EV Cars

[Maximus Decimus]

Recently, it came time to switch the car and usually my number 1 priority is fuel economy. I don't travel that far, but my commute is around 200 miles a week and you can definitely feel the effects of poor fuel economy. My first car was a Ford Focus that did under 30mpg, and I swapped it for a Ford Fusion (grandad car!) which did over 60 and since then I've been obsessed. Covid and the near £2 a gallon price didn't help.

When it came to switch, I was thinking about getting a hybrid for this reason, especially a plug-in one (PHEV) as I already had a Wallbox on the side of the house when I bought it. I basically didn't find a car that beat the old Ford Fusion on mpg, and found the PHEVs to be the worst of both worlds. They generally only give you about 30 miles on the electric and then terrible fuel economy for the rest.

Despite having had next to zero interest in EVs and suspecting I'd be one of the last to switch, I noticed they had a few at the place I was at and they were more reasonably priced than I expected. I decided to get one mainly because I was interested in what it would be like. I had some concerns about travelling longer distances and having to charge, but as I make very few trips like that I went for the punt. The wife also still has a petrol car so I figured it wouldn't be a big issue.

On the whole, I've really enjoyed it. It's took a bit of getting used to and it does have some fundamental differences from a combustion car. My first 20 mile journey took 42 miles off the clock, but since then I've managed to get it down to as low as 13 miles off. Initially, like a petrol car, I would wait until the light was on before charging it but I realised there's literally no point doing this. I basically put it on charge it if it gets under 100 miles and top it up to 160 odd. The biggest difference is the cost. It's gone from costing around £120 a month in fuel, to as little as £25. I was at the point where I was saying I'll almost certainly never go back.

However, this weekend I saw the first real downsides. We went on a camping trip to Snowdonia and had a campsite about 100 miles away. Like any car, when it is fully-packed going over mountainous territory the fuel economy will be affected. I was well ready for this, and probably got about 150 miles out of a full charge compared to 200 normally. Essentially, I was really disappointed with the ability to charge the car well in a rural area. There are a number of websites where you can see the local charge points so I was prepared for where I would need to go. In theory it should've been more than fine, but I found it frustrating and even a bit stressful at times. There were three main problems.

Obviously, it being a bank holiday weekend, meant that you had a lot of people arriving in their EVs and not being able to charge at their campsites or hotels. The infrastructure wasn't adequate for the number of EVs especially for fast charging stations. There were 2 in Porthmadog that were 50kwh and they were almost always full. These were the only fast ones within a 40 minute drive. Worse than this, was the number that were not working at all that you would only find out after driving there, or giving off a much reduced charge to what was advertised. A lot of the advertised ones were 22kmh which is more than fine for what I would have needed. This equates to about 100 miles in an hour. However, every one of these that I tried gave off 7kwh (25 miles) or less. At one point, I found myself in Llanberis without enough charge to get home and plugged into a 22kwh charge point only for it to give me a speed of 3 miles an hour. Luckily, I moved to a different one that gave me 7kwh, which was good enough seeing as though we still needed to go and get food so had the time to let it charge. 

I'm planning on going up to the Lakes in May/June camping again, but it's definitely put me off a bit. I pretty much always charge at home, but now I think of it the charging point in Widnes Tesco is a 22kwh advertised point that only gives off less than 7kwh. My concern is that this is very common when it comes to non fast-charge points across the country.

Does anybody else with an EV have experience of doing this? My thought is still that it's probably fine if you're travelling on a motorway as they seem to be very fast, but I probably wouldn't want to test it on a long journey right now. 

