QOTW: How are you getting on with your electric car?

[raygdunn]

No interest until the price comes down. Then ideal for our daily short trips.

[dannyboy75]

I guess I'll make the switch (pun intended) to hybrid or electric one day but, even if I wanted to, I couldn't afford one atm anyway. A quick google suggests the cheapest electric/hybrid car is currently £15k, which is well beyond my budget. And besides, I like my 25mpg 11-year old Focus.

[cheesemp]

I'm already to buy one. Looked fairly seriously a few times as would still have a second ICE car for the odd longer trip. (99% of our trips would be absolutely fine with electric). Surprised to see so much bad info here. I thought people would be better clued up.
1) Batteries are no longer hired unless you buy a very old car. Just don't those older cars aren't worth it.
2) Battery degradation. These aren't the li-ion phone batteries. Just get a good one (not a leaf with zero battery temperature management), don't fast charge it unless you need it and try and keep charge to 80~90% (cars will let you control this). Then the batteries will do 500,000 miles with most of the capacity.

Please understand the industry has moved a long way in just 5 years. A 5 year old leaf is really nothing like a modern EV in terms of range or battery degradation. Also once you've experienced EV torque and instant power no ICE ever matches.

[Buzzark]

On my second one currently, I had a 2019 Renault Zoe first which had really good range but only charged at 22Kw which was a limiting factor before I bought a house where I could have a charger. Also, poor Renault build quality/finish and handling put me off, it just wasn't fun to drive or own. I'd say it was a good "cheap" option for those who aren't interested in cars. My ex-wife bought one after and loves it.

I traded that in (at painful cost) after only 6 months as I decided it wasn't for me long term and bought a 2017 BMW i3 which I really like. It's only a 33Kw/94aH model but charges much quicker on a rapid charger so is less of a problem on long runs and is fun to drive. I'm working from home most of the time now so generally only need to charge once a week and that's on a regime of plugging it in when I get below 50% and only charging to 80%.

The motorway chargers have been sub-par during my time using electric cars but they're getting a nationwide replacement now with GridServe having bought them out fully.

Despite having quite a few ICE cars I really fancied on my list for the driving experience, I couldn't see me going back. I think the electric Mini for fun/driving experience/handling would be my current pick if I was buying new but it wasn't available at the time. Also that still has the 33Kwh battery but range isn't really an issue unless you need more than it has regularly, which most people don't.

[Buzzark]

3 months with a new Range Rover P400E. So far so good. Lots of short runs with the kids, no long commute. Get about 25 miles out of the battery and charge it every night. With my routine I am seeing 1,000 miles per tank of fuel. Smart meter tells me that my electricity usage has gone up by around £10 per week. Only complaint is that the charge cable is fussy. Keeps showing a fault and refusing to charge. Unplug it and plug it back in and the fault goes away.

Sounds like an earthing fault/installation issue on your charger, you might need a second or longer earth rod installed to lower the resistance to ground.

[Dribble]

Would buy an electric as a second car, only had kids learning to drive so wanted a manual to teach them with. Bought a tiny citigo, turns out that barely uses any fuel, is dirt cheap to run and the wife loves it, so no point changing that.
As for the first car, well charging problems means long range drives are a no no for electric. Could go hybrid but then I have to find someone to maintain something stupidly complex as it's got all the problems of electrics, and all the complexity of ICE all rolled up into one expensive-to-fix solution that only a main dealer will have a clue about. Hence I think I will stick to a straight ICE car for now.

[virtuo]

About zero infrastructure round here, and a council that gives less than a single toss about it. I ended up selling my gas guzzling weekend toys and sinking the cash in to a new PHEV, picking it up on Thursday.

Those Tesla Plaids look excellent, sign of things to come, but the infrastructure out of UK cities is 10 years behind.

[daddacool]

I had a first gen Nissan LEAF (I won it in a competition) and we didn't really get on. The final tipping point was a cold February morning where I had to do a 35 mile round trip to Luton and found myself turning the heating off after the first 20 minutes because the range was dropping and dropping and dropping and I wasn't completely convinced I was actually going to get 35 miles out of it. There were issues with the heating system in the first gen LEAF, it was simply taken from another Nissan ICE car and ran off the main battery, so it obviously wasn't ideal for driving in the snow/ice but I had pre-heated the car using the app while it was still plugged in, the problem is batteries just don't hold as much charge in the cold and given it had a theoretically maximum range of 120 miles (I never got much more than 90-100 out of it driving slowly in eco mode though), it wasn't great to start with.

Current company car runs until December 2022, at that point I'll probably look to a hybrid or an electric if they can convince me that I'll get a couple of hundred miles out of a charge in the winter. It's chicken and egg at the moment with charging infrastructure. Definitely better than it was when I had my LEAF inasmuch there are chargers about that look like they actually work but range anxiety is definitely a thing.

