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I bought an electric car and it’s been joyous and infuriating

I didn’t know whether to start this article with the positive aspects of having an electric car or the negatives. Regularly in The Sun or the Daily Mail (basically any of the right wing media) there’s a headline which reads something akin to – ‘I’m an expert on cars and I’d never buy an EV’ – or ‘I bought an EV, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done and I’m giving it back’.

Of course, as indicated by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s recent roll-back on the pledge to ban new diesel and petrol models from 2030 and move it to 2035, the right wing and their supporters are not down with EVs at the moment and there are probably plenty of reasons for that, a dislike of being told what to do one of them, along with a simmering dislike of Net Zero and all things associated herewith.

It’s not hard to find people who don’t like things. It’s also not hard finding ‘experts’, if you’re not massively fussy. It seems you only have to go outside these days and remark how ‘we’ve always had hot summers, it’s nothing to do with climate change… damnation!’, to be apparently considered (by some) as a climate expert. So, if you want to push an agenda that something is rubbish, whether true or not, it’s pretty easy to find people who will back up your mantra. You can get more story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here[1].

So, being a big supporter of Net Zero, and an enthusiastic adopter of the EV revolution, the last thing I wanted to do was to fuel the flames lit by the ‘haters’ and add to all the negative headlines which never, ever, mention any of the positives of owning an electric vehicle, not just for the owner, but for the environment also.

But my journalistic integrity (yes – it is a thing – for most journalists anyway) would not allow me to write this article without talking about the downsides, and there are, undoubtedly, some big ones, although not for all drivers and not all of the time. The good news is, they are all fixable, if we have a Government committed to fixing them (which I have my doubts about now – thanks Rishi!). And the fact is, we have been using the internal combustion engine since the end of the 19th century – any move away from it was always going to be bumpy and take time to adapt to. No doubt, had The Sun been around when we first switched from horse and carriage to cars, there would have been the equivalent headlines back then of ‘I swapped my horse and carriage for a car and it’s the worst thing I ever did’, or ‘I’m a horse and carriage expert and I’d never buy a car’.

My new EV arrived back in July of 2023. It was via a lease scheme which means I pay a set fee each month which includes all servicing, repair, MoT, tyres and insurance costs. It’s nice knowing everything is paid for – but the downside is that, at the end of the term, you don’t own anything – the car just gets sent back, although there is an option to buy it. But, with depreciation, you lose tonnes of money on a new car anyway. At least under this scheme, every four years I get a new vehicle if I want/need it.

Anyway, this article is not about the merits or not of lease schemes. But it is about cost. My Cupra Born EV would have set me back just over £36K had I bought it outright new – a hefty price tag and way out of reach for many people, including me, at least not without some very hefty sacrifices I just wouldn’t be prepared to make. Add on maintenance costs and insurance, and the outlay would be even higher. Insurance is a particular issue at the moment, with premiums reportedly significantly higher for EVs than for their petrol equivalents – sitting, on average, at around the £800 mark – and rising at the moment. Obviously, it varies according to the vehicle – with some posher models having much higher premiums – along with your age and driving history etc.

Cost per mile to charge an EV versus an ICE vehicle (pence)

EV cost based on ZapMap calculator using 7.450p per kWh overnight tariff. Petrol figure is reported average ‘per mile’ cost. (Actual costs can vary depending on vehicle type, driving conditions, driving style etc)

So, if you’re always charging at home, and especially if it’s convenient to charge at night when you can get the cheapest rates, you can save big time on your fuel costs. This mostly describes me, but most of my family live in England, so I do have to travel several times a year to see them, which, unless I can find a neighbour over that way with a charger and a free driveway, means filling up at a public charger. So let’s look at how this went…

First big journey:

Swansea to Pangbourne (near Reading)

Miles: 155

Charge at start: 100%

Charge remaining on arrival: 37%

Ok, so getting there was fine. I didn’t need to stop and still had plenty of charge at the end. It was July and the weather was fine so decent conditions for battery range, which can fall if it’s colder and wet, especially as you’ll need to use the heating and wipers more. But I knew I needed to charge for the journey home. There were a couple of chargers in a local car park, both 22kw, so could have charged me back up to 100% in just a couple of hours. You needed an app to operate them, which i downloaded, but whether it was me (being the first time I’d used a public charger) or the chargers, I don’t know, but I couldn’t get them to work.

Instead, I headed to a nearby Ikea – dependable Ikea – or not, as the case might be. My zapmap app told me there were three rapid chargers there with eight connectors. Two of the three charging stations were available so I plugged in, flashed my contactless card at the screen as requested, and prepared to settle down and read my book while the juices flowed.

‘Internal error’, came the message on the charging station panel. I tried again, same message. Was it my ‘internal error’ in doing it wrong, the machine’s, or maybe even the car’s – perhaps I’d broken my new car the first time I’d tried to charge it away from the comfort of home. So I tried the other charging station. Same message. Beginning to suspect it was me, since another car was happily charging away on another charging station, I watched keenly as another vehicle pulled up in the space I’d previously occupied. When they began scratching their head and unplugging and replugging their EV, before staring at the machine (more head scratching), I realised, with some relief, it wasn’t me – the machines were just not working.

