Eight Things I wish I'd known about Electric Cars before I bought one

 

Last September my husband and I bought an MG 5 LR EV Exclusive. That "LR EV" stands for "Long Range Electric Vehicle." Our first electric car.

I'd long been thinking that we were the ideal family for an electric car. We rarely drive long distances, we have our own driveway, and with three members of the family suffering from asthma we're keen to be part of cutting emissions. Hubby said he would have been okay with a hybrid, but that sounded like fence-sitting to me. With the price of a litre of diesel touching £2.00 at the time (US$8.40 per gallon) and the petrol crisis still fresh in our memories, I was keen to get away from the need to buy fuel at the forecourt.

Our diesel Kuga was approaching the end of its contract and it was time to choose a new one. So off we went to the Ford showroom and asked what electric cars they had. Only two: a Mustang (a sporty beast) or a Transit van. The Mustang looked very pretty, but wouldn't fit Roderic's hockey kit in the boot, and would be pretty cramped with our adult children in the back. Plus at £45,000 it was well out of our budget. And obviously we didn't need a van.

So at the beginning of September, on the recommendation of a friend (thanks Chris!) we went to the MG showroom, fell in love with the MG5, and bought one. We actually collected it the same month, two weeks before we had the charger fitted to the house which might have been worrying, but I discovered how little I knew about electric cars during those two weeks. Which is one of the reasons I'm writing this blog post.

1. You don't have to keep charging them and you can charge them pretty much anywhere

I think I imagined that an EV needs to be charging whenever it's parked. That you need to look for the charging point in car parks, and plug it in overnight every night. We picked up our car with a full battery and actually it probably would have gone the full two weeks without being charged while we waited for our charger to be fitted, but in the event we played safe and gave it a top-up charge at home anyway. How? We ran the cable in through the dining room window and plugged it into the ordinary wall socket, because you can do that. It takes a lot longer (about 24 hours empty to full) but it's handy to know that it can be done when necessary.

With a 250-mile range, we charge the car around once a week. A full charge using our Zappi charger takes around 7 hours so we usually just plug it in overnight. Neat safety feature - it won't start charging until you lock the car but you can't unplug it unless the car is unlocked.

2. They're all automatic, but that's fine

With the exception of a trip to America in my 20s I'd never driven an automatic car before and was a bit nervous about breaking over 30 years of driving habits. I even asked the salesman whether they had a manual one, but he told me that all electric cars have to be automatic because that's just how the engine works. I got used to it pretty quickly though, and although I occasionally reach for the gearstick when I'm slowing down, I love that it doesn't stall, or roll, or misjudge hills, and I never have to worry about whether I've put the handbrake on.

3. They're not quite completely silent after all

It's still weird that when you switch the engine on the display lights up but there is no accompanying "Whoooomph" sound. But it does make a sound when you’re driving. Apparently it’s been UK law since 2019 that electric cars must make a noise at low speeds. I think it sounds like a tube train, which is nice, because the Kuga sounded like a London taxicab, so it's an improvement. And of course, tyres on tarmac make a noise, as does air passing over the car. Having read the story about the Domino's motorbikes I had wondered what sound our car would make.

4. They're surprisingly powerful

One thing I noticed very early on is the sheer power and responsiveness. Anyone who has driven an electric car will tell you if you go back to an ICE (internal combustion engine) it feels very sluggish. There is absolutely no delay when you press the accelerator, the power is hefty and it’s instant.

On cold days the car also heats up more quickly than an ICE car. Rather than relying on sending heat from the engine to the occupants (the engine doesn’t get hot so it can’t), electric cars have a dedicated heater which needs less time to start making us toasty warm.

One fun side effect of the engine not getting hot is that on frosty days I can drive for half an hour and when I reach my destination there’s still frost or ice on the bonnet. It was weird the first time I noticed it.

5. You don't get range anxiety after all (or at least, I don't)

Any range anxiety I might have with the electric car is no different from with a petrol car. How much petrol have I got left? Should I fill up on the way home, or in the morning? Will it get me there or do I need to stop for petrol on the way?

If you are worried there are apps which tell you where the nearest charger is, whether the charger you need is available (there are different types but it's becoming standardised and our MG is on the most common type) and whether it is working. There are even reviews from people who've used it.

We've only done one long journey (in almost six months) which required charging away from home, and what we found is that the infrastructure really isn't ready yet. We stopped twice at motorway service stations and both times all the electric car chargers were in use. Since people generally stop for about an hour to charge their car (and the superfast chargers can charge up to 80% in an hour) we were facing a long wait. Fortunately both times we were able to get a charger fairly quickly, and in both service stations there was work going on to install what looked like around 30 new chargers.

