My Tata Vista EV at a public charging point

4) This did have a slight downside when someone tried to steal the cable from the car – luckily the plug is locked into the charging point so they didn’t succeed, but they did damage the charging point so only one of the two in Margaret Street is currently working (it should be repaired within a couple of weeks). I do think they need to find a way of locking the cable into the car when its being charged to limit the risk of this being repeated.

5) The cost equation is interesting. My rough maths says it costs me around 3p a mile around town, in terms of fuel (electricity). Compare that with  a fairly economical conventional car (my diesel Focus does about 9 miles per litre of diesel in town, which equates to just  over 15p a mile). So there is a huge saving. But there needs to be to offset the up front cost of the battery. At my use I’m saving about £1,200 a year in fuel, but the battery cost (£9k ish) will more than outweigh that for the present. If it comes down to £7k which I’m told is possible and a time expired battery (4 years) can be resold (it still has 80% of its charge capacity at this point and might be useful as a source of temporary back up electricity supply) for say £3k, you are getting to a point where the economics works, at my level of use. In case you are wondering, I also pay a monthly hire charge during the trial, which, taking into account a saving in wear and tear on my old car, probably leaves me about equal on the deal.

5) A big benefit of the car, especially using it around town as I do, is the environmental benefit of being zero emission. This weekend we are being asked to only drive if really necessary due to smog caused by the still and warm weather. Not that this stops many people driving, and as a result the smog is a major health hazard. I, however can feel relatively guilt free about driving as my car produces no emissions (directly), and the difference is significantly marked when set against a diesel car, which while generally producing less CO2, also tend to have much higher levels of particulates in their emissions which make the smog much worse. Its true that the portion of the electricity I use that comes from coal and gas does itself produce emissions at the power station, but its only a portion, its significantly lower in terms of energy use per mile and those power station emissions I am responsible for, are further from people than if I produced them in a conventional car.

 6) Finally, there have just been two occasions when I’ve not been able to use the electric car, due to its limited range, for a journey I needed to make. Both journeys were around 110 miles, well beyond the 85 miles or so range of the car. I used my old car, which I’m keeping, to go back to after the trial ends. If I didn’t have it, I’d had to have hired a car or gone by train (which would be my preferred option but was difficult for both journeys). Its clearly a big limitation on wider take up for electric cars (though they are fine as a second car for cities). However its interesting that its only been an issue in 2 journeys in 6 weeks, much less than I’d have guessed before the trial started. I’ll do my best to minimise the use of my Focus during the trial and will note how this goes.

I’ll give another update around the end of May, but if anyone has any questions I’m happy to answer them.