If you’ve been considering a move away from petrol or diesel, the first thing on your mind may well be how much it costs to charge an electric car.
It’s a great question to ask because this is where you make your money back. For example, an entry-level petrol Vauxhall Corsa is around £20,000 in cash. Whereas an electric Vauxhall Corsa is more like £30,000.
That £10,000 difference seems like it’d be hard to make sense of financially. But the good news is that if you plan charging ahead of time, and before you buy your car, there are huge savings to be made.
Even amid the cost of living crisis and varying energy rates, charging an electric car at home is usually much, much cheaper than filling a petrol or diesel car.
Especially when you can top up overnight, when electricity is at its cheapest.
However, the gap between EV and internal-combustion running costs narrows if you need to rely on the public charging infrastructure. For instance, using a public charger you’ll pay 20% VAT compared with the 5% for people using domestic electricity – and that’s before you factor in the additional cost of using a high-power DC rapid charger. Indeed, filling up using these points can cost almost as much as brimming the tank of an equivalent petrol car.
Of course, there are cheaper options, but they’re not as quick and usually not as conveniently located.
How much will it cost to charge my car at home?
The vast majority of electric car drivers charge at home where it’s not only cheaper, but also far more convenient, as it allows you to start the day with a full battery. Obviously, this depends on the car you’re charging and your electricity supplier’s tariff, but even with the recent hikes in electricity prices, you will still be saving cash on every refill compared with a traditional petrol or diesel car.
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That £10K difference is roughly the cost of petrol to drive 60,000 miles. Add the extra depriciation and your up to the cost of petrol to drive 90,000 miles. Extra insurance costs, maybe a bit less on servicing. Put £10k in a savings acoount an that will earn you about £400 per year after tax.
Add the cost of electric charging and you probably have to do well over 150,000 miles to break even.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
I'd add to my last post that I passed a Reg Vardy garage today with ORA's being displayed at the entrance with large stickers showing special offers. It reminded me when I sold my old car to Vardy back in August, that garage too had Ora's outside. I asked the sales guy what the cars were like, not that I was interested in buying one, and he said they can't shift them. Apparently Vardy regret taking on the franchise. He said it's hard shifting any used EV's. Aparently the prices of higher end EV Audi's were dropping like bricks. I think the top 10 highest depreciating cars in the UK were all EV's.
Not according to What Car 2023, 7 in the bottom 10 were EV's and not a single Audi BEV was in the list.
Not sure when the article was written but at current prices, the majority of public chargers work out more expensive than petrol so unless you have home use, the car will cost you £10k and then some!
And lets address the elephant in the room, that £10k difference. Not withstanding some EV's depreciating at eye-watering levels, even if they were depreciating at the same rate, an EV would loose more money. If a £30k petrol car looses 50% after 3yr, it's worth £15k. If a £40k EV looses 50% after 3yr it's worth £20k. There's £5k in depreciation alone you have to claw back.
And then there's the insurance... and EV costs more to insure. You'd have to be doing HUGE mileages to claw back the extra outlay.
Has anyone actually done the sums or are they selective in which figures they chose to ignore to convince themselves EV is cheaper?