Why wouldn’t you be on the cheap overnight rate?

In my case because the increase in the day rate costs more than the overnight rate saving. You’ve got to charge an EV a lot for the overnight tarif to save you money. If I didn’t have solar hot water it might just be worth it and if I had electric heating it would definitley be worth it.

Yes that’s the reason I’m not on it. But at the mileage required for that it’s not a big difference either way.

I am not sure electricity will stay this expensive.

Why wouldn’t you be on the cheap overnight rate?

Because the vast majority of people are on a standard flexible tariff with a flat rate.

And tariffs with cheap overnight rates for a few hours have much higher daytime rates, you need to be driving enough miles to offset that cost saving.

Quick sums on octopus go at current prices of 7.5p overnight, 42p day and 28p flat tariff and 3m/kWh efficiency:

£230 a year cheaper for 3500 miles, less than £20 a month.
But: 50% higher household electric bills – you’d have to be paying around £40 a month for electric to break even.

I am not sure electricity will stay this expensive.

This is true of course. Hopefully things calm down sooner rather than later…

When I buy my own place in 4-5 years time (if house prices haven’t quadrupled by then!) I’ll be heavily looking into solar/wind and battery storage. The more ‘off grid’ I can be, the better.

One of the Youtbes that popped up this morning does the diesel/EV fuel comparison, the assumptions made seem reasonable:

Yeah I watched that one, essentially unless you have solar or are on a cheap overnight tariff, or an economy 7 tariff – once the new prices come in running an EV is going to be around the same cost as running an efficient diesel car. With variations depending on if you’re getting 4.5m/kWh Vs 3m/kWh – and of course how much public charging you’re doing.

I did notice that there’s some new 7kw podpoint chargers going up in a new Lidl car park near me, they’re charging 15p/kWh – it’d be cheaper for me to charge there than at home… 🤣

Our EV is still cheaper than our diesel even at 21p/kWh. About 1/4 the price IIRC.

Per mile, that is. Not counting lease or purchase cost.

The Lidl charger near here are free, 22kW and cut off after 30′ which seems a reasonable time to do a shop. In Germany they’re free, 22kW but if you overstay the 1hr parking limit expect a big bill.

There’s public 22kW charger that’s 2e the charge at night just up the road. However I’m not going to get out of bed just to charge a car.

We break even at 7000 miles year home charging combined with an average usage of 20kWh/day (bulb/northwest).
We’ll see what it looks like when I see the new EV tariff

At 4 miles/kWh you’d have to be paying 64p per kWh to make it more expensive than a diesel doing 50mpg.

At 4 miles/kWh you’d have to be paying 64p per kWh to make it more expensive than a diesel doing 50mpg.

That’s in the ballpark for current market rates. Hopefully the rumoured EU interventions will bring the price down.

Just as well ICE cars pay excise duty and large taxes on their fuel or EVs could not compete.

I am still on cheap electricity until July but I had come to the conclusion that it could then be borderline cost wise to charge the Octavia hybrid. I average 3.7 m/kWh or about 51 mpg on Petrol

Just as well ICE cars pay excise duty and large taxes on their fuel or EVs could not compete.

Rumour (political) has it that those taxes may soon be cut, which if it pushes an EV to be more expensive that the equivalent ICE will be a real and perhaps short sighted environmental disaster.

The money saving angle on EVs is an interesting one.

Part of the saving is the increased efficiency over any ICE.

When electricity was ~£0.15/kWh and I had free supercharging the fuel costs were noticeably different from our Diesel MB.

Now? With electricity at ~£0.28/kWh and higher plus having to pay for supercharging I’m not sure there is a great difference.

Still, driving an EV hasn’t ever really been a money-saving proposition.

Once I test drove one, getting back in an ICE was a disappointment. I find EVs more convenient, more fun, and nicer to drive than I ever did ICEs. That and the zero local emissions, lower fuel production emissions, etc would offset higher fuel costs. Though I am very happy to pay less.

Still, driving an EV hasn’t ever really been a money-saving proposition.

I agree with you regarding the actual day to day running of it with current prices, but overall ( having purchased through my LTD company and running it as my company car the savings have been worth it

1. The full value can be used in end of year calcs as capital investment
2. Obviously huge savings on BIK ( until at least 2025)
3. No “luxury car tax “ to pay in years 2-5 ( obviously depends on how much the value of the car is)

Once they stop making ICE then they will change points 2 and 3.
Would be nice if they kept the BIK low for its life to encourage you to keep hold of it longer than the usual 3 years though 😉

Part of the hard sell for EVs for people looking at monthly payments under PCP was that the higher vehicle price and therefore higher monthly payment could be offset with the cost savings of running electric Vs fuel. That’s pretty much gone now…

Tesla are still showing a £78 a month reduction in fuel costs for a model 3 rwd compared to a ‘typical fuel car’. 🤨

Would be nice if they kept the BIK low for its life to encourage you to keep hold of it longer than the usual 3 years though

Would be nicer if you got a similar benefit outside of company car or self employed writedown schemes.

