Tower and Town, April 2021

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Owning An Electric Vehicle

Well, no, at this stage of their development I don't want to own an electric vehicle (EV) but I do very much enjoy driving one. They have super acceleration, equalling the best petrol-engined models. They pump out no exhaust. They have far fewer moving parts, need much less maintenance and should last much longer. They're cheaper to insure. And of course their makers, being keen to sell them, pack them with the latest innovations. It all adds up to a noticeably different driving experience.

So if I don't own one but I do drive one, what's the trick? Answer: the PCP - Personal Contract Purchase. It's a bit like leasing, but more flexible. We bought our first Nissan Leaf about two years ago, negotiating a monthly payment with which we felt comfortable and putting down a reasonable deposit. The contract runs for three years, after which you have a choice: you can pay off the rest of the purchase with a hefty lump sum payment; you can hand the car back and wave goodbye; or you can trade the vehicle in for a newer model.

It's that last option which is the deal-maker in the current stage of EV development. At the end of the three-year contract we didn't want to pay out a big final sum for a machine that had been superseded by significant advances in technology. If we were still comfortable with the monthly payment of the previous three years, why not simply switch the old machine for a new one and carry on as before?

In the event, we were contacted by Nissan two years into our three-year contract. Their line was that there was a significant second-hand market opening up for EVs among first-time buyers and please would we trade in our current Leaf for a new one? This was a year earlier than we had expected, but we didn't have to think too hard to realise we were being offered a seriously good deal. We now have a third-generation Leaf with a bigger battery, a considerable increase in range (about 230 miles), and other enhancements. The Kia e-Niro and Hyundai Kona now offer something very close to 300 miles range, with Tesla claiming to cap that and a slew of new models coming down the track very shortly.

So much for the buying experience. What about the driving?

We started out very nervously, afraid even to turn on the heating in case we ran out of power and found ourselves stranded. But confidence grew steadily as we realised that 90% of our driving took us no further than about 30 or 40 miles from home, with no likelihood of the battery going flat during such trips.

We became more adventurous. Could we make it to London and back? How about a trip to see a Shakespeare play in Stratford? Both trips turned out to be easy. Nissan had from the very start subsidised our own charge point installed on the front of the garage. But public charge points are comprehensively mapped on plenty of web sites and phone apps, and indeed within the car itself with its touch-screen console. For London, we stopped at Heston services on the way up for a 40-minute coffee and charge, giving us plenty of power for the rest of the round trip. For Stratford, we saw that there were several public car parks with charge points, and that's what we plugged into while Macbeth murdered Duncan.

Charging is an area that needed some homework. We discovered that there is a number of charge-point networks (Ecotricity's Electric Highway for motorway services, Source London for London, BP Pulse and others for country-wide), and that you need to sign up to these networks and in particular download their apps onto your phone, preferably before you leave home. For our first away-from-home charge at Chieveley services, returning from Heathrow in the dark one evening, we got into a terrible tiz trying to download the app on to our phones, join the necessary network and gain access to power. But we muddled through and made it home, and since then we're cool, sorted, no problem. It remains to be seen how we fare across the Channel, assuming we are ever allowed off this island, but I'm told there is a whole EV world out there, ready and waiting to welcome us. Chance would be a fine thing!

Hugh de Saram

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