Most of my driving is fairly short trips, perhaps 5 or 6 miles each way. I wouldn't run an EV without being able to charge at home, as the nearest public charger is about 12 miles away, so making a 24 mile round trip just to charge the car wouldn't make a lot of sense, it'd be far more costly than running a conventional car I suspect. The nearest filling station is about 5 miles away, and given the much longer range of an ICE car the 10 mile round trip to fill up every few weeks wouldn't be too much hassle, especially as I'm within half a mile of that filling station every Friday anyway.

 

No. Would not even consider it. Too much hassle, too expensive.

 

I could make it work as there are a dozen or so Rapids within five miles in all directions. And I pass some, or all of them, in any one month. But it would be expensive and nowhere near as convenient as plugging in at home as none are where I normally spend half an hour anyway. So I would drive the quietest, smoothest, ICE equivalent to my Ioniq 5 that I could find. Even a PEV wouldn't work, but there may be a hybrid around that could offer half-decent economy.

 

No, definitely not. I could charge at a point about 2 miles away but it’d be far too much hassle and no guarantee it‘d always be in-service and available.

 

I’d probably have a bought a mk8 fiesta ST three and a half years ago and never tried an EV. One of the reasons I could afford an EV was the fuel saving over my old Clio RS, £150 a month of fuel went in to the car payments. Couldn’t have squared the numbers without it.

 

"Maybe" here. Plenty of rapids around, but I would dislike the hassle of 20 mins twice a week on a rapid.
There are 8x 7kW BP Pulse in a car park 5 mins walk from home, never over 2 in use, but at £1.60 for overnight parking and 57p / kWh it would be pretty much level with petrol cost.

If the 7kW's were 2 minutes walk away, 35p and free parking it would turn into a "yes".

 

Yes ! Carrickfergus in N Ireland as I'm retired and not rushing around Ireland at short notice anymore . I know of several free vend council owned AC points at or near train stations and a local charging company runs promotions to half the cost of charging on odd days . Trying to convince daughter who lives nearby(has a driveway) to go ev as her ice car (10 year old) has had a few costly repairs -throttle body £500 ! id3s at 15k at 2 year old now.

 

More than likely would still have an EV. Nearest chargers to me are in York 12 miles away, but they are BP and don’t have a great reputation for reliability. They are 59p/kWh so not too bad if they work. There are also some new Ionity chargers in roughly the same place as the BPs but they have been waiting for what seems like a year, to get connected. Thing is, I love driving our ID3 and would have to be on the bread line to go back to fossil. I’m also retired, so I would make it work somehow.

 

EV driver since 2017.

Would I buy an EV today without home charging ? No.

 

I live in a flat so home charging for me is not possible, however I have owned an EV since 2016. I live in London and there are many local on street AC charge points, and recently a hub with 8 DC rapids within 10 minutes walking distance from me. Back in 2016 I could count the local charge points on one hand, so things have improved. Although over the last year or so I’ve noticed the AC units are often being ghost charged or sometimes iced. The trend seems to be mostly from late model high end EV’s ghost charging, and sometimes for days.

Being retired I no longer need to rush around so it works for me, I made it work back in 2016 when I was working so its second nature for me by now. Although I do agree owning an EV does not make economic sense in my situation, but I’ve never been that sensible with money as life is too short.

 

EV driver since 2018. I’ve lived in 2 different Manchester City centre flats without parking or charging spot. I then moved to a terrace house without parking either and now just moved to a semi with parking.
The key has always been for me charging at the workplace.
I don’t do much mileage so plugging in once a week is usually enough and maybe a rapid while doing the shopping if I plan somewhere further on the weekend.
I am considering getting a home charger but having free charging at work I cannot really justify the ca£1000 upfront cost tbh. My install would need at least 20m of cable run.


From home, these are my public options (<1mile):

13x 7kW at £0.5/kWh (different locations
2x 50kW at ( 1 at £0.6/kWh, other at £0.79/kWh)
2x 120kW at £0.85/kWh

workplace: a combination of 7 and 22kWs free of charge.

 

No, unless I had no other options.

 

Probably not; here in Portugal the price per km for public charging is close to that of a modern ICE - but you pay more up front for the car.
Would most likely have gone for a hybrid.

 

Nope.

Rural North Wales here.
Nearest public chargers are 5-6 miles away, and whilst it could probably work, I imagine the novelty value would soon wear off, especially in winter

 

Nope.

Rural North Wales here.
Nearest public chargers are 5-6 miles away, and whilst it could probably work, I imagine the novelty value would soon wear off, especially in winter

Same here. Nearest rapid charger is 15 miles away and not on a route we use regularly. AC chargers at supermarkets are too slow to make a dent in daily use of charge without major inconvenience. A car with 22kW charging might work with an ABC approach to going to Aldi but again a ball ache. Cost would also be a factor as for me, break even on electric costs versus diesel is 50p / kWh so an EV might have higher running costs in addition to higher purchase price.

 

No, no home charging would equal no EV for us at this tome. Although eventually no EV will equal no new(ish) car.

 

I would.

When I bought my EV there was a delay in getting my charge point installed, so for the first six weeks I had to use public charging. In Milton Keynes where I live there is plenty of public charging in the city centre, so I could charge while I was at work. Not as cheap or convenient as being able to charge at home, but certainly not a huge inconvenience. Since then things have got better as my workplace now has its own chargers for staff use (although I don't know what they cost, as I've never needed to use one).

If my job involved driving around rather than working in an office, it would not be practical. And if there weren't reliable and regularly available chargers near the office it wouldn't work either. If for some reason my home chargepoint was taken away, I'd be annoyed but wouldn't go back to an ICE.