At 4 miles/kWh you’d have to be paying 64p per kWh to make it more expensive than a diesel doing 50mpg

new cap is 52p/kwh, next cap is projected by some to more than double https://www.itv.com/news/2022-08-27/energy-bills-forecast-to-hit-7700-next-year-in-worst-price-cap-warning-yet

at that point the 4m/kwh car will be costing the equivilent of around 30mpg – ie significantly more than the majority of ICE cars. It might not matter to some people, but I bet it will put a whole load off

That’s in the ballpark for current market rates

Well, it’s 3x my standard Octopus variable rate overnight which is 21p.

Part of the hard sell for EVs for people looking at monthly payments under PCP was that the higher vehicle price and therefore higher monthly payment could be offset with the cost savings of running electric Vs fuel.

Well it wasn’t quote so much when we got ours about 14 months ago. The supply was still better compared to demand at that time so the lease prices were good based on good projected residuals. The car we got is now 16% more expensive list price and the lease deals are about 50% more.

if it pushes an EV to be more expensive that the equivalent ICE will be a real and perhaps short sighted environmental disaster.

Perhaps, but the supply is currently low, and they are probably selling plenty to those who simply want EVs. Supply will increase, as companies are committed to producing now, so prices will come down. And if demand is low because of higher electricity prices, then car prices will have to come down to suit.

But let’s not forget you don’t have to pay 50p/kWh – if you want cheap motoring then 7.5p/kWh is still avaialble, if you are doing enough miles. It just raises the mileage at which it becomes cheaper to drive EV.

at that point the 4m/kwh car will be costing the equivilent of around 30mpg

Depends a bit on what sort of driving it is. My diesel can do 55mpg on a trip my EV would get 4.8. However in urban driving it does 30mpg in conditions that the EV would still get 4.8mpg. That said, if you are only doing urban driving your total miles are still low.

And if demand is low because of higher electricity prices, then car prices will have to come down to suit.

Vehicle manufacturers will be soon be absorbing vastly more energy costs to produce vehicles surely, which I’d imagine makes it hard to reduce the cost at the point of sale.

Vehicle manufacturers will be soon be absorbing vastly more energy costs to produce vehicles surely, which I’d imagine makes it hard to reduce the cost at the point of sale.

Mm yeah, true. It will be interesting. That said, if batteries are made elsewhere they may not be exposed to some of it.

All the traditional forecasts were predicting price parity with ICEs pretty soon. Chip shortages scuppered that, but that upward pressure might be replaced by energy costs.

Watching a video of the ID Buzz, thinking this could be an actual rival to the E-Berlingo, but with a bigger battery. I was thinking around £45k starting price, maybe…

£57,000.

FFS. **** ridiculous. 😡

The individual cost of running an EV needs to be fiscally adjusted to take account of the increasing evidence of the damage ICEs are doing to our collective health:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/sep/10/cancer-breakthrough-is-a-wake-up-call-on-danger-of-air-pollution

Yes but that doesn’t change how much money we have available to us.

Watching a video of the ID Buzz, thinking this could be an actual rival to the E-Berlingo, but with a bigger battery. I was thinking around £45k starting price, maybe…

£57,000.

FFS. **** ridiculous. 😡

Did you really expect it to be cheap?! Effectively an electric transporter? They’ve never been good value!

The other factor for me with the cheap octopus rate when I looked was with limited hours you can only get a % of the battery fully charged during those overnight hours from a low point. So we went for a British Gas fixed as needed low day rates as well.

There’s an ionity fast point next to a work destination I visit often where I have six months of 25p per KWh left. So I’ll be adjusting the % I leave home with down from 100% now I’m over the range anxiety to make max use of that over the winter!

Just got back from my first decent trip in my 6 month hire ETron 55 – about as inefficient as EVs get. 537 miles over the weekend, total cost £48 but could have been £38 with some better planning / trusting the car range etc. half the fuel price of the 45mpg Diesel it replaced.

It’s also an absolutely lovely thing to cruise around in. Comfy, quiet, silly quick when needed (400bhp). Not fun as such mind.

Roll on the i4 which will be most of the above but cheaper still to run and actually fun to drive.

