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A lot of people who haven’t tried it will tell you it’s not viable.
There will be some who say it’s easy, find out how they find it so easy.
My thoughts are different. You need to choose the car carefully, some manufacturers have discounts with certain providers which are useless if there’s none of their chargers close by. Electroverse can be useful if you’ve the right chargers close by. Essentially, you need to find what chargers you can regularly use. Rather than having to charge from empty to full, charge from a quarter to no more than three-quarters. If you’re going somewhere further away charge to full but keep enough in the battery for an urgent trip to the hospital at minimum and then charge for whatever time you’re comfortable with.
Pricing can vary ridiculously. From 30 odd pence per kWh up to 90p or more and that will build up if you’ve a 88kWh battery.
I'm Autistic, if I say something you find offensive, please let me know, I can guarantee it was unintentional.
I'll try to give my honest opinion but am always open to learning.Mark
There are some subscription options from £5 a month which can reduce the tariff to 30-40p per kWh. Charging speeds are much faster now and the infrastructure much better too. I believe the above rates will work out, typically 40% cheaper than petrol, and given current AP’s on Motability, many EV’s are better value than petrol. It’s worth checking where your local chargers are and their costs. Costs vary. I had a choice of 3 Electroverse sites within a mile. A 15p difference.
I also have never tried drowning, still know that it’s not a great experience. That’s not an argument.
Realistically, it depends on your monetary situation as well as what chargers you have around. One of the biggest advantages of EVs, the cheaper running costs, are moot if you can only charge at public chargers. If you want your car charged within the hour, expect it to be more expensive than a petrol powered vehicle.
You’ll also have to charge it more often than you have to refill a petrol car (especially in winter, where, depending on the car, you effectively only have 230 miles range on a 100% battery – optimistically), and of course depending on the charger, you’ll either sit there for a while, or dust off the wallet. For reference, an ID3 from 10-80% takes an hour on a 50kw charger. It can charge faster, but then you’re getting into territories of £0.80+ per kwh, taking a full recharge to £50+, while having at most 3/4 of the range of an equivalent petrol engine.
If you want “somewhat” of an EV experience, look into PHEVs. Those you can charge from a socket just fine. Pure EV, as someone who drives mostly electric in a PHEV, would not be an option without being able to charge at home. Categorically.
It just is an incredibly inconvenient way of motoring, you always gotta have “some” juice in the pack for emergencies etc pp. That’s at least my opinion on that front – and also, our “use-case”. If you only drive 3 miles a week, of course that all changes, it very much depends on how (and how much) you intend to use it.
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.Without the ability to charge at home I fear that you could regret your decision. Whilst fast chargers can make public charging a bit less of a faff (time wise), use of them could well end up costing you more per mile than running an ICE car (which would take you 5 minutes to fill from empty and give you a far better range).
My nephew got an EV two and a half years ago. He cannot charge at home and convinced himself that public charging wouldn’t be an issue. At first he got on OK with it, but the novelty of having to kill time at places whilst it recharged soon wore off and he now finds it to be a real pain. In the last year he’s also moved house and has a fairly long round trip to go back to see his parents. He can’t do the round trip on one charge and he can’t charge at his parents either. He has 6 months left on his lease and he cannot wait to ditch the EV and go back to a petrol car.
Anything is of course possible but, personally, the furthest I’d go if I couldn’t charge at home would be a self charging hybrid.
I’d say no, it’s not worth the faf and won’t necessarily be better off.
As an example the Nissan Qashqai E-Power averages 48mpg or 12.3p per mile (£5.90/48)
An EV with an average of 3.5mpkW @50p kWh (excluding any subscription charges) will get you 42 miles for the same money.
at the moment it is a consideration for my next lease in may next year but only because the ioniq 6 on wpms is so cheap and has a good range also my mileage will halve at least as i have been made redundant and realistically i am not going to get another job at 66. so i could manage charging once every 3 weeks which would tie in to my trips to our local garden centre which has a variety of fast/medium chargers. 2 hours pottering about would get at least an 80% charge. the ioniq 6 is one of the best looking cars on the scheme in my opinion and the seats are so comfortable.
but thats down to m unique situation if i still had the job and the 20 mile commute then no it would be a faff and wear thin very quickly.
so realistically i will be going for either the nissan juke tekna 56mpg hybrid or a toyota hybrid 62mpg. i just need to test the toyota seats and have a test drive.
it pureley depends on your circumstances and the driing you do, can you regularly charge at a reasonable price to make it cost effective if not then get the best hybrid that fits your life.
