If you’re on the wrong tariff though… We still haven’t got our smart meter repaired, and have been waiting nigh on 3 years, which means we are recharging our Kona at a cost a few points short of 20p per unit. A 60kw charge therefore costs us £12, and with the cold weather that won’t take us more than 200 miles.
We always have to do quite a big slurp on the way home from London (2x a week), the net result is that our “cheap” electric car with “low” running costs is costing around 9p per mile – the “holy grail” of pure EVs seems to be 1p. For reference, our old diesel 4wd 190ps Kuga was costing us around 12-15p so we aren’t making as big savings as advertised.
Our even older Volvo v40 if driven very, very carefully could work out cheaper than the electric Kona, but that was when diesel was only about £1.10 – £1.20 per litre.
This is all to do with the electricity suppliers absolutely sucking if you have a defective or disconnected smart meter. If you have a dumb meter they’ll upgrade you quick as a whippet, but there appears to be no recourse for a duff one. Yes, I have complaining to ofgen and the power company (no result)
Please don’t let this put you off getting a leccy – we’re still pleased with the Kona and as the weather improves we expect to do the London run with no rapid charging, so the cost should return to around 4p / mile