At £30 petrol per month, the journeys aren’t mostly local, they’re mostly not local (or the Evoque does nowhere near what they’re advertising). The Evoque has 30ish miles electric range, that covers all local journeys.
I did the math today because we’re currently stuck in the decision between an EV/ID3 and a PHEV/GTE, based on what we drove over the last 12 months with our ICE, and how much we paid in petrol over the last 12 months.
We do drive less than 8000 miles a year, but the actual mileage doesn’t matter if we’re talking “price in petrol” – it’s the length of the journeys. Everything under (in the Evoque) 30ish miles doesn’t matter because it doesn’t use petrol. If you still burn over 20l of petrol each month, that’s a lot.
Our numbers currently are the following, we paid £800 in petrol over the last 12 months (95% of journeys under 40 miles over the entire year – with eight journeys to hospitals in the last 12 months being over 40 miles). For those eight journeys (around 80 miles round trip, so 640ish miles give or take), based on current prices, it’s £80 to fill in petrol based on the mileage in the Ateca (in reality it’d be less in a PHEV because you still have the initial electric range, recuperation etc).
Now, the Golf has (allegedly) 39 miles electric range, but it doesn’t matter – or shopping trips are 28 miles each, everything else that we drive (apart from the eight journeys) is less than that.
In terms of actual numbers, our current petrol bill is as near as it makes no difference £800. Getting a PHEV without doing anything else (staying on our current electricity tariff, Octopus Flexible) would reduce our annual “mobility” cost to £378, which includes a £80 petrol charge added to account for the eight journeys. If we switch to Octopus Go, that goes down to £178 (this also includes a £80 petrol charge) – with the caveat that our normal electricity bill would go up by a bit (around £100 a year, since the price per kwh goes up a bit apart from the 4 hours at night. That can be reduced by doing our washing and tumbling between 00:30 and 04:30 as well. We’ll probably wash in the evening, fill the tumble and set a timer for it).
So.. I agree with what you’re saying, i just wanted to point out that for someone who actually drives mostly local, the savings per annum are much higher than you suggest. Assuming mostly local driving.
That’s probably the straw that brakes the camels back for us, we’d be saving around £80 a year in the ID3 over the GTE, assuming our behaviour in the last 12 months. That’s actually not enough for us to justify the ID3 over the GTE. Of course this skews rather quickly towards the ID3 if you do do longer journeys more often, but that’s not the case for us.
edit: of course i understand that our math is a “best case” scenario, and that we likely will pay more than the £80 in petrol per year. But even if we double that, it’s £160 in petrol a year – still far away from what we currently pay.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.