6. They really do feel much cheaper to run

It cost us around 25p a mile to drive our Kuga, although obviously that varied according to diesel prices. The MG costs around 10p per mile, as best we can work it out, but again that depends on electricity prices and when and where we charge it. The saving we're making each month still feels wonderful, and it is so much more convenient to charge at home than have to shlep out to a filling station.

We were told by the electrician who fitted our charger that it is possible to get it connected directly to the solar panels on our roof. We'd need a battery system and inverter first (and naturally they cost money) but at some point I hope we can be charging our car entirely from electricity we have generated ourselves, making it effectively free to run.

7. They're less likely to get stolen

Apparently electric cars are not a target for thieves. Most cars stolen to order are taken out of the country, and the countries they go to don’t have the charging infrastructure yet so there’s no demand for electric cars. They also don't have catalytic converters to steal so that’s something else I don’t have to worry about.

8. There's a weird resistance and backlash

I’ve been really confused and surprised by how many people seem to object to electric cars. Every electric car advert I see will have angry face emojis, and people protesting that they’ll never give up their diesels. I’m completely at a loss to understand why. I can only assume these people have never driven an electric car, and feel scared of change or insecure in some way. When I stupidly get into arguments with these people they tend to say things like:

“It’ll lose value and be worth nothing in three years, you’ll find it impossible to sell.”

We have a seven-year warranty on the car and plan to keep it for all seven years, and possibly beyond. We paid £30,000 for it, so if we end up driving it for ten years that will have been £3,000 a year and I’ll be happy that we’ve had our money’s worth. Any trade in or sale value would just be a bonus.

“The battery will lose range and a new one is unaffordable.”

It might lose range – it hasn’t yet – but we’re happy to take that risk. And as with parts for all new cars, we can expect the price of replacement batteries to come down.

“You can’t drive as far as I can, especially in winter.”

True – the winter range is only about 180 miles, but we’re not people who would consider driving for longer than a couple of hours without a break anyway, and fast chargers can have the car back up to fully charged in about an hour – the time it takes us to stretch our legs, spend a penny, and eat Burger King while we scroll through our phones.

Petrol stations are already closing down. Many have installed electric car charging points because there are fewer and fewer ICE cars buying their fuel. The electric car infrastructure is getting better all the time (although not fast enough in my opinion) but the ICE car infrastructure is going away. Give it ten years and ICE drivers will be the ones getting range anxiety, and checking apps to see where they can next find a petrol station.

Interestingly, one thing we noticed on a recent visit to Norway was just how many electric cars there were. Almost every car that passed us in Tromso was electric. That’s in the artic circle, so they are the cold weather experts.

“It’s not really environmentally friendly: where does the electricity come from? Coal fired power plants, that’s where.”

It is zero emission, free to drive in the ULEZ, and once we get a battery and inverter system on our solar panels we can charge it directly from the solar panels on our roof, which feels to me like the very definition of environmentally friendly.

Meanwhile, our electricity comes from all sorts of different sources which currently we can’t control. Maybe some is from wind or solar, and some is from nuclear or coal. But that’s also true of the electricity for your house, so if you’re that worried about how your electricity is generated perhaps you should go off-grid.

The point is that electricity is a renewable resource. It’s not limited, like fossil fuel. It won’t run out. Heck, I generate it brushing my hair in the morning. We’re not depleting the earth’s resources by using it.

“It’s not environmentally friendly because of the lithium battery.”

Lithium mining is expensive and uses a lot of resources, and recycling lithium batteries is currently very difficult. Experts are working on this issue. However, I’ll give that argument more consideration when it’s made by someone who doesn’t own a mobile phone which contains a lithium battery.

“It’s out of the price range of ordinary people.”

Since there are, as yet, very few second-hand electric cars on the market this argument may well have merit. You’re not going to pick up an old-banger electric car for £800. But new our car cost us £30,000 which is comparable with petrol cars the same size. Yes, Teslas are very expensive, but not every electric car is a Tesla.

“I wouldn’t have anywhere to charge it. I don’t have a driveway.”

This is the only argument I’ll accept. While I have known people who have bought electric vehicles and charged them only at public chargers, it’s not an easy way to manage a car. If someone genuinely couldn’t charge their car at home on the domestic rate, then that person may not be someone who should have an electric car. But that’s not us. We have a driveway and a Zappi charger.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a US Republican politician, said, "Democrats...want to emasculate the way we drive and force all of you to rely on electric vehicles.” So maybe that “emasculation” is what it really is. Fragile masculinity requires a fossil-fuel burning smelly engine powering them. But I challenge anyone who thinks horsepower comes from fossil fuel to drive an electric car and see how much more powerful they are.

I’d never go back to a petrol or diesel car.