I hope EVs work out for the long term and not just in the current “massive tax break” times, as it’s genuinely a better car than any ICE car I’ve ever driven.

The other factor for me with the cheap octopus rate when I looked was with limited hours you can only get a % of the battery fully charged during those overnight hours from a low point.

(I may have misunderstood this but…)
Isn’t that only a factor if you need a fully charged vehicle day in day out ? Very few ever will. Most people would manage for 99% of the time on 4hrs x 3kwh (and that’s discounting a 7kwh charger obviously)…which would give 40-50 miles per day. (Or over 100 miles on 4hr x 7kwh)

Most customers (90+%) could get away with a range of about 250-300km a *week*. Never mind a full charge every night.
That’s even allowing for all the pointless journeys they do in their cars.

It’s quite amazing seeing what customers estimate they do, and how well organised they think are, then pulling the data off the cars and comparing.

Amazing and depressing.

Did you really expect it to be cheap?! Effectively an electric transporter? They’ve never been good value!

Not cheap, no – but a feint ray of hope that it might actually be ‘reasonably’ priced…

I know, right. How very foolish of me 🤣😣

Add the 2 tone paint and a couple of (the many, many) options and you’re north of 60k easily. God knows how much the LWB version will be, or the 300bhp version…

And the seats don’t even come out or fold flat!

Saying that, they’re very clever on the PCP options, stick down a 20k deposit and it’s ‘only’ £270* a month over 3 years. Let’s face it, most people looking at a £60k car will already have something fairly decent on the driveway.

I’m sure there will be thousands of these parked up in the Lake District come next summer, all PCP’d up to the hilt.

*Ignoring the 7.2% interest rate and the £41k balloon payment, of course…

Without trawling through 70 odd pages what home chargers are people using? Collecting a Ionic 5 in about an hours time!!

Andersen A2
Pricey, but looks nice and has an 8m cable that is hidden when not in use.
Had it since Jan , no problems with it at all

Myenergi Zappi. Useful if you have an EV parked in the drive during peak solar and want to divert excess solar to the car.

Without trawling through 70 odd pages what home chargers are people using?

Ohme here. It was recommended by the local installer and it’s great. It can use the APIs for various cars (including Hyundai) to work intelligently with it, and it also has its own 4G internet connection rather than needing WiFi which may be useful depending where it’s going to go.

We have an Anderson A2 and an easy wallbox, we had the Anderson first when I got my car 2 years ago because of the look as it is on the front of the house.

EmonEVSE here – open source firmware, with all the pros & cons.

Pros are that it works with solar (like the Zappi), and being open source means you can tweak it as much as you like (so long as you are familiar with C programming and ESP32 microcontrollers).
Cons are that, being open source, it’s not as intuitive to use as some other options.

I’d probably go with a Zappi next time around.

Solar + EV + smart charger + working-from-home is an awesome combo, BTW – free fuel & hot water all summer long, cheap fuel the rest of the year.

I have a Podpoint. It’s been reliable, but is tucked up the side of my house as it ain’t pretty. I got it for a reduced price (plus the government grant) as my company has a trade deal with them.

I’ve got an EO Mini Pro 2, chosen because it’s really small and only cost £100. I’ve turned off the smart features as I use the car to schedule charge so it’s effectively just a socket.

(I may have misunderstood this but…)
Isn’t that only a factor if you need a fully charged vehicle day in day out ? Very few ever will. Most people would manage for 99% of the time on 4hrs x 3kwh (and that’s discounting a 7kwh charger obviously)…which would give 40-50 miles per day. (Or over 100 miles on 4hr x 7kwh)

Occasionally we go out of the 4hr window, more often in winter or if we’ve been running about more than usual, but the majority of the time our use keeps us inside it. That’s a commute round trip of between 60 – 70 miles depending on what way we go.

And we can choose if we let it charge to 100% and overrun the off peak rate or stop short if the range isn’t needed. It works well and is easy to manage.

That and the zero local emissions

Only zero local emissions if you ignore tyre & brake pollution, granted electric vehicles produce less brake pollution than equivalent ICE but at present EVs seem to produce more tyre pollution than their lighter ICE equivalents. In any event don’t kid yourself that it’s zero local emissions.

brake pollution

Brake pollution should be (almost) zero in a modern BEV unless you drive like an utter tosser. In most normal driving something like 95% of vehicle braking should be handled by the motors.

Even had some cases on some cars where the brakes don’t actually work properly when you do need them as it’s been so long since they were last used. Get a few seconds of grinding and scraping noises before the torque arrives!

Hence many brands bringing in cleaning functions.