Thanks, my nearest charge point which is safer is Asda in the town centre. I don’t have really a safe enough point to charge as loads of kids and school at the top of the road so be unsafe on path. I just want a petrol one really as also loose boot space from the battery. I dunno il have to see. I can easily charge in town once a week for 1/2 hours but rather not as my car is mainly used for school run and hospital app. I’ve done 24500 in nearly 5 years
Laura – I believe I am right in saying that there is no loss of boot space with the XC40 T5 Recharge, unlike other PHEV’s, but perhaps someone who has ordered one can confirm (Wigwam?). To be clear, I am no great fan of the XC40 personally, so I’m not being parochial. It was on my short list, but I don’t like the look of it and, as with all PHEV’s, they are a bit of a compromise if you are a keen driver, so I dismissed it on those grounds. However, if you really like the XC40 I wouldn’t dismiss it without establishing the boot situation first.
I know that there are a lot of EV enthusiasts on this forum who will make them work regardless of the challenges, but I would be very wary of getting one if you don’t have off-road charging. You only have to read the ‘solutions’ that they suggest to realise that it is far from ‘hassle free motoring’, which most of us want. We have a large garage that we park in, so charging would be a doddle and 95% of our journeys are less than 50 miles, so many would think that an EV would be a natural choice for us – and part of me would like one – but it’s the other 5% of journeys that put me off the idea. These are mainly holidays and the last thing we would want to have is range anxiety or the hassle of finding places to recharge. Two years ago we did a 3 week touring holiday of Scotland, covering 2,500 miles, and on a couple of days in the remote parts we even had range anxiety with a diesel! The holiday would have been completely impossible with an EV. Even on shorter distance holidays, we couldn’t be doing with charging stops. Would drive me nuts and take the pleasure out of driving. Personally, if I didn’t have a garage or driveway I wouldn’t consider an EV for a split second.
PHEV’s are a different matter altogether though and the majority of people who drive them don’t ever plug them in (which seems daft to me but, as I said earlier, it’s a tax dodge). These drivers drive them solely as petrol cars, with a bit of electric from regeneration. Might be worth test driving one though, as the petrol engine in the T5 Recharge is a bit rough and doesn’t have great mpg, although that might not be an issue for you with your low mileage. XC40’s seem to have very short lead times compared to similar cars, which might also be a factor for you. I’ve ordered a BMW X1 and 4 to 6 months seems to be the norm on those at present and is increasingly becoming the case with many other manufacturers.