It can be done and be cheaper than running an equivalent sized petrol car, my son has been EV only since 2023, he lives in a flat in Dundee & charges at Tesla, initially with a subscription & an MG ZS, bringing the off-peak cost to charge to 39p per kw. He then bought a Model 3 Long Range, so gets a cheaper rate on Tesla without the £10 a month subscription fee. He loves his EV’s and wont go back to petrol.
Equally, my father-in-law has a BYD Atto 3, also in a flat in Dundee with no chance of a home charger. He’s had it 2 years, does a fair mileage as he volunteers to take the elderly & infirm to their appointments. He loves the car, but will go back to a self charging hybrid when his Motability lease ends as he doesnt like charging it.
It depends on your use case, if you are city driving with the odd longer trip it should be no real bother, 30-40 minutes at a charger once a week would usually be enough.
I spent the first 4500 miles with my first EV, a Kia Soul, charging away from home, doing a lot of miles, so charged 2-3 times a week. It was free back then (yup, free electricity….) so it was just a case of browse the web or read a book or go for a walk. I didn’t find it a chore nor too much hassle, having said that, charging at home is a lot easier even though my Ioniq 5 will fill 10 to 80% in 18 minutes on a decent charger.
In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out.
Don’t know where you live or how much money you have. I live in a terraced house and am seriously considering paying to get a charger installed myself. I can get it done for £800. Cut a channel on the pavement outside and install a stormguard channel in the pavement outside.
The channel can be bought from eBay or Amazon. The channel is 65mm deep stormguard is like a square channel with a brush on top. In N.Ireland they have been considering doing this for the last 6/7 years and still no further forward. I have seen these installed in pavements within places ie warrenpoint harbour, they have 6 of them outside their offices and I have walked over them with no difficulty. Your charging cable just sits down inside the brush and out at the end to plug into the car.
I don’t have a home charger I use the public chargers mainly bp still a lot cheaper than my other cars to run!
I live in a semi with a drive – had a charger fitted for free over 6 years ago for my then Prius PHEV – I didn’t do a high mileage – about 5000 a year – most of it local – the battery was good for just over 30 miles before engine cut in – worked out cheaper over the year.
Next car Kona EV – charger was upgraded at a reduced cost – definitely saved me money over the years.
So I think ease of charging and mileage you do are the important factors.
Back in 2016 I took my second EV. This time it was Nissan Leaf 2nd generation.
For months, until home wall charger was installed, I had to use a public charging point. It was free back then. But took an hour to charge.
Nowadays, despite what people will tell you, if you want to charge all the way to 90% from 10% you will still have to wait at least 30 minutes for a battery of 70kw and over. Do you have time to travel, to be lucky to find a free charging point and then wait?
The other thing is the price. At home you can charge for circa £.027, but public charges even with paying subscription you will have to pay 10 (!) times more. So my question why would you go EV if it will cost you more money to charge and more time to waste?
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Apologies for briefness and spelling mistakes.Motability Skoda Enyaq SportLine 85x April 2024 (unhappy customer - Ombudsman pending)
Motability Mazda CX-60 PHEV July 2023 (unhappy customer - early termination on mechanical grounds)
Motability VW Touran Family Pack May 2019 (happy customer)It depends on so many variables.
Mainly what’s local to you and the cost per kwh. Then the max charging speeds of the car, suitable for your needs, etc and how you will adapt around charging.
There are 2 types AC and DC. AC is slower but my car can handle up to 22kw.So in theory I can fill my whole 64kwh battery in 3 hrs, using a 22kw charger, But how often do I stop somewhere for 3 hrs.
So I’d use 22 kw’s if the price was reasonable just to top up, like while we eat something or are shopping etc, charging often and just adding a little, amount of charge.
Then DC which is much faster. If you have a Tesla or Ionity not far away, that would be my go to for a full charge, well to 80% as after the speed slows down a lot. It also depends on your actual regular mileage and the range of the EV you select as to how often you’ll need to charge. The longest I’ve actually public charged for on 150+ kwh units is 19mins.
My car is capable of a max speed of 158kw. So I don’t use DC chargers under 150kw, as using lower rated ones will just waste my time. So I generally filter out all those under 150kw, same as I also filter out 7kw and 11 kw from my searches for AC chargers. Which sometimes can be cheaper then using the faster ones, but like I said take longer to charge. My usage varies a lot. Some months I charge only once a week and others 3 times a week. If I didn’t have a home charger, I’d charge to 80% using Tesla and then likely charge up when I can on 22 kwh units that not that expensive as to charge 80% to 100% on DC takes as long as 10% to 80%(30min) so from 10% to 100% would take an hour.
