper maintenance costs, with EV’s tending to fall within higher insurance categories.
The reason for this is that in the case of a more serious accident taking place which damages the battery, this has to be fully replaced and is the most expensive bit of the car – pushing up overall costs.
Insurers have also cited lack of available mechanical expertise as another reason for higher prices, although as listed above this is easing.
Home Charger Installation
How much does a home electric car charger cost to install?
It’ll vary depending on the specific charger. We’ve highlighted in this article the benefits of getting cheap rate charging through intelligent chargers, and so we suggest getting one that works with your electricity supplier’s EV specific tariff to maximise the benefits.
Octopus have a range of chargers starting at £899 which includes basic installation, and I got mine installed through them – our review of Octopus Energy here.
I should highlight there is the potential for some extra costs if your installation has factors that would make it non-standard (for instance if you have an old fuse box, this may need upgraded). Octopus did a photo assessment when I had mine installed to confirm I was likely just to need the standard option.
I have the Ohme Pro Charger which has worked extremely well to date and is neat and compact against the wall. If you have a good electrician, you can also buy the charger directly and get an electrician to fit it.
Electric Cars and Climate
Is an Electric Car Climate friendly?
There’s a huge amount of errors and assumptions made when it comes to electric cars and the environment, however in the medium to long term an electric car is a more environmentally friendly option than a petrol car.
The reason this is a matter of debate is that whilst an electric car has no tailpipe emissions, the cost of creating an electric car can be carbon intensive (mainly via production of the battery) and use more rare-earth minerals than a petrol car.
However, once it’s running the overall carbon footprint is slowly clawed back by an electric car given it doesn’t create significant emissions over time.
According to data from a joint study between the US Department of Energy and EPA, an electric car will start to become carbon neutral/negative after four to five years of standard use and charging. If you’re using entirely renewable sources of energy, this can be as low as six months.
Whereas owing to the ongoing emissions of a petrol car, they simple continue to be carbon emitting over time, even if production emissions can be slightly better.
As a result, there’s no real question that an electric car is the green option, so long that it is not simply used and disposed of in a very short term period.
The use of rare earth minerals is not ideal, but we are becoming slowly better at recovering these at point of disposal as they are now commonly used in other devices like mobile phones.
Electric Car Range Anxiety and Charging Infrastructure
Is Range Anxiety a justified worry with an Electric Car?
One of the most common charges against electric car usage is the concept of range anxiety, which is a worry that you won’t be able to find a charging station nearby when running low, or won’t have enough to get to or back to your journey.
I can honestly say that whilst EV driving requires additional planning (I always make sure I’ve charged up if there’s a possibility of needing to make any substantial journey) this hasn’t really been a problem in practice, but there’s some caveats to that.
Part of the reason it hasn’t been a problem is that it’s extremely rare I am driving what would be termed as very long distance – I’m often going within about an hour range. I’ve comfortably done journeys of a couple of hours/100ish miles each way and come back with having plenty of battery spare to charge up again at home.
Being in a range where you can get back home is obviously an ideal, but obviously you want full flexibility with your car.
I haven’t really had issues as I’ve documented below, and I’ve highlighted below my experiences against the common concerns people have about electric cars.
Is it hard to find EV chargers?
On journeys where I have gone further I haven’t really found charging to be a problem.
The Hyundai (and many other EV’s) have a SatNav system that notes any charging points on route. If I instruct it to or the car is aware it’s going to need a charge en route, it’ll identify a number of charging points that fall naturally on the route and make suggestions on where to stop.
The technology behind this is live which is really useful – it live feeds how available the chargers are at that moment and the speed they run at to find the best choice.
If you don’t have an EV-linked SatNav in your car there are some excellent phone apps out there which do the same thing (and can integrate with CarPlay if you have this).
ZapMap is the most well known, and I mainly use Electroverse. Both apps can tie in with services allowing you to pay for public charge points as well (more on this in the next section just below). These also do the features I mention above in respect of the live charging.
I’ll just caveat the above with the fact that I’ve mainly been driving through the middle of the country where chargers are pretty plentiful.
Looking at a UK wide map, there are a couple of points of the country where I could see a little more justified cause for concern about charger availability – specifically mid-Wales, East Anglia, North West England/Lake District and the Borders. Everywhere else is actually pretty good.
If you have concerns and this is putting you off an EV, I suggest downloading one of the mapping apps (they are free) and seeing what availability is on your route.
Are EV chargers always busy?
They can be, but because of the live usage information in the maps above it’s fairly easy to plan and mitigate for this, and I’ve never had issue finding one relatively easily.
There is only one time I’ve really thought “that’s a problem” and it was before I had my EV – during a post-Christmas run back to London when it was clear there was a queue for the EV charges at the motorway service station – so potentially a worry during holiday peak traffic.
Do I have to register to use an EV charger?
Whilst many EV chargers will require you to register for the account with the provider, there’s a much simpler way around this, which is to access an aggregator scheme.
An aggregator scheme is simply a fancy way of saying a card which works at most charge points, irrespective of who supplies it.
If you have a regular need to public charge, a number of these also come with a subscription offer where you can pay a small monthly charge to benefit for reductions on public charging costs.
