Electric Vehicles (or EV's) - We'd love to know what you think!

I have been a driver of a Plug in Hybrid (The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV) for nearly 3 years. It has an electric only range of around 30 miles but that does most of my day-to-day needs. For my longer journeys no electric only has the range so I would need petrol or a hybrid anyway.
my savings have been enormous.

Owner of a hybridV60 diesel phev and a Nissan leaf.

used to be against the idea of a phev, but after having the leaf over a year and being jealous of the other half having a toasty warm car every morning in the winter and not having to clear the ice I tried the phev, loved it, saved some pennies and found a used one that I somehow used man maths to justify.

don't see how anyone could go back to a normal engine after trying one! the savings in running costs are slowly making up for the purchase price, but £0 tax, cheap servicing on the leaf, and the Volvo costs the same as a regular Volvo for servicing since its the same engine, there is a noticeable difference on running costs, we used to spend almost £400 a month on diesel, that's gone to around £100 a month in electric instead, I wouldn't say they are for everyone, but if you can live with limitations of a full electric i'd test drive one, a lot of higher mileage people could effectively have a brand new car for free based on the fuel savings alone.

just to throw in the v60 has an official range of 31 miles, in reality in pure mode you can do between 20 and 28 depending on how hilly the terrain is, I tend to average around 25-26, always keep climate control on auto which uses a little more, probably can get 30 if your into eek'ing every last drop out, but that's not for me. Dont' see the point of having these extra's if you turn everything off to save a couple of quid over the year in running costs.

We've had a Leaf for about three years, and love it. Having said that, didn't love it so much last week when we had to get it towed because the brake was stuck on, or the day after we got it back when the brake wouldn't engage at all - apparently brake calipers rarely ever need replacing, but a few hundred pounds later we found out ours definitely did. Ouch.
Biggest issue we have is available chargers - we have a 3 pin lead, and while that used to be the only charging point available, as and when they break down they seem to all be being replaced with the newer ones, which we then can't use 😠
We're okay at home - have off road parking so got a charger on the front of the house, and solar panels so when it's a bright sunshiny day we make a point of plugging in the car.
Does anyone else driving an EV get tempted to frighten the life out of oblivious shoppers in supermarket car parks who assume they don't need to look over their shoulder before crossing the road (or just pushing their trolley in the road) because of course they would hear if there was a car coming...?:D

We are now on our 3rd Leaf. With 16kw of solar power on our land it is a 'no brainer' to store the renewable energy generated in our car or on site in LION batteries. Using home produced fuel rather than fossil fuel at whatever the oil companies want to charge us has led to considerable savings over the years. Charging points are generally much more available now than they were 6 years ago. However the majority of our journeys are local and well within the 125 mile range of our 30kw Leaf. The biggest issue for us has been the different cost of a charge between charging point suppliers and the requirement for rapid charging on the motorways. The increase in Hybrid and pure EV drivers has led to market forces prevailing and costs are decreasing and chargers increasing. This is good news for the later adopter of the technology and a relief for us early adopters.

Hi Everyone... I have owned a 3 year old Nissan Leaf with 32k miles for 6 months now and love it. All my experiences are based on Leaf ownership. It replaces a 10 year old 2 litre diesel Peugeot. Only reason I changed was cost, I do around 18000 miles the Peugeot costs 14p a mile, the leaf between 2p to 3p per mile, these costs are just for the diesel/electric. Only negative cost was the insurance being 25% more expensive. The plus points far outweigh negative, Zero car tax, unexpected plus was how great the Leaf is to drive, its faster, so smooth and quiet, just a very nice place to be. I have the Tekna that comes with all the bells and whistles, which I highly recommend. I have now done 9k miles and no problems with the Leaf whatsoever. The vast majority of my miles are journeys of up to 40 miles. I live near Milton Keynes which has lots of EV points. When going further afield routes need planning using the Apps or the web. The polar plus and Zap map apps in my view are essential for using the charging network. Going further afield does take planning, and do not allow the car to get low on charge. They cannot be towed so breakdown cover is essential ( I have mine with my bank account) only used it once, and now do not allow car to get too low on charge. Other variable is the charge is used more quickly in cold conditions, this is what caught me out. I now know where all the chargers are on all my regular journeys, so range problems have all but disappeared. I do not anticipate getting anything other than an EV for our every day transport. Of course the new vehicles being launched make EV's practical for long journeys but the cost for me outweighs this as an option.

I also have an executive diesel which is used for long journeys, however it is used so infrequently last time I used it, battery was flat.

The bottom line is that I was spending about £400 on diesel a month I now spend £50 on diesel and about £50 on electricity and charging. Incidentally most Polar charge points are either free (rare in my area) or cost about 9p + VAT a kilowatt, one kilowatt gives about 4 miles range. However, some points on the Polar network charge very much more, for example our local council (Aylesbury) have a number of fast chargers outside their centrally located building, which are available via the Polar network, but cost a staggering £8 + vat every time you use them (or did when I last used them... never again). The Polar plus App tells you how much a charge will cost. The Zap Map App, doesn't but does give all charging networks locations. This also is more comprehensive than the Polar App. e.g. When you access it, automatically zooms in to where you are, also it is integrated with Google maps, so you just click on the location to get directions to the charge point.

Other facts you should be aware of is that there are basically 3 grades of charging point. 3Kw, 7Kw and Fast 32kw. As I said earlier, 1 Kw gives 4 miles, my car has a 24kw battery, as it is 3 years old, battery has degraded and gives a range now of a maximum 80 miles. I now frequently use the fast charging points for 10 minute charges which give me around 6 Kw just to extend my range, particularly in our cold weather. I have a 7Kw charger installed at my home and my office, so can recharge from flat in about 3 hours. I also have economy 7 electricity meter at home, so overnight charges only cost around 7p a Kw.

I welcome any questions.

At least make it a proper fun car Morgan EV3

Getting on for 200 mile range and goes like weasel poo off a shiny stick:

The 2018 Nissan Leaf will do 200@ miles. They quote 235 but in real terms ...next year theres a bigger battery option i reckon will add a 100 miles to that. 👍

Just handed back a 2014 BMW i3 Range Extender, after a week or so running around while my own car was poorly.

i have to say it was excellent. Feindishly quick off the lights and nippy around town. Steering was not really properly balanced, feeling very dead with next to no self-centering.

Range is a bit limited (about 70 on the battery and about 65 on a full tank of 4 star) but simply pulling up at the garage and plugging in the mains charger overnight means the car is perfect for the commute.

I started with a measure of Range Anxiety but realised the computed miles left in the battery are almost bang on while I had it (after resisting the urge to try a bit of lead foot to enjoy the acceleration). Did a 64 mile round trip all on battery with the range extender almost at kick-in when I got home. A quick check of Google Maps confirmed the distance. Charger input is 10A @ 240V, so 2.4kVA consumption. The car told me charge time would be 10 hours so that 64 miles "cost" 24kWh.

Its be interesting to see what the next generation is like. ONe would hope for a better battery, no petrol engine and a range of ~200 miles. I could even be tempted by one. Mind you, its a BMW so working indicators are probably an optional extra :-)

I'd still like a Morgan EV3 to play in though. Anyone from Morgan reading this?

I have a twin engine Volvo XC90 which gets me to office/airport and return on single charge as well as most weekend trips - given the increase in EV is there’s not even more of an owner proposition that OVO could offer to stand out from competition?

EVs have been around since a fair bit before 2013. We have family living in Hong Kong and in 2009 one of them was living on Park Island, that only allowed EV's on the island. There were no cars we think, but there was/is an excellent bus service, all electrics. Electric buses have been in use a long time now.