Just over two years ago, we (my husband Richard and I) bought an electric car.
This was partly an environmental choice and partly the economics – the running costs are so much cheaper. We needed an estate car as with my wheelchair, a hoist and two large labradors, boot space is really important. We also wanted a car that could tow – at the time many electric vehicles (EVs) had not been approved for towing, many more have now though.
We chose an MG5. The price of this compared favourably with a similarly specified petrol Ford Focus Estate. We decided to write a series for a column in the Glenkens Gazette (a Scottish Beacon publishing partner), diving into all the things my husband and I discovered when looking for an electric car of our own.
The range of EVs have been improving and car manufacturers in their designs have been assessing the weight of the battery with the range; obviously, if a battery is bigger it can hold more energy which should give more range, but the bigger weight uses up more energy when driving. There are new designs and materials for batteries and they are improving in efficiency all the time.
Manufacturers claims for mileage per gallon in an internal combustion engine (ICE) are not what you get in the real world use. Likewise, when looking at the range for an EV, the quoted manufacturers range (WLTP) is normally further than the ‘real world’ range. Also, it’s good to remember the temperature affects this a bit – you get a few more miles in the summer for your energy compared to the colder months, depending on how much air conditioning or heating you use.
Running Costs
For an ICE vehicle, you will be familiar with miles per gallon (mpg). Obviously, Evs don’t use gallons, they use electrical energy measured in kilowatt hours (kWh) and, in the uK at least, we tend to measure EV consumption in miles per kWh.
There is an excellent website – www.ev-database.org/uk – that shows the energy consumption, range (both manufacturer specified and what to expect in reality, including the towing capacity, of EVs.
A comparison
ICE vehicle: if fuel is £1.40 per litre and there are 4.546 litres per gallon, then it costs £6.36 per gallon. So, if your car does 50mpg that equates to 12.7p (£6.36÷50) per mile.
EV: the calculations are simpler. If you are charging off-peak at 7p per kHw (like we are the Octopus for EV drivers) and your vehicle does 3 miles per kWh, this equates to about 2.3p (7p÷3) per mile.
In reality it will cost more than a fractionaly more than this because the car’s onboard charging circuitry will consume some energy whilst charging.
Servicing do’s and don’ts
All vehicles require servicing and EVs are no exception. Obviously, EVs don’t have an engine so lack many consumables; oil and oil filters, engine air filters, spark plugs, timing belts and so on. Thus, servicing costs are usually cheaper. EVs don’t use regenerative breaking most of the time – the electric motor slows the car down and puts eneergy back into the battery rather than the car’s brakes.
As described in Faircharge’s freely available Little Book of EV Myths, brake usage and car means that they last a lot longer than on an ICE vehicle.
Contrary to some myths, tyre wear tends to be similar to any car of that size and weight; it crucially depends on how the car is driven.
