The conventional wisdom is that although electric cars are more expensive to buy, they are cheaper to run. The cost of electricity, particularly if you charge at home, means a lower cost per mile travelled in comparison with buying diesel or petrol. But an interesting article in the Daily Telegraph has debunked that assumption.

They say that as the unit cost of electricity will nearly double under the new energy price cap as a result it will cost more to travel in an electric car than a petrol one. They compared the cost of running a Jaguar i-PACE, and electric SUV, with the equivalent Jaguar f-PACE, a petrol driven version. To cover 400 miles the electric version would cost £99 more to travel the same distance. Likewise a Kia e-Niro would cost £88 more than a Kia Sportage.

With electric models often costing twice as much has petrol versions, you can see that there is a big financial disincentive to buy an electric vehicle (a Jaguar i-PACE is 66% more expensive than an f-PACE). The main difference is of course the battery cost and they are not coming down in price as rapidly as expected mainly due to the demand for lithium.

Telegraph article here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/electric-cars-will-expensive-run-petrol/

Comment: As the overall carbon cost of an electric vehicle during its lifetime, including construction and scrapping costs, is little lower than that of a diesel/petrol vehicle one has to be a committed green fanatic to ignore the economics. The better solution if you want to minimise emissions, particularly in cities, is probably to buy a self-charging hybrid such as the Toyota Yaris Hybrid – starting price £20,500 (Note: the Prius is no longer made but Toyota now have several hybrid models).

People buying new cars when we near 2030, after which sales of pure diesel/petrol cars will be banned, will need to consider the costs carefully and whether to anticipate the ban.

Cloning Rising

With the introduction of the ULEZ across much of London, the practice of cloning car number plates to save money has grown rapidly. According to an analysis by Fleetpoint, based on TfL data comparing April 2021 with April 2022, there was an alarming rise of 857% in cloning.  

Cloning a vehicle number plate is relatively easy and if you drive a popular car model you may find it wise to mark your vehicle near the number plates so that it can be differentiated from any clone. Otherwise you may find it difficult to prove it was not you when a PCN is issued.

Roger Lawson

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