[The Masked Poster]

My only experience of EVs is when I was given the option to have one in my previous job. I tried it out once on a trip to Swindon, which I didn't think was that far but had to recharge it 3 times - and each one was a pain. I turned it down as an option. This was only about 3 years ago too 

[Fly-By-TheWire]

I bought a new EV a few years back (2nd generation Nissan Leaf) as there was a good offer on, and I could take advantage of the government home charger scheme.  Although I loved the actual driving experience, the car's range wasn't really as advertised and not enough for me to get to the Company HQ and back in one go (which I needed to do once a week).   Since the UK charger network is ridiculously poor (both in reliability and availability) it made the two hour journey home into potentially a much, much longer one, looking for a quick charger away from the motorways. I decided to switch back to an ICE car 18 months ago.

However, my Company has just started an EV scheme through salary sacrifice, and I've taken the plunge on leasing a very nice car with a much bigger range.   Hopefully I won't regret it this time, as I'm contracted for four years.   The leasing scheme includes a smart charger too, which means I can get electricity at 7p/kW for six hours every night.   Not bad, especially if I set the washer and dryer to operate during those hours too (that's how I'm justifying it to the other half).

[Wolford6]

Ther's lies, damned lies and manufacturers' fuel economy statistics.

[Ackroman]

Zapmap is a must have.

Book a pitch with electric and trickle charge (some sites forbid it).

Prior knowledge of an area is always a must, leaving it to chance is too anxiety inducing.

Buy a campervan.

Polestar2, 5 years, 100,000 miles.

 

[Kayakman]

Don't want one...don't need one...ain't getting one.

No good living in rural Canada as per the multiple reasons in the first post.....not good in cold...on long road trips must turn off heater to conserve charge for driving.

[Derwent]

4 hours ago, Kayakman said:

 

on long road trips must turn off heater to conserve charge for driving.

Not if you get one that has a heat pump.

[Maximus Decimus]

9 hours ago, Fly-By-TheWire said:

I bought a new EV a few years back (2nd generation Nissan Leaf) as there was a good offer on, and I could take advantage of the government home charger scheme.  Although I loved the actual driving experience, the car's range wasn't really as advertised and not enough for me to get to the Company HQ and back in one go (which I needed to do once a week).   Since the UK charger network is ridiculously poor (both in reliability and availability) it made the two hour journey home into potentially a much, much longer one, looking for a quick charger away from the motorways. I decided to switch back to an ICE car 18 months ago.

However, my Company has just started an EV scheme through salary sacrifice, and I've taken the plunge on leasing a very nice car with a much bigger range.   Hopefully I won't regret it this time, as I'm contracted for four years.   The leasing scheme includes a smart charger too, which means I can get electricity at 7p/kW for six hours every night.   Not bad, especially if I set the washer and dryer to operate during those hours too (that's how I'm justifying it to the other half).

Thanks for this.

My car advertises a 200 mile range, and tbh it's pretty accurate most of the time and probably more accurate than I anticipated. On days like today, my 40 mile journey to work and back might even only take off 25-30 miles.

I have a 7kwh Wallbox that was already at the house. I just keep it topped up (up to 80%) and it's great.

You've hit the nail on the head with the reliability issue being the big problem. As I've never really had to charge outside of the house, I was so shocked to find that so many of them weren't giving anything like the advertised charge which led to it being stressful at times.

[Maximus Decimus]

8 hours ago, Ackroman said:

Zapmap is a must have.

Book a pitch with electric and trickle charge (some sites forbid it).

Prior knowledge of an area is always a must, leaving it to chance is too anxiety inducing.

Buy a campervan.

Polestar2, 5 years, 100,000 miles.

 

The campsite did forbid it unfortunately. Also Zapmap is quite good, but not so much at telling you whether they are out of order or not, or whether the charge is accurate.

What didn't help was the fact that the wife booked a campsite that was over an hour past Snowdon. Had we been camping near Snowdon, I wouldn't have had near any of the same issues. 

The Lakes should be OK. We're a lot closer to Scafell, and there are some big charging points just before we come off the motorway.