[Saracen999]

We had a Toyota hybrid for a while (thanks to the muppet backing up a Tesco home delivery lorry not bothering to check behind him).

The hybrid part of the power train was okay, but didn't like the car itself. Very hard seats, and very firm suspension. If the latter was changeable, we didn't use it enough to bother finding out.

I wouldn't buy one, unless comfort was considerably improved, but not because it was, or wasn't, hybrid. It just didn't suit us.

[pvtbanner]

I've had a Tesla Model 3 Long Range since last August and have done just over 16k miles. Its costing me bugger all to run it. I'm blessed with a drive and have my own 7kw charging point. I'm doing between 70 and 100 miles a day and plug it in when i get home, for it to charge between 00:30 and 04:30 at 5p/kwh
I've done a few decent journeys in it (250 mile round trip without stopping) no issues. It got to the point that i went to a supercharger and other 3rd party chargers just to have a go.
We're off to Wales next month camping for the weekend in it and I know there arent many chargers about so i'm not bothering. I'm getting more miles than it says i will with it being summer and reckon i could get the wltp 348, but in winter (this February and March) the range was affected more than i expected 50 or so miles less than normal.
While the acceleration is insane and a cool party trick, i'm not tearing around the roads, there's too many cars about for 1. The rest of the time its such an easy car to live with.
I'm not worried about battery life, as its warrantied for 100000 miles, and there are plenty of examples getting way more than that.
We have booked a holiday down in Penzance (we live in Burton Upon Trent) and I wanted to go down in it for that after watchinga few tubers do it earlier in the year, but after looking at where and and how many the charge points are in Cornwall decided we'll go in the wifes Seat, its a holiday at an AirBnB with no way to charge it over night and I'm not going to spend the week looking/queuing for charge points, so its not all honey and roses.
I think it just depends on where you live in the country and the infrastructure thats local to you.
I will say FSD is years away too, I got given Enhanced Autopilot for 2 weeks, it wasn't brilliant, Autopilot is great when you're on a dual carriageway or motorway, but its far from perfect.
I love it still warts and all.

[big_hairy_rob]

I genuinely wanted one until I saw the price, did some math and worked out it's still cheaper long term with fuel. people can boast all they want about refuelling costs, but the frequency and time to break even (with my mileage) makes it an untenable dream

[cbntlg]

So many acronyms in these comments! For those of us not familiar with electric vehicle terminology, can we have a glossary, please?

[kalniel]

So many acronyms in these comments! For those of us not familiar with electric vehicle terminology, can we have a glossary, please?

ICE = Internal combustion engine (e.g. petrol)
EV = Electric Vehicle
BEV = Battery Electric Vehicle (e.g. no petrol motor at all)
PHEV = Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (e.g. both petrol motor and electric motor with batteries that can be charged by plugging the car in).

[iworrall]

Also

CCS = European standard for DC "rapid" charging at 50kW and up, used by almost all electric cars
CHAdeMO = Japanese standard for DC "rapid" charging used by Nissan Leafs and some PHEVs.
FSD = Full Self Driving - cars that don't actually need a driver.

[gagaga]

Still no recycling of the batteries, there's a massive issue coming for those.

I've got an electric Corsa on lease. Sold as 209 miles range but in reality less than 150 because you need to leave some in case the charger you're aiming for is in use/broken. Fine for running around, but I chose to take the 2 seater on a recent 250m trip because I figured the motorway wind, exhaust and tyre noise would be less of a hassle than having to stop for 45-55 mins (at a 'fast' charger) to top up half-way.

The Corsa is fine for the childminder runs, shopping and the wife's commute, but I can never see us using it to go anywhere more than 50 miles from home. It's only good for that because we have a big enough drive and a home charger.

[DanceswithUnix]

Still no recycling of the batteries, there's a massive issue coming for those.

I've got an electric Corsa on lease. Sold as 209 miles range but in reality less than 150 because you need to leave some in case the charger you're aiming for is in use/broken. Fine for running around, but I chose to take the 2 seater on a recent 250m trip because I figured the motorway wind, exhaust and tyre noise would be less of a hassle than having to stop for 45-55 mins (at a 'fast' charger) to top up half-way.

The Corsa is fine for the childminder runs, shopping and the wife's commute, but I can never see us using it to go anywhere more than 50 miles from home. It's only good for that because we have a big enough drive and a home charger.

Last I heard there were battery recycling plants waiting for cells to turn up for processing.

But yeah, BEV still seem best as a second car for many families. I would like a PHEV, but want something that can actually go around corners (and yes I heard about the new V6 Ferrari, but that's not going to be in my price range )