When I was told I was going to have access to my company car scheme, I knew it was going to be the perfect moment to take a leap and switch to an electric vehicle. It absolutely was the right thing to do.
Taking a significant step toward the personal decarbonisation was of course a big driver, but let’s be frank, there were significant economical benefits too.
You could argue the UK government is doing something right, setting a very low BIK for EV cars, giving a strong incentive for the switch. On the other hand, they could do a better job with the charging infrastructure, but that’s a story for another day.
So, where were we? Ah yes, choosing an EV. I did a lot of research leading up to the moment of the choice. You could argue the easy pick would have been going for a Tesla. Despite them having arguably the biggest first mover advantage in the space, lately they seem to lack imagination when it comes to the design of their cars, plus (a big negative plus in my book), to this day they still do not support CarPlay. A massive deal breaker.
So, what was my pick? A 2023 VW ID.4!
With a 77kW net battery size in the Pro Performance package, this car immediately delivered the first welcomed change: no need to worry ever about range.
As VW reminds you many many times, to preserve your battery you should daily charge up to 80% and only occasionally go up to 100%. After two months of real life driving, when charged to 80% I have between 220 & 240 miles of predicted range.
Driving an electric vehicle made me realise that I don’t really know how to quantify range in real life. Is 240 miles a lot? Too little? Just enough? Well, the answer is that you can go from East Hampshire all the way to Penzance in Cornwall with one single stop of about 30 minutes!
Now, I can already hear the sound of keyboard letting me know that this is terrible compared to a traditional ICE vehicle; you could have done this journey without even stopping once! Would your bladder go along with that plan? Or about the safety aspect of so many consecutive hours of driving?
Having these breaks along the drive can almost be considered a welcome change and a way to impose some self-control on the driver itself.
There is another reason why you won’t have to worry about range: home charging. I feel like this point is often overlooked or not really talked about. In the media, more often than not, the conversation tends to revolve around how big of disaster public charging is, but not enough emphasis is placed on the importance of charging at home.
In my opinion of a very new EV driver, there’s no better investment than a home charger in connection with a cheaper overnight tariff. To me that combo is the actual game changer of the EV “revolution”. Yes of course home charging is a small luxury, not everyone has a driveway that can be dedicated to such activity. But if you can, you should absolutely do it!
Why am I such a big advocate for this? Two reasons:
- You’ll never have to deal with another gas station in your life
- Every morning you’ll wake up with a freshly charged car, just like you do with your phone
It’s such a simple little thing, but it truly makes a world of difference in real life.
So in closing, after about two months from my switch, I have zero regrets. Driving an EV is a great experience and I’m learning so much around new and evolving technologies!
I know some may say I’m still in the “honeymoon” stage of EV ownership, but that was another reason for starting this newsletter, so I could share with you my evolving thoughts and experiences in this area!
Are you a recent EV driver as well? Or are you on the fence about switching?
Whichever camp you are in, or if you just want to tell me how wrong I was, you can reach me on Mastodon and let’s keep the conversation going!!