Some time ago I wrote about a decision to get an electric car. We've now had that car for almost three years and covered about 27,000 miles. We even bought a second electric car, a Renault Zoe, replacing a Toyota hybrid that was awful.
Here, then, for what it's worth, are my thoughts after being an EV driver for some time.
There are two aspects to this; the car itself and driving electric with all the advantages, disadvantages and challenges that brings.
I'm not a car reviewer. I've owned plenty but I can't comment in detail about handling and dynamics... what I can say is the e-Niro has always been a pleasure to drive. It's comfortable, more than adequately powerful, sufficiently well equipped and an all round decent car.
We have had issues with it. Early on there was a problem with the PTC heater. This meant the heater stopped working accompanied by an alarming message. It took quite a while for the parts to become available and it was a dash out job to fix. We had a courtesy car, no huge deal, but it wasn't great. The dealer was poor at keeping us informed of progress. Still, it got fixed.
There has also been an issue with the parking brake, remedied by replacing the wiring loom for the rear brakes. Again there was a delay in getting the parts that was irritating.
These issues are not enough to put me off the car or the brand. They could have been dealt with better and I believe car manufacturers need to do a better job of holding spare parts for the cars they sell, but I digress.
The acid test for me is: if this car were somehow destroyed would I be happy to spend the insurance payout on another one? Yes, yes I would.
The other, and probably more significant aspect of switching to electric is, well, the switch to electric. I think for most people that's where the concern lies rather than the car itself.
Firstly we've been fortunate that we had and continue to have (we've moved) off-road parking where we can install a 7kW charge point. Charging at home is one of the greatest advantages to driving an EV. You plug the car in and it charges overnight, in the morning you have a full battery and that's that. In reality we don't plug in every night and try to avoid leaving the car with a high or low state of charge for an extended period of time (this is, apparently, less good for the battery's long term health) but with the very minimum of planning we really hardly think about this.
I realise not everybody can charge at home and this can be an problem for some people, though it doesn't mean owning an EV is not possible or even desirable, it's just a consideration we didn't have to worry about.
Where the car does matter is its range. The e-Niro has a nominal WLTP rated range of 280 miles. What's hard to get across to people at first is what the actual range of the car will be. Plenty of folk will tell you that just as petrol cars don't tend to hit the rated MPG, EVs won't actually get the rated range... Only they do, at least ours has.
How you drive, especially how fast you drive and the conditions have a significant impact on how far an EV can go.
What's hard to communicate in simple metrics is the effect of the cold. When an electric car is cold you'll use a bit more energy for heating. The air is denser so there's a bit more drag, which means high speeds will use more energy than in summer. The biggie though is that a cold battery provides less energy.
The capacity rating of an electric car battery will be lower in winter... sort of.... I think.
Anyway, what matters are the numbers. In summer our e-Niro has a range of between 270-320 miles. That's excellent, and... plenty. In winter, with a bit of safety margin, we might say 221 is the furthest we could go. Again, that's really quite a long way.
So range just hasn't been an issue. We've done long journeys, frequently driving between North Yorkshire and Northern Ireland via Scotland. On that run we stop to charge once, on one of the excellent Gridserve rapid chargers on the M6. Whilst it would be a little tight, I reckon the car can do that journey door to door without a charge, but we stop for a break anyway.
This is arguably one of the great sticking points of driving electric. Charging on long journeys. Can it be problematic? Yes, but it isn't always.
The e-Niro can charge at up to 77kW. Like many EV stats this is one to pay attention to. Our car can charge at 77kW but only on a charger capable of delivering that when the battery is the right temperature (in the UK this means it has to be warm enough) and only up to about 60% when the rate drops.
In practice few of the rapid chargers I've ever used can exceed 50kW, often a bit less, so charging our car takes a bit longer than the spec sheet might suggest.
Only once in almost three years has this been a problem... even thing it was just the case that I had to sit for 35 minutes when I'd rather have got on the road. Mostly it's planned around where we're stopping regardless.
There are parts of the UK still referred to as charging deserts. The North York Moors and out to Whitby is a good example... No rapid chargers to be found past Malton until you get to Scarborough. Whitby has nothing. That's not great.
We've also found ourselves having to queue for a charger. It hasn't happened often, but it has happened and meant a journey into Wales, another charging desert at the time, was much longer than we'd planned. That was annoying.
This situation has got better. I've seen a huge roll out of ever more rapid chargers over the last three years because I've been paying attention. There are simply loads of them around and few places where you can't find one within a stones throw, but those places still exist.
I took on this car knowing I'd be driving up and down the country, potentially having to go anywhere in the UK and having to deal with the public charging network. In reality there's been less of that than expected and journeys that exceed the range of the car are relatively rare.
Early on I pushed my luck, and the reliability of the e-Niro's range remaining, known as the Guess-O-Meter to many EV drivers. I'd been working in Flintshire and was returning to York. I'd planned to stop and charge but when I got in the car to head home it indicated I had enough range to make it. I didn't stop, got home with about 8% charge. It was fine.
I'll happily tell anyone who'll listen that our switch to electric has been overwhelmingly positive. I/We would not switch back to a petrol car by choice. The occasion of hiring a van to move house reminded me of the awful, slow, smelly, noisy engine that had a clutch and gear changes and needed stinking and expensive liquid pouring into it.... awful.
I recognise that it isn't an easy move for many people, for a whole host of reasons. I do believe that those who can it work should, and most will wholeheartedly enjoy the change.
