Help me get excited by EVs and Hybrids - Man maths

[Fiisch]

Background
I am a big petrolhead that has some how manoeuvred themselves into a world of dreary car ownership. Mid 30s, married, two young kids, and live in a rural area where two cars is essential, however over the course of lockdown we've consolidated down to one car - a BMW X3 m40d, which is now exactly halfway through a 4 year PCP paying around £550/month.

My wife has recently started working again (40 mile round commute), and at some point I will return to the office one day a week (100 - 150 mile round trip) so we will need a second car at some point over the next 6 months. She's currently commuting in the X3, leaving me carless and stranded with the children on weekends, and I reckon at 20p/mile diesel it costs around £8 per round trip.

I started my search looking at cheap runarounds, but the thought of having an SUV and a frugal runaround is truly depressing me! I cannot justify a third weekend car as I just won't get time to use it (have been down that road already, and the car ended up sitting in the garage gathering dust).

Man Maths
Man maths has led me from looking at £2k runarounds up to £40k EVs/hybrids on lease/PCP - my thought process is to get a long-term replacement for the X3, a family car - SUV/Estate/Saloon - to do the bulk of our mileage (12-15k/year), which then frees up the X3 to be replaced next year with a hot hatch to do about 3k miles a year (eyes on the 2022 Subaru WRX STI / Honda Civic Type R).

Nearly all of our journeys are >200 miles - Mother-in-law is 111 miles away, so on the brink for typical EV range.

Running Costs
How much does it cost to charge an EV at home? I understand we'll need a charging point installed (£500-1000), and obvious our electric bill will increase. We currently pay £70 combined for gas/electric in a detached family house, helped by the fact we have solar panels. If we were charging an EV exclusively at home to do 15k a year, what could I expect that to increase by? How much does it cost to "fill up" an EV when out and about?

Hybrid vs EV; What Car?
For this to work, and free up enough funds to get my toy next year, I think I'm looking at a max budget of £400/month with 6 months down. This seems to rule out the "luxury EV" segment, and leads me to looking at Skoda Enyaq and Peugeot 508 hybrid. Any other family-sized EVs/hybrids worth considering in and around this budget?

[samoht]

Fiisch said:

Running Costs
How much does it cost to charge an EV at home? I understand we'll need a charging point installed (£500-1000), and obvious our electric bill will increase. We currently pay £70 combined for gas/electric in a detached family house, helped by the fact we have solar panels. If we were charging an EV exclusively at home to do 15k a year, what could I expect that to increase by? How much does it cost to "fill up" an EV when out and about?

The average UK electricity rate is about 17p per kWh (kilowatt hour, unit of energy).
https://www.energyswitching.co.uk/uk-electricity-p...

A Kia eNiro has a 64 kWh battery, so 17p x 64 = £10.88 for a full "tank" (plus a bit for losses, but not much).
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/kia/e-niro/mp...
on that full charge it'll travel about 230 miles on the motorway according to the above Autocar write-up, so a bit more than half a typical petrol car range. So it's maybe roughly like paying £20 for a full tank for a petrol car.

Charging costs vary but could be about double the home rate. Most people do most of their miles in fairly short trips from home, so pay the domestic rate for the majority of their energy. If you're someone who's going to pound the motorways and rack up big mileages, you should consider finding an early Tesla Model S with the hat trick of long range, plentiful chargers and the very manageable charging rate of zero pence per kWh.


If you need to do a 222 mile round trip without charging at the other end, you need to seek out a long range EV - most of them don't have the range to reliably do that at 70-80mph, in the winter, with a headwind etc.

[Chivs]

Most EV owners use an EV specific electricity tariff such as Octopus GO. This is still only around 15p per kW, but has 4 hours at only 5p overnight, so you set the charge timer to only top up during that time and the costs are far lower. I've seen people quote 1p per mile. Or in the example above it is more like £6 for the half tank of petrol.

This is what I've done for the last 4 years (plus free road tax, free parking etc).

Edited by Chivs on Sunday 22 August 22:07

[jonny996]

I was in roughly same boat as you but nearing end of our lease.
I done the maths & although I already had the second car I figured out that for the cost of any replacement lease could get us 2 decent cars.
I opted for a really nice 28K mile Lexus RX450 hybrid & a sorted Porsche 911/996 that doubles up as the second car with seats suitable for children in the rear , in total the two cars cost me £32500, which I’m guessing is not that much more than what you will have paid for your PCP

[Theoldguard]

I have been very impressed with our EV, it can realistically achieve 275 miles from a full charge. After 4 months of ownership we have found it to be perfect as most of our journeys are 50 mile round trip commutes or weekend 100 mile round trips.

We did a 450 mile round trip last month and was surprised how easy it was, just charged it up on the granny charger for 2 nights at our holiday lodge and that got us around cornwall and back home again.

We have a home charger it cost around £600 fitted and using the Octopus EV tariff can charge overnight for 5 hours for 5.5p, it costs under 2p a mile (Sometimes nothing when we leave it charge in Tesco), for us that is a saving of £1300 a year.

I would take a test drive, you will be Impressed with the acceleration and how smooth they are with the automatic set up making the longer journeys and city driving are much easier.

[ZX10R NIN]

With the bulk of your journeys being 200+ miles I'd go for a smart low mileage ULEZ/CAZ compliant SUV which brings these into play & means you have a healthy budget for the second more interesting car:

QX70 GT

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202107074...

Ford Edge 210

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202107014...

Hyundai SantaFe Premium SE

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202107305...

I don't see how man maths make an EV SUV the better proposition at the moment.

If you want an EV go for an early Tesla Model S you also benefit from free charging but range will be tight:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202107064...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202106093...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202108166...