Think our next car will be a plug in hybrid. On the EV charging options section on Motability website, it only mentions full EV vehicles being able to benefit from the subscription to the bp pulse network and the Motability Go Charge card Is this available for plug in hybrids at all?
I think it’s just for EVs. We certainly weren’t offered anything when we got our PHEV, not that we would have used it anyway. The time and cost of public charging, in return for the very limited EV range that it gives you, means that it’s not really worth the effort and on longer journeys, or when away from home, it makes more sense (and is possibly cheaper) to just run it on petrol.
It’s worth noting that PHEVs only really make sense if you can charge at home after each time that you use it, and if the limited EV range covers most (or a large part) of your journeys. Due to the added weight, they can be quite thirsty once the battery is depleted. In our case, if you work out the total costs per mile (petrol plus home charging), the car is only saving me £20 a month over our previous (and comparable) petrol car. That’s based on around 7,500 miles a year. That’s because whilst the car works out at the cost equivalent of around 80 mpg when running on electric (I have a standard electric tariff) , that drops to around 33 mpg when the battery is depleted (motorway at around 75 mph – would be a bit higher at lower speeds). Overall, due to my mix of driving, my total costs per mile equivalent (including all home charges) equates to 45 mpg, which is a lot less than I had expected.
If you can’t charge at home, or you do a lot of long journeys, personally the furthest I’d go down the hybrid route is a self charging one. In my case, if I was changing cars tomorrow, I’d go back to petrol or consider a full EV. I’d trade the £20 a month saving to avoid the need to charge after every journey (which I find to be a faff). A 5 minute refuel once every 3 weeks or so was less hassle (which, of course, with a PHEV you still have to do anyway) and with a full EV you don’t need to recharge after every journey.