Funny, I was listening to The Rest is Politics today, and they were talking about EVs and how the aim at one point was to have 300,000 charging points but we currently have only 55,000. I bet half of them are useless. I noticed a couple in Widnes I hadn't seen before that couldn't be worse positioned. They're on a one-way street that is notoriously hard to park on. Unsurprisingly, both spaces were taken up by ICE vehicles for parking .

[Maximus Decimus]

8 hours ago, Wolford6 said:

Ther's lies, damned lies and manufacturers' fuel economy statistics.

I think they measure them on a treadmill that is going downhill, in a vacuum with all the seats taken out.

My old Ford Fusion I tested myself to get the result of 60mpg+.

[High Peak Rhino]

I've "acquired" an EV through my companies car scheme. Like above the scheme includes a home charger. Last week was the first time experiencing a long distance journey with remote charging. Derbyshire to Suffolk, fully laden car with luggage and four adults. 240 mile journey completed easily with approx 20% charge left. Village 3 miles down the road had 4 fast charge stations doing 150kw. One top up after arrival and another before heading home. Same 240 mile journey on return, same charge left. 
I had the apprehension beforehand of the charging situation but now I think I've put the range anxiety and charging remotely concerns to bed. 

I've got Zapmap and also the Electroverse app. The latter is run by Octopus and offers discounts at certain chargers off peak. 

[Maximus Decimus]

1 hour ago, High Peak Rhino said:

I've "acquired" an EV through my companies car scheme. Like above the scheme includes a home charger. Last week was the first time experiencing a long distance journey with remote charging. Derbyshire to Suffolk, fully laden car with luggage and four adults. 240 mile journey completed easily with approx 20% charge left. Village 3 miles down the road had 4 fast charge stations doing 150kw. One top up after arrival and another before heading home. Same 240 mile journey on return, same charge left. 
I had the apprehension beforehand of the charging situation but now I think I've put the range anxiety and charging remotely concerns to bed. 

I've got Zapmap and also the Electroverse app. The latter is run by Octopus and offers discounts at certain chargers off peak. 

I'm guessing rural Wales isn't anything like where you went! 

One other frustration I would say, is that charging is a bit like modern parking where almost every new place seems to be on a different app.

I'm confident I must have them all now.... Gridserve, Pod Point, Instavolt, Project EV, ClenergyEV, Electroverse, Evolt network...

I suspect you can do it all through Zapmap but I find them so untrustworthy I wouldn't be willing to do it.

[Kayakman]

7 hours ago, Derwent said:

Not if you get one that has a heat pump.

What are you one about.

[Maximus Decimus]

So I did find out something interesting yesterday, that I suspect many others aren't aware of.

The charge points that advertise 22kwh on AC (which is a significant number of the chargers) can only do that for a small number of cars. The vast majority of cars will only draw a 7kwh or 11kwh from it.

I was aware of course that if a charger advertises 350kwh on DC you'll get what your car can handle, but I was surprised by the lower number.

Even that only accounts for a small amount of my frustration when in rural Wales. I was often pulling only 3kwh or at one point less than 1kwh from a similar point if they were working at all.

Edited April 25 by Maximus Decimus

[Derwent]

11 hours ago, Kayakman said:

What are you one about.

A lot of EV manufacturers are now incorporating heat pumps into their vehicles which means having the heating on in the vehicle doesn't drain the battery....

What Is a Heat Pump & How Do They Work?

[Maximus Decimus]

2 hours ago, Derwent said:

A lot of EV manufacturers are now incorporating heat pumps into their vehicles which means having the heating on in the vehicle doesn't drain the battery....

What Is a Heat Pump & How Do They Work?

Probably my biggest surprise is how much the heater takes off the battery, it's almost as much as the actual driving!

Luckily, I can pre-heat the car which for some reason takes only a few miles off and then negates the need to use the heater for a while.

[Tommygilf]

Fire Brigade are chuffed with EVs, like Chip Pan fires on steroids, not to mention the weight of them and the multitude of impacts that has (will have).

