I'm not sure why, but I'd always wanted to go electric.

Like most blokes, I've always loved cars. So much so that I even decided to become a racing driver last year at the age of 52, getting my racing license and completing my rookie season with a respectable 25th out of 51 entrants in the 2023 Nankang City Car Cup Challenge.

But that's a story for another day.

The truth is that until a few years ago I hadn't been able to afford the luxury of an electric vehicle. Well, at least not one that I actually wanted anyway. But as my situation changed in 2020 onwards, it finally became a serious consideration.

Of course, the fact that the UK government had introduced an incentive scheme (whereby if you bought a brand new electric vehicle through your company, you could, in simple terms, offset the entire cost against tax in the first year) may also have been an influence.

Having both a company and some profits I'd rather not hand over tax for at that time, I decided that this was the moment. But where to start?

Buying our electric car

My view was that if we were going to do it, we may as well do it properly. That meant I only wanted to consider mid range or higher family sized cars with a long range. After all, there were four of us and we do a lot of 'stuff' so practicality was important. Since we'd also have to buy it outright and not lease it to qualify for the tax break, I wanted something we really liked.

I'd never owned a brand new car of any type before, let alone electric, so the whole experience was going to be very different from the usual second hand car lots I'd visited over the years, some of which had been distinctly dodgy.

I remember, for example, seeing the very salesman who had sold me a used car just a few months before on "Can't Pay, We'll Take it Away" (a program about about UK bailiffs in action) to pay a stiff penalty for ripping someone off and refusing to reimburse them. Needless to say, he did in the end.

We spent serious time checking out the market and discounted quickly the Ioniq 5 (nice, but strangely small inside), all Teslas (never really liked them, not sure why) The Jaguar I-Pace (nice, but complete overkill) and a few others.

We ended up with a shortlist of just two cars — the Mercedes EQB (or C) and the Audi E-Tron.

The Mercedes is another car that seems smaller on the inside than it should be given its footprint, but it was my favourite as I'd been a Mercedes owner consistently since the mid nineties and was still brand loyal.

However, our experience at the Mercedes garage in Bracknell left a lot to be desired and, for the first time, I wondered if the badge had lost its way. They were polite enough, but not exactly helpful, and the follow up call with the details I requested never came.

When I chased a week or so later, I got an apology and a promise of a quick call back. That was almost three years ago and still nothing.

But if Mercedes didn't want our business, Audi definitely did. They couldn't do enough for us and looked after us like royalty. We test drove the E-tron for a full day and loved it immediately. Well, all except the range (a mere 200ish miles) and the price (a not so mere £70,000 starting price).

Being too expensive and having now discounted most other cars available, I was wondering if this was ever going to happen, until I came out of my local grocery store one day and saw …. it.

It was beautiful looking machine. Sleek, stylish and very, very cool in the black I'd seen it in. I couldn't work out what it was at first as this particular car had been de-badged, but later found out it was a Kia.

Boy, was I disappointed.

Because they're rubbish, obviously.

I can't be seen driving round in a Kia. Do they know who I am? I drive Mercedes!

Yet Mercedes had also been entirely uninterested in a customer of 30 years wanting to buy a new car from them, so maybe it was, after all, time to change. And anyway, I could always get it de-badged like that other guy in the store car park.

Strangely, and completely independently, my other half and my kids had spotted the very same car in another area that very same day and also thought it looked fantastic. Maybe there was something here we'd have to check out properly after all.

A quick search revealed that this car, the EV6, had won car of the year 2022. It had a good range (312 miles) and was 'only' £50,000. Well, if you could get one that is. A further search revealed that only 3 were available in the country at the time and all of them some £10,000 over the asking price due to the demand. There was no way I was getting one anytime soon.

In the end, we headed down to the local dealership in Reading for a test drive. Put simply, it was fantastic. Fast, solid, great to drive, ridiculously roomy and full of gadgets.

We were sold and put a deposit down on a brand new top of the line black GT Line S with every possible add on available there and then, including heat pump (essential if you're buying an electric car in my view) Heads Up Display, sunroof, heated AND cooled seats (I'd never seen that before) and even a standard 3 pin socket from which you could, if you really wanted to, power your house.

And we only had to wait 18 months.

Wait, what?

We had no choice if we wanted one, but there was one final twist; a few months into the waiting time I got a call from the Kia salesman. Another EV6 had come up that had been ordered, but then cancelled, by a customer. It was lower spec, but we could have it the same day.

As my existing car had just failed its MOT it was a no brainer, so we took it. Then, eight months later, the one we ordered came in and we took that too since it was now in a different tax year and we could claim the same tax break again.

Now, we had no second petrol car. We were ALL electric and about to find out what this really meant.

Charging at home

The first problem to solve was home charging. As a 'temporary' measure I hooked up the trickle charger to an inside standard plug, fed it through a downstairs window and out on to the drive where it was possible to park both cars. Then, we simply swapped the charger between cars.

Of course, this is very slow, but we soon learned that we could swap the cars over as we needed them, leaving the other one to charge.