I have 150kw/180kw chargers at the bottom of my street virtually in Aldi but I wouldn’t use them as they just to expensive, 79p via shells own app, 89p via zap pay and electroverse. So its always worth check which option of payment is the cheapest. Instavolt after 8pm via there app is 54p, so I’d only use them after 8pm.
Certainly charging off peak can be cheaper, with some CPO. Ionity do a flat flat with top subscription at 43p a kwh. Bonus to Ionity is many are 800v not 400v. So charging times can be 50% less, 15mins over 30mins.
All EVs are not equal. Some only charge at 100kw and have 50kw batteries and I’d say they are not ideal for those without a home charger. Unless you do very low mileage. You’ll be charging more and for longer each time. Especially when doing a longer journey.
Also you get less miles in winter than in summer from the same charge. Let’s say most ev’s will achieve 3 mile per kwh so 50kwh / 150 miles unless your doing 70mph on the motorway, then you might get less.
My car has a 64 kwh usable battery so can achieve 192 miles. 77kwh / 231 miles.
So depending on you mileage you’ll only really use 70% of the battery most of the time. So if you only want to charge once a week, from the 77kwh battery you’d be able to do 161.7 miles a week from the 70% soc.
So that’s an important thing to consider. From a 50 kwh only 105 miles. http://evdatabase.org/uk is a great source for real world ranges and data on cars.
You will get a free BP pulse subscription, which takes the price to a max of 63p a kwh, but again it’s no real use if ones not local or is slower than your max speed, some are only 50kw and that’s 3 time slower than a 150kw charger.
So these are the things I would look at to see if without a home charger it’s viable for you now.
You could try and get on a pavement channel / gully or other trial in you local area and that might then allow you to home charge.
It can be done, but it needs a Little research and planning and maybe even a change of your route and mindset to just filling with fuel and is certainly different.
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I’d love to go EV, it would suit my use case (almost) perfectly. But alas I cannot charge at home so public charging would be my only option. I have done some rough calculations and to charge in a reasonable time it would be far more expensive than ICE. I do have a Telsa dealership close by and with a subscription it brings the cost down a bit but they only have 4 superchargers and they’re always busy.
I don’t really see PHEV as a viable option either as I think I’d be constantly needing to be topping the battery up to attain the benefits.
So mild hybrid seems to be the only choice that I have but saying that when the time comes if the deals on ICE are better then I’ll still consider them.
If I seem a little strange, that's because I am.
Skoda Karoq SEL.
Thanks guys for the answers this is why I came back here honest answers which if it’s ok will take a day or so to read through and ask more questions 👍
As part of your ‘research’, I would ask the council what they are proposing or suggesting for on street charging in your area. On top of that, if you are not put off, I would look at what chargers are available near you where you can kill some time whilst your car charges. Such as doing a weekly shop, restaurants or entertainment.
Don’t go to charge, go to do something and let the car charge whilst you are busy.
ZapMap is a good resource.
Skoda Enyaq Race Blue
I’d love to go EV, it would suit my use case (almost) perfectly. But alas I cannot charge at home so public charging would be my only option. I have done some rough calculations and to charge in a reasonable time it would be far more expensive than ICE. I do have a Telsa dealership close by and with a subscription it brings the cost down a bit but they only have 4 superchargers and they’re always busy. I don’t really see PHEV as a viable option either as I think I’d be constantly needing to be topping the battery up to attain the benefits. So mild hybrid seems to be the only choice that I have but saying that when the time comes if the deals on ICE are better then I’ll still consider them.
You missed out the FHEV full hybrid, or a regular hybrid.
I don’t know why people include MHEV mild hybrids, as they’re basically just a regular ICE car with a stop/start extender.
I have ASD and thus have difficulty with social and understanding information, written and verbal. I process information in logical blocks, before I reply. Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong.
I also have a corneal visual condition, which makes me visually impaired without daytime, or daytime bulbs, among other disabilities/conditions.We can’t get a charger fitted either and would’ve sent the car back by now but we got an extension cable and weatherproof box and granny charging seems to be working, it just sits there most of the time anyway.
It still takes over 3 hours to charge using a ‘fast’ charger, 72.8kWh battery and max speed 50kW CHAdeMO connector, not many of those near me, the closest is always full of DPD vans, some there for several hours and the next closest just had all it’s cables nicked, which is the one we used to use, I used to get a lift back home and leave it there, sometimes the charging would get interrupted and I’d need another lift to go start it again…
Say no to CHAdeMO
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