This is copied from a group on FB that my wife follows. The group name is.... "Dull women community" please save your comments, I've already have given my wife all the verbal "abuse" I can think off š¤£
Now the report, very factual and informative.
(Edit to add, the car used for the trip was Tesla YLR)
"Iāve just completed my longest EV family roadtrip yet, and I thought Iād compile some real-world statistics which some may find as interesting as I do.
Over the past 9 days we covered 1825.4 miles, from East Sussex (the south-east corner of England) to Fort William (in the north-west of Scotland) and back. This included two stops with family in the Merseyside area to break up the journey, as well as several long and mountainous day excursions through the Scottish highlands including trips to the Cairngorms, Loch Ness and the Isle of Skye, and the return journey via Loch Awe and Inveraray. Passengers were myself (40/m, always thought I was UK12 but turns out Iām actually UK11), my wife and nearly-6-year-old daughter. We do not travel light, and every cubic centimetre of the more than 900 litres of luggage space in the boot and froot, as well as most of the back seat, was packed with doubtless essential miscellaneous stuff.
The first thing to say is that for standard day-to-day driving, I charge at home for 7p per kWh, and the car does somewhere around 3.5 miles per kWh, so the fuel costs are usually approximately 2p per mile.
For a longer trip public rapid charging is necessary. We mainly used Tesla Superchargers, with only a few exceptions. The total cost of public charging for the whole trip was Ā£245.33. This works out at just over 13.4p per mile. To achieve the equivalent price in a petrol car at the current average UK price of Ā£1.36 per litre, I would need to maintain an average efficiency of 46 miles per gallon for the entire trip. This is by no means impossible, but is well above average, especially for a fully-loaded 2-tonne vehicle. Iām mildly embarrassed to say that my previous vehicle was a Land Rover Discovery 4 (in my defence, we really just needed the boot space) which achieved less than 25 miles per gallon of diesel, so would have cost at least twice as much in fuel alone, assuming it had actually managed to complete the trip without breaking down.
COā savings are far more interesting. Using the 2024 average UK grid intensity of 125g COā/kWh, and a pessimistic efficiency figure of 3 miles per kWh (to account for charging losses etc), the trip would have resulted in approximately 76kg of COā emissions. It appears that the old Land Rover emitted closer to 370g per mile (!!!), resulting in an eye-watering total of 675kg, or nearly 9 times worse. In fact, as much of the charging was done in Scotland whose grid power is largely from wind, the grid intensity average is below 50g COā/kWh, meaning the trip may well have been over 20 times less carbon intensive.
Finally, itās worth pointing out that we probably only spent about 15 minutes or so actually charging as an activity in itself (in other words, sitting in the car, waiting for it to charge). This only happened when we completed our grocery shop more quickly than expected and had a long trip planned the next day. In all other instances, the car was charging while we were doing something that we wouldāve been doing anyway: getting coffee or using the facilities at a service station, buying groceries, or wandering around towns or villages. Only minimal planning was required and on previous trips to the Highlands Iāve felt more anxiety about where Iād find a petrol station than a rapid charger.
Credit: Jamie Matthews"
Now the report, very factual and informative.
(Edit to add, the car used for the trip was Tesla YLR)
"Iāve just completed my longest EV family roadtrip yet, and I thought Iād compile some real-world statistics which some may find as interesting as I do.
Over the past 9 days we covered 1825.4 miles, from East Sussex (the south-east corner of England) to Fort William (in the north-west of Scotland) and back. This included two stops with family in the Merseyside area to break up the journey, as well as several long and mountainous day excursions through the Scottish highlands including trips to the Cairngorms, Loch Ness and the Isle of Skye, and the return journey via Loch Awe and Inveraray. Passengers were myself (40/m, always thought I was UK12 but turns out Iām actually UK11), my wife and nearly-6-year-old daughter. We do not travel light, and every cubic centimetre of the more than 900 litres of luggage space in the boot and froot, as well as most of the back seat, was packed with doubtless essential miscellaneous stuff.
The first thing to say is that for standard day-to-day driving, I charge at home for 7p per kWh, and the car does somewhere around 3.5 miles per kWh, so the fuel costs are usually approximately 2p per mile.
For a longer trip public rapid charging is necessary. We mainly used Tesla Superchargers, with only a few exceptions. The total cost of public charging for the whole trip was Ā£245.33. This works out at just over 13.4p per mile. To achieve the equivalent price in a petrol car at the current average UK price of Ā£1.36 per litre, I would need to maintain an average efficiency of 46 miles per gallon for the entire trip. This is by no means impossible, but is well above average, especially for a fully-loaded 2-tonne vehicle. Iām mildly embarrassed to say that my previous vehicle was a Land Rover Discovery 4 (in my defence, we really just needed the boot space) which achieved less than 25 miles per gallon of diesel, so would have cost at least twice as much in fuel alone, assuming it had actually managed to complete the trip without breaking down.
COā savings are far more interesting. Using the 2024 average UK grid intensity of 125g COā/kWh, and a pessimistic efficiency figure of 3 miles per kWh (to account for charging losses etc), the trip would have resulted in approximately 76kg of COā emissions. It appears that the old Land Rover emitted closer to 370g per mile (!!!), resulting in an eye-watering total of 675kg, or nearly 9 times worse. In fact, as much of the charging was done in Scotland whose grid power is largely from wind, the grid intensity average is below 50g COā/kWh, meaning the trip may well have been over 20 times less carbon intensive.
Finally, itās worth pointing out that we probably only spent about 15 minutes or so actually charging as an activity in itself (in other words, sitting in the car, waiting for it to charge). This only happened when we completed our grocery shop more quickly than expected and had a long trip planned the next day. In all other instances, the car was charging while we were doing something that we wouldāve been doing anyway: getting coffee or using the facilities at a service station, buying groceries, or wandering around towns or villages. Only minimal planning was required and on previous trips to the Highlands Iāve felt more anxiety about where Iād find a petrol station than a rapid charger.
Credit: Jamie Matthews"