Later, I changed our tariff from our electricity supplier for super cheap overnight electricity and ran a second cable to charge both cars automatically at the appropriate time for around 2 pence a mile. It actually worked and we only needed to use public chargers when we were on very long journeys, but more on that part later.

I found a local electrician who would install a proper home charging unit, but as soon as he arrived he made it clear it wasn't possible in our house. It seemed the main power cable into the property had been daisy chained around the small estate we lived on — a common practice some 40 years ago — and it was illegal to do so.

Fortunately, it was the power supplier's responsibility to sort out, and they eventually came and dug up our drive to put in a new cable. The whole process took several months, but they did a good job and I even received a few hundred pounds in compensation for the hassle.

The only trouble was, by the time it was done, I had made my temporary fix into a 'semi-permanent' fix by fitting a proper external double plug on the outside wall and running both trickle cables from it on a timer controlled by the cars themselves.

We realised we simply didn't need anything more and even now, well over a year and a combined 25,000 miles later, we still haven't had a situation where a more powerful unit has been required. The cars simply charge overnight between 12am and 7pm (the off peak hours) and, since most days we do less than 40 miles, this is perfectly adequate to maintain the recommended 80% battery level.

This process is, of course, not recommended by the manufacturers, but I'm not entirely sure why. Our red EV6 recently had it's first 20,000 mile service after just 14 months and its battery report came back as 100% perfect. In fact, although the range is supposed to be only 312 miles, we routinely get much higher on the rare occasions we charge to 100%.

Take a look at this screenshot from last year. And yes, it was real, useable, range.

So, whether we've been lucky or the way we use the car and charge it, we always get more than the supposed top range of the vehicle.

Interestingly, we haven't seen the same thing with the black EV6 which has NEVER reached it's maximum range regardless of how it's charged or what the weather is like (very hot or very cold affects power delivery and storage negatively, around 18 — 23 degrees often increases it) so go figure.

Because we can't.

Day to day use

Using an electric car for day to day mundane or local trips of anything up to a 130 mile radius (allowing for ample power to return) is pretty much the same as using a petrol car.

Except, of course, it's super quiet and much quicker than most petrol cars. Instant torque does take some getting use to.

Most electric cars come with several driving modes — usually Eco, Normal and Sport — and the EV6 is no exception.

The sport mode is ridiculous and, to be honest, you rarely use it aside from showing off to that inevitable mate we all have who wants to see how fast it goes. Most of the time it sits in 'Eco' which keeps the range to maximum, but is plenty fast enough for most applications anyway.

We also keep the recharge setting on maximum so there's full resistance when slowing down. It took us a while to get used to it, but it's worth doing as it converts the kinetic energy of slowing the car into electric energy that goes back into the battery.

It also means you rarely use the brakes and our service report showed that after 20,000 miles, they'd barely been worn in. And yes, the brake lights still come on whether you use brakes or not which is something we did wonder ourselves.

The car is considerably heavier than petrol ones due to the batteries, but there's never been a situation where this has been a problem to date, so I'm not sure this is a real consideration in practice.

And because it has every gadget under the sun and an app to control it, you see where it is, set the temperature remotely or on a timer (lovely to get into a nice warm car when it's freezing outside or vice versa) and even move it out of a tight parking space from outside the car.

The EV6 app is notoriously poor, however, and is one of the very few things that let it down. I have no doubt that others would be better based on the simple premise that it couldn't be much worse.

Finally, the one real difference that really takes a while before you realize it is that you are no longer visiting petrol stations. We used to go at least twice a week and suddenly we just … weren't.

Being a sucker for Wild Bean coffee served at BP petrol stations in the UK, this had another unexpected benefit — a saving of around £8 a week in coffees that we never even noticed. That's now well over £600 that we absolutely, categorically would have spent if we'd continued, let alone the odd chocolate bar or 'quick snack' and the associated queuing time.

We didn't see THAT one coming.

Long journeys and charging

Its only on long journeys (say over 200 miles) where the difference in driving becomes apparent.

Even just two years ago in 2022, the charging infrastructure was haphazard at best and so-called range anxiety was a real factor. Yes, there were many chargers about even then, but they were often out of use, in use or too slow to be of any benefit.

But even so, we only had one situation where we were seriously worried.

While I was racing, we travelled as a family to each three day event, some of them the other side of the country. In one location somewhere near the Snetterton race track, we were staying at a place with the rest of the team and agreed to meet later on for a very nice meal at a very nice restaurant before the next day's qualifying event.

On the way, we needed to charge the car as we had only 10% battery power left and, since, it's not advisable to go below this level, we agreed to meet them there. We drove to the nearest charger only to find it was out of order. So, now with just a few miles of range, we had to find another, which we did using ZapMap.

This was a slow 7 Kw charger, but by then we were desperate, so we drove to this small, deserted car park, now in the dark, and tried to connect. After 20 minutes it was clear that it wasn't going to work, so a third alternative had to be found. It was large station with several superchargers right on the limit of our remaining charge.

In silence, we drove there, all eyes on the battery warning messages, finally arriving with just 3 miles left in the power bank. It was modern, well lit and obviously operational so, relieved, we plugged in with great expectations.

