it's the economy, stupid

mk-northampton = 70miles per day at 50mpg diesel... x5 days a week

wondering whether there is money to be saved, fun to be had and pleasure to be gained?

no tax, no parking charges and no fuel sounds like good reasons to switch but i'd still need rental for longer trips and a bigger car

... oh and saving the planet of course can't be a bad thing (if only the lecky didn't come from dirty coal power stations)

 

... oh and saving the planet of course can't be a bad thing (if only the lecky didn't come from dirty coal power stations)

Change your supplier, then you can feel even more smug.

 

Hi Abi. The one I just switched to due to house move is putting up prices by 9%! I wish I could switch.

We were with Ovo Energy (not Ovaltine, no) and had mix of renewables and non-renewables. With SSE we didn't appear to have any choice.

 

I just changed our supplier to Ecotricity who provide only "green" energy and also supply the brilliant "electric highway" charging on UK arterial routes. Shame some of that "green" energy has to be imported, but shows it CAN be done. There's also "Good Energy", who I probably would have used had it not been for the Electric Highway being something I'd like to feel I'm contributing to in a small way as a customer.

 

There's also "Good Energy", who I probably would have used had it not been for the Electric Highway being something I'd like to feel I'm contributing to in a small way as a customer.

Don't forget that Good Energy are very supportive of EV's being actively involved in the National Trust ZeroNet charging deployments and with the new relationship with BMW

 

Bumped this up as we have so many new contributors who may have a different opinion to those already submitted. I'd love to hear what steered you all to EVs.

 

So, I had a 14yr old petrol galaxy that cost £280 per month to keep on the road, not including MOT.

I am 60% financial as this car is not costing much more than a petrol car and 40% tree hugger, need to sort out our craving for fossil fuel. I enjoy gardening, chicken keeping, sustainable living so having an electric car was a natural step for me.

Only had my leaf 16 hours but I love it, the weirdness of the silence is amazing, my 17yr old son doesn't get it, he went back to look at petrol fiestas to have when he passes his test, then kept asking questions so you can tell it's got his interest in electric cars!!!

 

Initial reasons where to get away from fossil fuels, combined with the fact it costs pennies to run. But after 24 hr test drive the grin factor was a bonus!

 

I think @Kevin Sharpe is absolutely right to mention Good Energy. We all know that Ecotricity is creating the Electric Highway and I openly declare my support for them and Ecotricity in general having my home supply with them. But let's not forget that Good Energy is perhaps the only other electricity company that 100% supports renewables and now they are also getting involved with EVs as Kevin said.

When new EV owners are considering which electricity company to use the obvious one might be Ecotricity because of the Highway but Good Energy would also be a good choice if that is more to your liking

 

I had been looking at electric cars for a long while, but my wife is the main user during the week for work, so she had the last say. Although 80% of the journeys she makes are under about 35 miles the other 20% were the problem, as she can have days where she has to travel up to 200 miles and her parents live even further. Last year the cost of running our Merk estate got to be more than her milage allowance so she finally agreed to look for a cheaper to run car. We test drove the new Audi A3 ('its a car" she says) and were on the way to test the new A class via a Chevy Volt. We never got to Mercedes……….
The smile on her face as we silently pulled away, the no brake driving, the instant power, infact just about everything. It is the first car that she has ever been excited about and is now saving us a fortune. So although we started off buying for cost and environmental reasons the next car will be an EV bought for pure driving pleasure.
If you are thinking about going EV and are worried about range then think about a Volt or Ampera (or one of the other plug in extended range cars) once you have driven electric everything else feels so old fashion.

 

Live in the far north of Scotland mainly doing short trips and when I needed to fill up with petrol/diesel had a 40 mile round trip to buy at a reasonable price (which was still several pence above prices down south). I preferred the Erev as the range isn't practical up here on pure electric with virtually no charging points so I went for the Chevy Volt. Think its brilliant.

