[Windy]

So we are now  8 months with our Vivaro elite the largest EV available on Motability maybe even anywhere at the moment.

i thought those in need of a large vehicle may like to know a little about costs and range.

firstly it’s important that you demand a home  charger this vehicle would be extremely difficult to manage without one, I say demand we were told we couldn’t have a home charger as it would cost £6000 but we got one free by demanding one. Sometime it’s the only way.

the reason I say you need home charging is the range is 145 miles but so far we have never required away from home charging even arriving home with as little as 2 miles left, I plug the car in every day with a scheduled charge on cheap rate electricity we will probably drive somewhere between 10 and 12 thousand miles by the end of the first year. This is interesting as we previously did approx 6 or 7 thousand due to costs in our previous diesel.
We are in rural location and trips are always larger than most shopping 25 miles doctors 14 miles the tip is 22 miles so we leave here onto 60 mph roads, but we’re told that electric was best for town, so we are surprised to achieve the maximum range the vehicle has to offer most of the time.

The costs are obviously an issue to most and will become more so. When we did our research to go electric the Math suggested it was a no brainer, surprisingly now with the energy increases and the upcoming increases , I still feel this is the case.

We are still on an old contract currently that allows us to charge for 5.5p per KW amazingly we are getting 3 miles per KW currently since the weather has warmed thus costing around 1.8 p per mile. I am sure many of you with EV will think this terrible but remember this has 8 seats with enough boot for 8 lots of luggage. So moving on at the moment when our contract runs out we should be able to renew at 8.5 p per KW this will push the price of cold winter driving to around 4p per mile, taking me back to what I said earlier that an EV remains a no brainer with a home charger, if like us you are on a low fixed income. However if I were to do my research only using the charging network then I feel I could not have changed to an EV initially when I started the research early last year perhaps I would have risked it but since then many of the network prices have increased 3 or 4 times and I am guessing more increases will follow using the energy hikes as an excuse and don’t forget outside charging incurs 20% vat home charging just 5%.
The future? Well we will definitely stick with an EV but will hold on to this one for as long as we can to allow more development as we are looking at the possibility of an EV with Vehicle to Home capability thus allowing us to use the car to power the home when not in use. Potentially this will either be the vehicle or the development of new style chargers it’s all very exciting.

Hope this info helps someone

Topic

[Windy]

Paul the way I see it at 26p per KW from Lidl
421 miles at my worse would cost £44 I know there is the odd places you can charge for free but let’s assume they will disappear. However Motability and others are focusing on address like yours for other options such as lamppost points and shared options. So it could be worth having a chat with Motability to ask if anything is in the pipeline for change. As for the cable across the road mine was put underground approx 30 metres you have to explain to people that YOU are doing what is being asked of you for the future, they are making it difficult.

[Matthew]

I wondered if you could share any experience you have of realistic maximum range, performance, etc?  I ordered one of these back in January as it ticked all my boxes for my changing needs, three disabled kids and carrying more gear basically.

 

The range concerned me but there were limited or no alternatives rather that offered what this can did. I used a 2/3 of stated range assumption to make my final decision, so 100 miles on a charge.  That would be much more then is needed on a daily basis where I often only do 20 miles total, sometimes less, but offer some logistical considerations on days out needing a charge before returning home or at the locations we visit the most (all around 50 to 90 miles away generally, with the once a year 150+ mile trip in one go. Again the benefits far outweighed having to sit charging for half an hour sat in the back watching a tablet or eating…

… However I parked next to one of these vans last week on a day out and chatted with the owner and he’s filled me with doubt, well panic really, that I’ve made a huge mistake! And I’m considering cancelling.  He reckoned that on a cold day with heating or a hot day with air conditioning he only got 50 or 60 miles on a motorway run 😬 and it took over an hour to get back up to the 85% mark 😬.

 

Is this in any way your experience? Because that would make this van a completely different proposition meaning I would have to charge both on the way and on the way back for out most common daytrips, more then doubling, maybe even 3x the travel time. An impossible change to adapt to.  Please can you offer some experience of motorway driving if you have any.  Many thanks.

 

 

 

[Windy]

Hi Matthew I am not one to promote a car and the Vivaro has many issues I am not keen on like it’s a a van with seats, But the answer is no, this is not my experience achieving real time driving in the coldest parts of the year of the year of 90 to 100 miles now I know I could easily reduce that by taking off regen and driving in power mode yes I am sure it would come down but I don’t think it would come down below 70 even then. However it’s a van so who wants to drive it like a sports car therefore I get immense pleasure trying to be as economical as possible. One thing that really concerned me was it would be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter but neither is true very short bursts of heat or cool keep the vehicle comfortable so you can spend most of the time in eco mode once the range drops below 70 I find you are better off in normal mode as the regen is more efficient my I set one trip metre every and the other one I run for the season. My lowest have been 2.1 on a day and 2.3 for 700 miles in the cold but with a 50kw battery that is 105 to 115 range I am currently running at 3.1 which exceeds published range.

the car initially was collected 140 miles away and I really panicked as I knew nothing of charging when I arrived they had charged it but it read 131 so I expected to stop in Stoke to charge but got all the way home with 9 miles left.

if you are used to being frugal with a diesel you will have no issues and you can still leave roundabouts like a Ferrari which is fun and it’s great to watch the gti in your mirror.
i believe ther is a Facebook page dedicated to these from Motability might be worth asking there too. If you are near me I’ll show it to you

[Windy]

[Windy]

[Windy]

I wanted to just clarify the EV range I want my EV to do at least 10000 miles on a charge  why not you can want anything but if it did when or where would I charge it? Thing is the max I can home charge is 42 kw on cheap rate so however many miles the car does if I want to keep costs down I have to return to dear old podpoint in under 42kw of use so what I want is as many miles Per KW as possible. Range anxiety has been created by the press to deter EV uptake true range anxiety was driving a 1966 Jaguar s type with only £3 to your name ahh life was bliss

[Author]

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