 

As part of a debate on this forum a while ago, I cycled from home, past 30 rapids and back home again in an hour - but I still wouldn't have an EV if I couldn't charge it at home.

 

Melksham, Wiltshire.

For me, yes, I probably would*. There‘s 6xFastned 300kW in Melksham (and 10xSSE 150kW), and with Freshmile and assuming charging the EV6 from low to 80% with a warmed battery that works out as 35p/kWh or so, ~10p/mile which matches any petrol car of similar size capable of sub 6s 0-60. Ionity Chippenham is convenient if needing a top-up at the start of a longer journey northwards (so we’d probably have an Ionity sub too). So I’d accept 20mins charging per week rather than 10min fuelling per fortnight in exchange for the EV benefits.

Assuming I still had the EV6, I think we”d still have got the ID.3 as our shared runabout even if we couldn’t charge at home - but we’d probably have got a Tour instead so it didn’t need to charge as often.

If we lived somewhere with less good rapid provision - even nearby places like Bradford-on-Avon or Bath or Trowbridge - then it would be a harder decision. But my dad is considering it, despite having only relatively expensive (and only 2-up) rapids within 5 miles of him.

Having said that, when we next move, the ability to charge at home will be a must-have requirement as the convenience is great. I’m hopeful of getting partner into an EV as her main car with the next 5-6 years. Boxster EV if the premium bonds do well, or perhaps a 4yr old Cyberster if not!


* except of course for the fact that without having home charging I wouldn’t have got the PHEV - which was what convinced me I “needed” a BEV. So it might have delayed the process by another year or two.

 

I’ve got a council owned Chargeplace Scotland site with 6 chargers, less than a mile away.

The price does seem to be increase fairly regularly, but Electroverse seems to be charging 0.57 for the 150kW unit (less than the council charge) so I would probably use that.

We’re spoiled for choice in Dundee to be honest and there’s loads of other options. There’s another 3 council owned CPS hubs, as well as 2 x SSE hubs, a Tesla hub and it looks like MFG and BP Pulse are have them planned as well.

There’s also loads of smaller sites like Fastned, Osprey, Evyve, and not to mention all the Podpoints at the multiple Lidl and Tesco stores. And probably some others that I’ve missed.

Yes, I think I could make it work somehow.

 

Bradley Stoke north Bristol. Yes I would still have an EV. There are 3 tesla super chargers within 5 miles of me 2 about 3 miles away. With a subscription they are 22p midnight to 4am probably not for me but 4am to 10am is 29p. Also a 16 head Osprey at the tescos I shop at if we ever get a proper price war going. An Ionity going in within a mile as well which I think can be had for 45p now with a subscription. AC provision looks poor. Nothing within walking distance some buisness parks 2 miles away one of which looks to be 30p so a posibility for weekend overnight using the bike. Half the more public local AC's look to be broken looking at the zap map comments.

 

1 day after buying our second EV in a 35000 mile a year household our home charger broke down for 3 weeks, so to answer the question this is what we did for those 3 weeks.

My OH who has a 70 mile commute recharged every 2/3 days on the way home at a Tesla supercharger, and found it no hassle... even a nice opportunity to catch up on some emails.

I have one long journey and lots of short journeys each week, so charged up on the long journey and the rest of the time drove to nearby rapids, and used the charging time to go for a run.

The only disappointment was that there were no good rapid chargers in my favourite places for a run, which are mostly quiet rural areas, so I had to pound some dull streets instead...

Local A/C chargers proved chocolate teapot, too far away to plug in and leave, or in pubs and supermarkets I didn't want to visit. If I was training for a marathon they might be of use

Basically if rapid charging can make price parity with petrol, this model of using rapid chargers like people use petrol stations for all their needs I predict will work for most people in suburban areas. They should be able to weave them into their lives remembering the advantage that you can leave an EV charging. We're almost there now used EVs have reached price parity with ICE cars for some models.

EDIT -when Ionity Maidstone Village Hotel opens, I would go there for the lovely run along the River Medway...

 

Hmm, good question. 🤔

I have a VW e-Golf, post code SM3. I could charge at our local Sainbury on their new rapids. No one else seems to though.

But as that would be more expensive than the equivalent petrol VW Golf to run, I would sell the e-Golf for the petrol version.

 

It seems that most of the “yes I still would” are based on the presence of local, reasonably priced rapids, not the availability of AC chargers.

Long term (50%+ of cars being EVs) my thinking was that pervasive AC charging (e.g. lamp posts) would be what would make it work for those who can’t charge at home. But to get the desired convenience it needs to be available really close to home - which at the current <5% penetration probably isn’t feasible across the whole country.

So I guess for now more investment in rapids is probably what is needed.

 

I think the current AC charging is more than 5%... this link

Field Dynamics showcases significant progress in installation of EV charging infrastructure - Zapmap

A newly refreshed report by leading net zero data consultancy Field Dynamics, in collaboration with Zapmap and Ordnance Survey, showcases significant...

www.zap-map.com

seems to show it's about 60% in London and 25% rest of UK, for AC public charger within 5 mins walk of home.

 

Interesting responses, I'm surprised at the number who would revert to petrol given this is a self-selected group of EV 'fans'. I guess a follow-up question for the 'No I wouldn't camp' would be: what factor or combination of factors would need to change for you to own an EV if you couldn't charge at home? Would it be price parity on purchase, even faster DC charging, lower cost public charging, longer range (so less frequent public charging), more AC charging options...

 

Public charged for many many years even tho I had a home charger. Obviously that was back when charging was free. Meant a mile walk if using a slow charger or watching YT whilst on a rapid using the councils free wifi, lol!