It was relief, tempered with frustration. My first attempt at public charging, and all the stories I’d read of chargers not working and people having to drive from one to the next in search of one that would work were starting to ring true. I re-consulted zapmap. A mile away at the M4 Reading West services there were 14 rapid chargers there, two connectors on each. So I left the not so ‘wonderful everyday’ of the Ikea car park and headed there.

On arrival, there were plenty of free devices, thankfully, so I pulled up, plugged in and flashed my contactless card once more, trepidation filling me. A couple of clicking sounds and a green light told me everything I needed to know – it was working – my car was charging. I would not spend the rest of my day driving from charger to charger until charge ran out and I’d cry.

I read my book while the car charged back up to 94%, from around 31%, in around 45 minutes. Travelling home later, we had heavy rain and lots of congestion and I forgot to switch the car back to ‘range’ mode, which squeezes a little extra juice from the battery. We made it home without having to charge again, but with just 17% battery life, so plugged into the trusty home charger and set it for 80% by the morning.

Cost of using public charger at M4 Moto Reading West services: £26.99

Second big journey:

Swansea to Hertford

Miles: 214

Charge at start: 100%

The advertised range of My Cupra Born is 263 miles, but the reality is that actual real world ranges are much lower. For my car, it’s closer to 215 miles, but that can be reduced further depending on if you have to use the air con/heating, along with the weather conditions and other factors. So a 214 mile journey with no stops is not really possible, unless you love to live life on the edge.

Having faced a lengthy detour around Newport due to an M4 closure, I decided to stop at Membury when the charge dropped to 37%. But there were only a couple of charging stations with dual charging on each. One of the people ahead of me was having issues with a charger which kept cutting out, and there was someone else ahead of me in the queue. I overheard her say she would head on to the next services – Chieveley – so I decided to do the same.

Once again, there were two charging stations and three suitable connectors for my car. All the spaces were full, so I decided to wait. Luckily for me, the driver filling up at one of them returned as I was standing around, suspected I was waiting, and made sure he let me drive into his space as he left. And that’s another thing – there is no queuing system for the public chargers we have come across so far.

Charging up in Chieveley on the M4
Charging up in Chieveley on the M4

Imagine if you went to a petrol station and it took 45 minutes to an hour to fill up so all the spaces were usually taken and everyone had to pull up in a nearby car park, then make a dash for it when a space became free. It would be carnage, and although there are fewer EVs than petrol cars right now, demand is growing – yet there is no way of knowing when you pull up and all the charging bays are taken, whether you are next in line, or if there are five cars parked up and waiting nearby for a space to become free. There at least needs to be some kind of line of parking spaces, like a taxi rank, with everyone moving forwards as the car in front takes the next available slot, or some ticket system. You take a ticket from a machine, or a virtual one on an app, and it flashes up when it’s your turn.

Anyway, fortunately I had no issues, topped up to 100% again and was back on my way within 50 minutes. I needed to take a break anyway, so just combined charging with a trip to the loo and a drink and a sandwich.

Cost of using public charger at Moto Chievely services: £24.49

I stopped at another charger to top back up the day after arriving at my destination as I was going on holiday the next day and wanted to be fully charged for my return. No problems there – I found place nearby in Welwyn Garden City with eight rapid charging stations and 16 connectors. I was the only one there – and it was alongside a pub – so convenient for a refreshing soft drink while I waited.

Cost of using public charger at The Bakehouse, Welwyn Garden City : £24.49

The journey back home to Swansea was more plain sailing than the one there. I had to make a detour to London, so stopped again at the dependable Moto Reading West services – where I had some food as my car charged itself in one of the many free bays. We arrived home later (after the usual M4 traffic jams) with plenty of charge to spare and plugged back into our trusty home charger to top up for the week ahead.

Cost of using public charger at Moto Reading West services: £24.84

Conclusions:

So, having experienced being an EV owner for around four months, and with a couple of long journeys under my belt, I felt ready to write this article. As I said at the start, I was concerned at how to write it, however. So I’ve tried to give an idea of the day to day, and the occasional (for me) longer journey.

And I have to say, I’m happy. I don’t regret getting an EV one jot. In fact, I’m very glad I did. Ask me in six months, 12 months, I don’t know, maybe I will be more or less happy, or the same, but all I can say is how I feel right now. But that’s not to say I don’t have concerns – as I very much do. And I’m also, at times, really angry, especially at the Government and the trajectory it seems to be taking.

First and foremost, driving an EV around Swansea and anywhere within a 75 miles or so radius is just a dream really. The car is quiet, easy and fun to drive, with tonnes of safety features and loads of fancy kit which comes as standard on a lot of EVs. It’s like, as someone said, driving an iPhone – user friendly and just a bit cool. Plus – no emissions, so no guilt.

