Electric car

Jenni_D

@DrEskimo I think you've missed a Zero from your annual mileage figures.  

DrEskimo

Jenni_D said:

@DrEskimo I think you've missed a Zero from your annual mileage figures.  

Oops! Thank you that should have read per month, not per year!

Cornucopia

swjf1q said:

I'm thinking of buying an electric car. I don't have a home charger yet, so i'd need to consider this. But my biggest worry is about running out of battery. 
I can't see any information how you use onstreet electric charges. 
So I was wondering if anyone could help me answer the following questions.

- How to do you use on street charges
- Can you top-up, say a fixed amount. So for example, when i fill my car i put £20 in. 
-How do you know which is the cheapest charges?
- Do you still need to pay for parking when you are charging a car at the car park?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAvGIHppj-M

You can't usually top up a fixed amount, though some chargers will switch off after preloaded credit runs out.  With some car apps and some charging apps, you can manually switch off charging.

Zap-map will give a good starting point for finding charging costs.  https://www.zap-map.com/live/

Where I live, the Council provides free parking in their car parks for people using EV charging, but this varies around the country.  

Topscooby

Just to add my experience of owning an EV ( Mercedes EQA 250+ ) for six months…

My previous car was also a Mercedes. A GLA (petrol) which means the EQA is pretty much the same car but electric. 

We don’t have a home charger installed as our garage is at the back of our house and at the end of our garden. We don’t have a driveway to the front of our house just a forecourt. I am fastidious about parking the car in the garage and never park it on the road…some of our neighbours who live opposite us didn’t even realise that we had a car!

The three main reasons we decided to move to an EV were…

1) We only drive between six and seven thousand miles per year with a commute to work of twelve miles each way, ten and a half of which are motorway…so very easy to hit the cruise control and sit at 60 - 65mph and no range anxiety as the EQA has a range just under three hundred miles on a full battery. We both work together and on permanent nights (9pm - 6am Tuesday to Friday) so for over thirty five years we’ve only had the one car. Only needing one car lets us spend more money on one very nice car rather than two average cars…along with two lots of insurance, car tax, servicing etc.

2) We wanted to buy a new car with 0% interest so that we could leave our savings earning us interest. The EQA is 0% 👌

3) We have EV charging bays at work for the company cars and can plug in overnight, whilst at work, and charge for free! 👍 😍

So far, all things considered, my only regret is that we didn’t buy a EV sooner! The EQA is an absolute pleasure to drive and having the car pre heat before we leave work on a frosty morning is simply delightful. Being able to get into a warm, toasty interior with the seats already warm and with clear windows and windscreen enables us to start our commute home whilst our co workers are still trying to defrost and scrape theirs clear…which has rapidly become one of life’s simple pleasures! 🙏

When we purchased the car the VED was zero but unfortunately that is about to change as the government has seen fit to start charging us the standard rate from this year which for us is £195! Fortunately, as we purchased the car before April this year we do manage to avoid having to pay the ‘luxury’ car tax ( phew! ).

Sorry if this all sounds a little too much, but EV’s seem to be getting very bad press when our experience is exactly the opposite!

Incidentally, for a superb explanation of everything that EV’s regularly are questioned about the YouTube channel ‘Dave takes it on’ is very much worth a look. Hope this helps the OP with some of his questions too!

Risteard

Everybody who has an EV must remember to voluntarily retax his/her vehicle this month, even if the tax is not due.

Jenni_D

Risteard said:

Everybody who has an EV must remember to voluntarily retax his/her vehicle this month, even if the tax is not due.

Beat me to it. Absolutely. I did mine in March last year (the advice has been around for over a year now), so retaxed using the renewal this year. Thus I gained an extra 11 months at £0, so will pay £195 next February (ready for 01-Mar-26) - i.e. before it inevitable goes up again from 01-Apr-26.  

Topscooby

Jenni_D said:

Risteard said:

Everybody who has an EV must remember to voluntarily retax his/her vehicle this month, even if the tax is not due.

Beat me to it. Absolutely. I did mine in March last year (the advice has been around for over a year now), so retaxed using the renewal this year. Thus I gained an extra 11 months at £0, so will pay £195 next February (ready for 01-Mar-26) - i.e. before it inevitable goes up again from 01-Apr-26.  

Yes, just about to do this even though the saving for us is less than you as our car was registered on 1st September last year…but hey, ‘every little helps’!

Risteard

Jenni_D said:

Risteard said:

Everybody who has an EV must remember to voluntarily retax his/her vehicle this month, even if the tax is not due.

Beat me to it. Absolutely. I did mine in March last year (the advice has been around for over a year now), so retaxed using the renewal this year. Thus I gained an extra 11 months at £0, so will pay £195 next February (ready for 01-Mar-26) - i.e. before it inevitable goes up again from 01-Apr-26.  

It's even worse for an electric van. It's going up to the full LGV rate that Diesel vans pay. Absolutely scandalous.

Hoenir

Topscooby said:

Just to add my experience of owning an EV ( Mercedes EQA 250+ ) for six months…

Therein lies the biggest issue. In the future vehicles with a list price in excess of £50k are only going to appeal to a limit market. The luxury car tax supplement of £425 pa for years 2-6,  rising by RPI,  is going to dent demand on the second hand market.  £620 pa is a considerable cost for a low mileage driver to bear. 

Topscooby

Hoenir said:

Topscooby said:

Just to add my experience of owning an EV ( Mercedes EQA 250+ ) for six months…

Therein lies the biggest issue. In the future vehicles with a list price in excess of £50k are only going to appeal to a limit market. The luxury car tax supplement of £425 pa for years 2-6,  rising by RPI,  is going to dent demand on the second hand market.  £620 pa is a considerable cost for a low mileage driver to bear. 

I think it’s £40,000 not £50,000 and £405 not £425. Glad we don’t have to pay the luxury tax as we purchased prior to April this year.

Just renewed our VED so effectively received a further six months at zero cost.