 

I went for the Ampera, Vauxhall fan for a long time, ever since my second car in 1979. I can do a fair mileage each year, last car covered 240k in just over 8 years. Even excluding my commute of just over 100 miles round trip a lot of my visits to family and friends is anything between 55 and 105 miles round trip and no charging facilities at over half of them so I needed a compromise and the Ampera/Volt fitted my needs the best. Like Mick not the best coverage of charging stations up here with none out of town on main routes.

 

I had driven a Vauxhall Insignia Elite Automatic for 5 years and was looking to replace at 6. I was driven out to Sunday Lunch in an Ampera and was immediately struck by its technology, smoothness, quietness and potential reduced driving cost, without any reduction in general ride comfort. From then on I was hooked, and immediately placed an order even though I was dubious about the 4 seat restriction and reduced boot space. The latter two items have proved not ideal for me, but the joy of driving the car, even in ICE mode, more than makes up for it.

 

Yeah, yeah all of that, but what about the Ampera sound system ??!!

Best car stereo I've heard in fact. Or maybe previous stereos have been good but just drowned out by the diesel drone ?

Its great I've been able to rationalise this choice using the financial and environmental arguments !

 

Can't say it was any of those reason in particular that drove (sorry) us to get the Zoe - mainly it was just because we need a small auto hatchback, but due to mainly being short journeys all ICE cars are very inefficient. We're not particularly bothered about the environment but getting 24mpg at best always seemed silly, especially as this was only a 1.4 Fiesta, not a Jaaaaaaag or anything... Having had a test drive, though, the instant torque (great for roundabouts) helped, as did the wife's realisation that EV meant no more petrol stations...

We're now replacing the Zoe with an i3, and I can tell you the reasons for that:
1) Performance is even better than the Zoe
2) Spec is way, way better than the Zoe (and the Zoe spec is pretty good)
3) We've specced the REx option - there are maybe two journeys that would be annoying with the Zoe, but painless with the i3 REx.
4) It means we don't have to deal with Renault any more (that's actually the main reason, but not relevant to this discussion)

 

We're now replacing the Zoe with an i3, and I can tell you the reasons for that...

Wow - I'm getting a bit of a "tried a Zoe and it didn't work" vibe at the moment. I wonder how representative this is!

 

I'm probably an extreme case - I think the Zoe is a fine car, I really enjoy driving it, it does everything we hoped it would, and if anything has exceeded our expectations. We don't have an issue with the battery lease either, since it is less than we were spending on fuel. As far as I'm concerned, I "tried a Zoe and it totally works".

My issue is purely with Renault themselves; if I'd had no cause to be in contact with them after taking delivery of the car then I would happily be keeping it. However, the post-sales issues I've had, not to mention the various warranty-related issues, have all been handled so badly that I want nothing more to do with Renault. I'd even write off the brake failure (!) as the sort of thing could happen to any car, if it weren't for the way in which it was "dealt with".

I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I can move on; were it not for that, I'd stick with the Zoe and just hope I never had to speak to Renault again.

 

I just wanted the magic of an ev. I wanted to be part of making the Leaf succeed by owning one.
I would love to also own an i3 (without REX) because it also deserves to succeed, even if it is pricey.
Which leaves me annoyed at VW and their E-UP because it does not deserve to sell at that silly price. Had the E-UP come out at the same time as the Leaf then that’s a different story but three years later, get real Volkswagen.
The Zoe deserves to succeed but should be offered for purchase outright and it would have been good to bring that option in when Nissan gave us Flex to consider. Or as in my case, to dismiss.

 

My main reason was to do with air quality. We consistently have readings in the town centre which breach EU guidelines. I'm working with the local authority on potential solutions so I felt I should walk the walk (or drive the drive...). I also wanted to demonstrate that this is a perfectly sensible, achievable, positive thing to do. It's just such an elegant solution to the conundrum of wanting a car but not wanting to pollute the air while I drive.

And I love that I can recharge using electricity from our solar PV. Even more elegant.