The infrastructure has improved massively, though not beyond critical mass yet I don't think.

The mass importation of Chinese, or in the case of MG Chinese with a British badge, vehicles will be transformative too. These are companies set up as EV manufacturers from the start. 

Last point, for Emergency service vehicles they definitely are not there yet (though I'm sure some organisations are trying to bring it in).

[tonyXIII]

20 hours ago, Maximus Decimus said:

Probably my biggest surprise is how much the heater takes off the battery, it's almost as much as the actual driving!

Luckily, I can pre-heat the car which for some reason takes only a few miles off and then negates the need to use the heater for a while.

I have the opposite problem here in Crete. We rarely need the heater, but air-con absolutely destroys the mpg (petrol car). We found a great solution - drive with the windows open. Just remember to close them when you park up for the night - it's a beggar having to dry your seat out if it rains, which it does from Jan to Mar.

[Maximus Decimus]

17 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Fire Brigade are chuffed with EVs, like Chip Pan fires on steroids, not to mention the weight of them and the multitude of impacts that has (will have).

The infrastructure has improved massively, though not beyond critical mass yet I don't think.

The mass importation of Chinese, or in the case of MG Chinese with a British badge, vehicles will be transformative too. These are companies set up as EV manufacturers from the start. 

Last point, for Emergency service vehicles they definitely are not there yet (though I'm sure some organisations are trying to bring it in).

They're obviously coming on a lot, and you see increasing numbers out and about but there are definitely some areas where currently they wouldn't be feasible.

Take something like a taxi or a driving instructor, unless you had your own rapid charger (which I'm not even sure you can) then it would be really difficult to work effectively.

[Maximus Decimus]

22 minutes ago, tonyXIII said:

I have the opposite problem here in Crete. We rarely need the heater, but air-con absolutely destroys the mpg (petrol car). We found a great solution - drive with the windows open. Just remember to close them when you park up for the night - it's a beggar having to dry your seat out if it rains, which it does from Jan to Mar.

EVs aren't that different from ICE cars, it's just that the much lower range makes you much more aware of some things like how you're driving etc.

The only thing I've ever really noticed in an ICE is how the air-conditioning can take chunks off the petrol tank. 

I've not had cause to put on the aircon yet, but no doubt it'll be damaging to the range. However, so long as I'm only doing my normal travelling it won't be an issue.

Edited April 26 by Maximus Decimus

[Copa]

BYDs are increasingly popular on Canberra’s streets. I hear great things about them but EVs aren’t yet suitable for my lifestyle. I enjoy going into regional Australia where distances are great and infrastructure less developed. 

[Kayakman]

On 25/04/2025 at 07:05, Derwent said:

A lot of EV manufacturers are now incorporating heat pumps into their vehicles which means having the heating on in the vehicle doesn't drain the battery....

What Is a Heat Pump & How Do They Work?

Interesting....I haven't heard about heat pumps in EVs over here...do they work in -20 to -40 though?

[Wolford6]

I love my diesel Citroen van. It's comfy, got five seats and goes like stink. It's also a lot more reliable vehicle than my previous VW Transporter.

A Citroen executive was on the telly yesterday. The company are bringing out a new electro-hybrid  C5 Aircross (pretty big car) for less than £30,000. That's cheap.

[Maximus Decimus]

One thing about having an EV car at first in my experience, is that you become a bit obsessed with the mileage estimate and how many miles it's taking off. I've had ICE cars that will predict this too, but they are usually wide off the mark, and I've basically completely ignored them in favour of the petrol gauge.

As I mentioned earlier, my first ever journey to work (a 20.1 mile trip) took 42 miles off the clock making me seriously consider my choice. It soon settled down a lot to the point where I can get better than predicted.

I decided to take advantage of this week and the nice weather to see how far I could push it. I fully charged the car (195 miles) and so far my last 100 miles has only taken off 77 miles. The presumption with EVs is always that they do worse than expected, but not always!