It feels like my fuel costs are now non-existent. Just travelling locally, I used to have to top up with petrol at the start of the month, at a cost of around £70-£80, with at least one or two more top-ups through the month, depending on usage – so anything between £120 and £160 a month in total. Now, I tend to fill up every 10 days or so, but only from 40% to 80% – so filling up 40% of the battery capacity each time, it’s about £1.70. So, that’s £5.10 every 30 days

Cost of using home charger on special EV tariff (7.450p per kWh):

  • From 0%-100%: £4.32 (Actual figure may be marginally more as EV tariff applies for five hours and charging takes eight, so three hours may be at a higher rate)
  • From 40%-80% – £1.70 (charging takes 3.3 hours)

Because I pay for my energy usage by monthly direct debit, which only changes every now and again – and often goes down if I’ve used less energy than expected, it doesn’t feel like I’m paying any fuel costs at all right now. Of course, my direct debit may go up in time, to take account of the extra usage from charging an EV, but even then it’s not going to be much – £5.10 every 30 days over the space of a year works out at just over £60, or £5 a month – and I may be able to economise in other ways to bring that down.

But it’s when I took longer journeys that it became less plain sailing. In terms of cost per mile, there isn’t much difference between using a public charger and filling up with petrol. Auto Express reported recently[6] in October, 2023, that an electric car cost 13.71p per mile on peak and 11.91p off-peak at an ultra-rapid charger, compared with 14.49p per mile for an equivalent petrol vehicle. So, a little cheaper for the EV, but the difference between petrol and electricity costs is changing all the time – so we’ll call that a score draw for now.

The main problem is the lack of infrastructure. If everyone swapped to an EV tomorrow, the country would grind to a halt. Zapmap says that[7] at the end of September, 2023, there were 49,882 public electric vehicle charging points across the UK, across 29,709 charging locations. It said this was a 43% increase since September, 2022. There are reportedly 850,000 EVs on the road in the UK, so that works out at around six for every 100 EVs. Of course it’s unlikely all these vehicles will be on the road at the same time and many may be using some of the huge number of private and workplace chargers available to fuel their journeys. But at pinch points like Christmas Eve, and bank holiday weekends etc, when roads are exceptionally busy, the infrastructure issues have already and will continue to be exposed.

The Government has previously set a target of having 300,000 public chargers by 2030 – six times the number at present. But the question is, will this still happen now Rishi Sunak has, infuriatingly, pushed back the ban on the sale of new ICE vehicles to 2035, to widespread condemnation, including from businesses which had all planned ahead for 2030 and expected the same consistency of planning from the Government. Will commitments be gradually watered down, like others have, bearing in mind there are, in ministers’ minds possibly, five more years in which to deliver them? Of course, just because the Government has moved the goalposts, doesn’t mean people won’t continue transitioning to EVs – and if they do, then more chargers will still be needed to continue to keep up with demand, and many more again by 2035 and beyond.

One survey by Ernst and Young in June, 2023, found that 54% of people were considering an EV as their next vehicle, compared with 41% who were thinking about sticking with petrol or diesel. Pretty much every car ad on the telly is for EVs these days. The industry has already switched it seems, and many people are probably thinking, like I was, ‘if not now, then when’.

The revolution is coming, and the country, and our Government, need to be ready. Unless the ramp up in chargers continues at a pace, then we won’t be, and there also needs to be investment in the National Grid. Some of the public chargers I have used so far have promised up to 150kW, but I have barely got 50kW out of them and have read a number of similar reports. Faster charging means a more rapid flow-through of users – it’s the difference between being sat there for between 15 minutes and 50 minutes – so chargers have to be able to deliver energy at the advertised and fastest speeds possible.


So, my main wish list is:

Lots more chargers

Ones that work all the time please

A National Grid capable of supplying them with power

A proper queuing system

IF, however, we continue with a Government that seems to want to be more in league with climate change-denying petrol lovers who just don’t like change, and the right-wing media outlets that seem determined to whip them into a frenzy, then the danger is that we won’t get any of those things fast enough and that’s the really infuriating thing about being an EV owner.

I and others have been encouraged to make the switch, we wanted to make the switch, the car industry has been told to make the switch and we have all embraced it and are driving off into the future, only to have the road tugged from beneath our wheels by a Government that seems to think being ‘on the side of drivers’ will win it desperately needed votes. Well, I’m a driver too, and I’m also a citizen of planet Earth. We and planet Earth deserve better.

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References

  1. ^ subscribing to our newsletters here (www.walesonline.co.uk)
  2. ^ People thinking of buying electric car handed a 2 month £3,400 Brexit price warning (www.walesonline.co.uk)
  3. ^ Expansion of electric vehicle charge points to continue in Cardiff despite Prime Minister’s U-turn (www.walesonline.co.uk)
  4. ^ Man ‘kidnapped’ by electric car called police to ram him off road (www.walesonline.co.uk)
  5. ^ The picture that’s sparked a fierce debate about people with electric cars (www.walesonline.co.uk)
  6. ^ Auto Express reported recently (www.autoexpress.co.uk)
  7. ^ Zapmap says that (www.zap-map.com)

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