And this is where the next problem with public charging kicks in.

Imagine every time you fill with petrol you had to download an app on your phone, install it, set it up, add credit card details and agree a pre-authorization charge of around £30 (which doesn't always come back by the way) before you could start filling up. Well, for some reason, that's what almost all charger operators want you to do.

And it is INFURIATING.

They rarely work, are a real hassle and often won't connect properly to the device you're using, resulting in a little dance of plugging in, unplugging, resetting and plugging back in again, sometimes multiple times and always with plenty of colourful language, especially in the rain.

This particular evening was no different. After another 20 or so minutes of fighting with the app, I had to call customer support (something I've had to do several times before) while my anxious and increasingly hungry family watched me fill the air with expletives and hand gestures.

"Oh" said the operator "are you using the app?"

"Of course I'm using the app" I hissed through gritted teeth "I just downloaded it and entered all my details as per the instructions"

"That explains it" said the bored operator "the app doesn't work very well. Just use the web site instead."

I kid you not.

Another ten or so minutes later with the operator still on the phone, we finally managed to start charging, a mere two hours after we set out to do so and now far, far too late to get to the meal we'd booked with the others.

Fortunately, it was a super charger and the EV6 can fill to 80% charge in just 18 minutes, so, while it was doing so, we walked across the road for our own evening meal.

At the local McDonalds.

The rate of expansion in the last year or so, however, has been incredible. The arrival of dedicated supercharging stations, multiple installations and mass upgrades mean that public charging has, finally, got the point where we no longer worry about charging at all.

Even better, more and more chargers now accept a simple tap of debit card to activate charging instead of the dreaded apps, although the latter sometimes give you better prices.

Public charging is NOT cheap however, and using them consistently will mean you're paying around the same as you would for a petrol car, so home charging, especially on a low overnight tariff, is infinitely preferable.

Saving money?

You can definitely save money, even quite significant money, by going electric, but you need to do it correctly.

First, as mentioned above, you need to charge at home on a reduced tariff as much as possible to maximize those savings. We estimate to have saved over £2000 in our first year alone in fuel charges as we did a lot of mileage in that year. That's just the savings, ie with the power costs deducted.

Update: Recently I did a deeper dive into actual driving costs over 10,000 miles using maths and real world data, the results are pretty interesting. Here are the results:

Second, the incidentals no longer purchased at petrol stations are very real for some people, ourselves included. In our case, it was around £600 in the first year and we didn't miss any of it. It was almost certainly more habit than desire.

Third, there is still no road tax on electric cars, so the two cars saved us around £600 a year in these fees compared to what we were paying before.

Fourth, since these are new vehicles, there are no MOT charges for three years, saving us £270 over that period.

Fifth, servicing requirements are much lower in electric cars since there are no complicated engines or gearboxes to look after. Services are due only every 20,000 miles or 2 years which means you only need five services in a decade. Because these cars came with two full free services as part of the deal anyway, we'll save around £1500 over that period. Further, everything except windscreen wipers, tyres, windscreens, brake pads and brake discs is covered by warranty for seven years, batteries for up to 100,000 miles, so we have peace of mind.

Finally, in our case (and without revealing exact numbers), we saved well over £10,000 in tax for both tax years for each car. That's money that we would have had to have handed over anyway, so the fact that it paid for a good portion of a car that we can keep is good to know. Sadly, this benefit ends in 2025, so if you're going to do it, now is the time!

In total, in our particular case, we will save around £30,000 in one off and ongoing costs, in the first three years of owning these two cars, which is not insignificant.

That said, these are not cheap vehicles and having two cars that cost over £110,000 in total, paid over three years at 4.9% finance (the interest, of course, is also tax deductible through a company) is not something that's available everyone.

Hell, it took me until my 50's before I could do it, despite wanting to for years.

I haven't factored in savings from ULEZ or congestion zones as we don't use these very often anyway, but I'm sure for some people this will be a significant saving.

The final verdict

If you've read this far, you're almost certainly interested in acquiring an electric vehicle, so what's the bottom line?

Well, most, if not all, of your fears are largely unfounded, especially if you are able to buy new and have peace of mind, although this comes at a disadvantage of high depreciation.

There's no doubt that the EV6 is superbly designed and still today, with 22,000 miles on the clock (on the red one), drives as tightly as it is did at 2 miles. These cars feel like they will run forever with no signs of battery degradation or other issues.

The red car even still has its original tyres, although they will need replacing late this year, allaying another of my fears — do electric cars burn through tyres more quickly due to the weight?

Apparently not.

The issues with public charging have largely gone away (although app issues persist in some cases) but savings will be reduced if you can't charge at home or have an expensive tariff. If you have access to solar power or other renewable energy, you'll be even better off.

But honestly, we don't even think about charging anymore. Not for a second.

So it comes down to driving choice and budget. Electric cars are still expensive and the technology is changing all the time. Will a car you buy today be obsolete in five years? It's possible, but I don't think so.

In the end, like everything in life, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

And no, in case you're wondering, I won't be getting my Kias de-badged.

I'm a Kia driver and damn proud of it.

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