 

ditto ICE" fumes are bad for everyones's health http://t.co/UTvyK19cKB

 

It's often not mentioned, but I get the impression a lot of us here love cars and driving... the best thing to do is stop, but an EV is a fun "second best" I think, in today's world anyway.

 

This is impressive and has too many interesting snippets to pull them all out and comment here, thought it was relevant to the initial question though!

Source: https://energycenter.org/article/ca-pev-owners-report-varying-motivations-models-purchased

Via: http://insideevs.com/infographic-what-drives-californias-plug-in-electric-vehicle-owners/

 

I haven't got one, do want one, but can't charge anywhere locally, so who knows when I'll get one.

Don't know what sort of dwelling you're in, but if its a house, why not get a free charger through the OLEV scheme then you can charge at home?

 

For me it is the technological simplicity of the electric power train and its performances. And because it is so efficient, it has low running costs.

I am not sure getting another car on the road is doing more good to the planet than keeping my current one going so I didn't pick that.

I just wish the manufacturers tried less to make their EV look futuristic and instead compensated for the range limitation by trying to make them more fun and/or more practical in a leisure kind of way. It'd be an easier sell to the boss for me.

 

One reason for me was economy expecting fuel prices to go up. This has not happened so far and they have just gone down again. To make it worse electricity prices have risen ( not to mention chargemaster). I live in anticipation for the tide to turn.

 

I voted "environmental reasons" but technological curiousity also played a pretty big part. I've always had a fascination with EVs; a teacher at school converted a Renault 19 into a lead-acid powered commuter and I used to be a lurker on an EV newsgroup (back in Ye Olde Days of the internet). I remember the phrase "EV grin".

Also, memories of the 2000 fuel strike made the resilience of an alternative power source appeal to me. Shame my location (listed building, too many trees) means solar PV is proving a bit tricky to implement.

As a hard over environmentalist, owning any car is a bit hard to justify but seeing as my employer pays for me to have one (but never makes me use it!), I thought an EV would be the least efficient means of polar bear slaughter. And, as someone who more frequents the streets on foot or by bike, setting a clean air example is no bad thing.

 

I had owned a Mark 1 Prius for 8 years and that, although the most reliable car I have owned (I've been a car owner since 1976), was getting to the stage when I thought it was going to be a liability. I read a bit about the Nissan Leaf an the emerging Electric Highway and decided to take the plunge. Given that I paid cash for the car, the initial motive was getting a return: there's next to no interest to be had these days, but as a long-standing member of FoE I am very aware of the environmental implications. A good pal of mine, also an FoE member, had one of the old Peugeot electric cars some years ago and he had no end of trouble with it, when Peugeot stopped supporting the batteries and the only place he could get it serviced was outside its 50ish mile range.

I have had the car almost 3 weeks and last week I had a bit of a nightmare with the charge network going down around my ears (Thurrock Services and both sides of the Medway services broke, even though I had used one only 12 hours previously and the other only 90 minutes previously). Despite that, I am really enjoying owning the car (my normal means of transport is my bike, which I've had 7 years and which is now approaching 30,000 miles). Normally I hate driving, but Leaf driving is very like cycling: you are using a network of roads which isn't really fit for purpose and you have to think about what you are doing in order to make it work.

 

We very much wanted a more environmentally friendly transport solution. We drive 21K miles a year and have always been a single car household. Car choice was driven by the wish to visit our cottage in the west of Ireland six times a year. This, however meant firing up our 2000cc diesel for about 10K of short journeys.
The Leaf was our planet and wallet friendly solution. What we didn't realise was how much we would love driving it!

 

Don't know what sort of dwelling you're in, but if its a house, why not get a free charger through the OLEV scheme then you can charge at home?

You can't get one fitted unless you have off-road parking. I'd get one fitted at my daughter's place otherwise, as she lives in a terraced house. However, it is possible for people who don't have off-street parking to apply for a public on-street charging point to be installed in their road. I was reading some government documents about this the other day. You have to say that you own, or are intending to own, an EV.