I primarily use Octopus Electroverse (their map also mentioned above). This is run in conjunction with Octopus Energy who I also use for my home charging (our review of Octopus Energy here).
I’ve found this perfect for me – it covers most chargers, I can just add the cost on to my regular home energy bill and as an Octopus Energy customer.
Another alternative is Zap-Pay, which is integrated into ZapMap in order to also enable payment at electric chargers you find using the app.
What if I don’t have a mobile signal when at an EV charger to start charging?
One concern people sometimes raise is not having a mobile signal in order to initiate charging at a public charge point in a rural location without a signal.
I’m not sure I quite understand this – with the aggregator schemes I mention above you are also supplied with an RFID card you can use for the charger, no mobile signal required. I just keep mine handy in the car.
Does it take long to charge an EV?
Charges vary significantly by speed – lamppost charges are usually just 7 kwh and will charge pretty slowly, but many public charges are significantly faster.
For my Hyundai, if I can find a 50kwh charger (which are pretty common as public chargers, and what you’ll find in places like supermarket car parks) this can give me a charge from 0 to 80% (about 256 miles) in around 56 minutes. If I can find an ultra-rapid charger it’s about 17 minutes.
If I’m driving enough distance to mean I’m having to public charge, I just combine it with a coffee stop.
Obviously, for those who prefer a “just keep driving” mentality and prefer not to stop unless absolutely necessary, this does require building in some time.
Are out of order chargers a problem?
Another thing commonly cited in the press is there being a large number of out of order chargers.
Again, I haven’t really found this to be an issue in practice – people seem to be good about reporting out of order chargers into the charging maps I mention above, and so they simply get ignored as options when my cars SatNav or the apps are looking for options.
I’ve definitely found some, but not that many. Where I generally have spotted them is amongst very frequently used ones at places like motorway service stations – but happily there’s been a big range of choice there so not an option.
Overall thoughts on charging infrastructure
When you read media reports about public charging infrastructure it’s pretty doom and gloom.
There are absolutely things that could be improved about UK charging infrastructure (more on this later) but I haven’t found the practice matches the rhetoric.
Charging your electric car publicly is definitely not as convenient as knowing there’s probably a petrol station around the corner – but if you look at any EV app for your route, you’re very likely to find a convenient charger along the way.
This is particularly reinforced by the fact that finding chargers at major shopping centres and supermarkets is extremely common, and I see available bays there much of the time.
Regardless, as we’ll draw further on in our conclusion we view public chargers as an “if necessary for long journeys” – charging at home is otherwise always the sensible option.
Our conclusions: Is an electric car is worth it?
Whilst love my electric car and would highly recommend it, the reality of some of the stats we’ve look at in this article mean that financially and practically, it makes complete sense for certain groups and absolutely no sense for others, specifically
An electric car makes complete sense if you:
- You have the ability to install a home charger, realistically meaning you own your property or can get your landlord on board.
- Rarely but not exclusively drive to locations more than two hours from your home
- Are driving at least 6000+ miles plus per year.
If these factors apply, we think the maths makes a lot of sense – going for an electric car option with good mileage is likely to save you money over time whilst given you substantial performance.
This is on the basis of you being able to undertake extremely cheap charging at home, with the initial higher costs increasingly being offset by lower ongoing running costs.
We think from our experiences most of areas highlighted as concerns about EV’s are somewhat overblown – rooted in a practical problems like finding a charger, but blown out of proportion in how difficult they are to mitigate with a little bit of thought and planning.
However, there’s a glaring hole that many people in the UK will not fall into one of the three above categories, with the first one in particular excluding huge numbers of people. Which brings us onto our final section.
Our thoughts on EV Policy
Our blog isn’t political so I stress no sides are intended to be taken in this, but I look at UK EV policy over the last few years for all political parties and feel unconvinced the biggest challenges are being solved.
I knew going in to writing this article that EV’s were always going to be more expensive at initial purchase – but what came as a surprise when running the numbers was the fact you’d be paying more than petrol if forced to always use a public charger – I thought they might be comparable.
Government policy is trying to encourage switching to EV’s via production boosting (by fining manufacturers who don’t meet a % of sales being EV. This in part will bring initial EV prices down, although not without impact to car manufacturers.
However this doesn’t really impact the ongoing running cost point, and what we really ended up concluding was the maths only really makes sense if you can have a home charger.
This leaves renters or those without driveways (already the groups most likely to struggle with initial extra costs for EV’s) finding the practicality of going electricist an option they pay more initially for then pay more on an ongoing basis to use.
Logic dictates it’s not really a surprise to see electric car takeup being limited in these groups.
Policy has been very focused on charging infrastructure, which has been a problem but is getting better and better. People building infrastructure do also need some return to make building those charge points worth it.
However those options are usually built around a constant charge, and I think schemes could be put in place to have pricing tiers allowing those without driveways access to cheaper overnight charging options when there is significantly less demand from the grid.
Easy to say, difficult to implement – but until that problem is solved transition will be hard.
Any questions?
Electric vehicles tend to be something that attracts a real range of questions, so if you’d like to know something specific about our personal experiences that we haven’t covered here, we’d love to hear from you! Just drop us a note in the comments below.
And that’s it!
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