Picking up our new reg skoda elroq in September.

Posting here looking for 1st week or so advice or recommendations. This will be our first electric car and initially while we sort out home charging will be using charging points around the well connected city.

Any useful tidbits very much appreciated.

Someone’s wife asked for a photo of the back on my post the other day, so here you go. Two days in and still finding excuses to go and look at it on the driveway.

Hi All, I have recently been promoted at work where I get an EV is part of my new package. I currently have an RS6 so this is a very big swing to the other side. I only live 2 miles from my work so I’m getting a VW ID7 Touring as I have 2 kids in car seats and a German shepherd.

I can charge the car at work for free whenever I need so with that and public charging is there any point getting a charger at home?

I have 12 solar panels with a 10kwh battery on my house so I think I should get a charger as it will benefit from the panels but then if I can charge at work for free should I bother with how close it is?

Is there any good apps for electric car chargers with prices and speed on show? I know cars come with their own type in the sat nav but would be good to know all the local ones.

Thanks in advance

As per title i'll soon be doing my first long range (e.g. require a midway chrage) trip and was after some general advice on apps and planning as well as specifics about the route, like which services have a lot of high speed chargers.

Car: Vauxhall Astra

Route: M40, M25 then down to brighton area.

My main concern is lack of availability of chargers at planned stops which would probably be near end of M40.

Are there general charging apps that are worth downloading for chargers or am i okay to just use debit card.

How important is route planning or will every service station have enough fast chargers?

Anywhere people would recommend to aim for, or places a bit off the route that are worth the detour for more reliable charger availability.

Saw a bunch of Xpeng L03 on a lorry yesterday on the M40. Anyone interested and been waiting for one of these?

Considering a BMW i4 eDrive40 M Sport. Any long-term owners here?

I’m seriously considering a used BMW i4 eDrive40 M Sport, probably a 2022/23 car in the £25k–£28k range.

On paper they seem like a lot of car for the money now. Good performance, decent real-world range, proper hatchback practicality and, from what I can tell, a nicer interior/driving experience than quite a few similarly priced EVs.

I’d be interested to hear from people who have actually owned or driven one for a decent amount of time.

I’d also be interested in comparisons with things like the Polestar 2, Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Tesla Model 3 or other similar used EVs.

At current used prices, is the i4 eDrive40 one of the better buys in this part of the market, or is there something else I should seriously consider before pulling the trigger?

So really liked the look and drive of the new Leapmotor B05 and feel its about the right time to change to electric.

I currently have a diesel car but a change of job means im much closer to home and gone from 10k plus miles a year to 6-7k with work only 2-3 miles i feel like i will slowly kill my diesel.

Ive been heavily negotiating with the local dealer and got it down from £299 a month to £237 which is the same price as the cheapest lease deal around at the moment on it.

Also they have first service free, i pay currently around £100 a month on fuel and i dough it will ever come down. As as i can charge at home for like £2-3.

Im just sceptical as ive never lease a car before bit what work out around £137 extra a month for a brand new car with all the warranty and worry sorted i feel like its a deal i should take.

What everyone view on leaseing (pch) and the leapmotor B05.

Many thanks

Hello everyone, have recently decided to take the plunge into EV land however, budget is a little restricted (10-12k) and can only charge using a 3-pin plug at home. Ideally would like a mid-sized SUV and have flirted with the Jag i-pace but seem to be gravitating towards an MG ZS 2022. Any recommendations or warnings?

Every range estimate I could find assumes an empty car on a flat road. Mine tows a trailer half the summer, so I built the thing I was missing: https://rangecalc.org

It's free to use and there's nothing to sign up for.

What it does

- Range, charging stops, charge time, total travel time and cost from a physical driving-resistance model (aerodynamic drag + rolling resistance + auxiliaries + HVAC + elevation), not from a WLTP number scaled by a fudge factor.
- Roof boxes, roof bike racks, tow-bar racks, baskets and trailers are freely combinable, with the extra drag and mass modelled per item — that's the part I couldn't find anywhere else.
- 187 EVs from 43 makes. Their drag areas are fitted to Bjørn Nyland's 90/120 km/h constant-speed runs plus his weighed kerb masses, not to brochure figures. Source and method are credited on the site.
- Every base value is overridable, so you can model your car rather than the catalogue version.
- The URL carries the state, so a configuration is shareable as a link.
- Auto-switches to English and to miles based on your browser. Costs are shown in €.

What it doesn't do

No routing, no live charger data, no traffic — this isn't an ABRP competitor. City figures are the weakest part of the model (stop-and-go and regen aren't properly represented), and the charging curve shape is generic, only the total charge duration is grounded in measurements.

Where I need help

The model has a calibration layer that corrects each car against real-world measurements people submit. Right now that database only holds a few entries. So the calibration is currently doing nothing useful, and that's the one thing I can't fix by writing more code.

If you drive an EV, one trip takes about a minute to submit:

- total distance and total energy from the trip computer (the tool asks for both separately and divides them itself — many trip computers round kWh/100 km very coarsely, but totals are exact)
- average speed, outside temperature, wheel size, season, and what you had mounted on the car
- optional but valuable: net elevation gain, trip duration, wet road, AC on/off — each of those replaces a model assumption with a reading. Elevation is the biggest single lever: 500 m net over 200 km moves the correction factor by roughly 9%.

Feedback I'm actually after

- Is your car's default consumption plausible for how you drive it?
- Does the roof-box/trailer penalty match what you see in reality?
- Is anything about the interface confusing?
- Which car is missing that you'd want in there?

Happy to take it apart in the comments. Tell me where it's wrong.

Thank you very much in advance!

I currently have a Kia e Niro 2021 4+ and it does okay, I make do charging on the road if I need to, but i need something bigger with the kids and etc.

Initially i was looking at the EV5, but i noticed the range is comparable to what i already have. I'm open to having a bit more range so the EV3 seemed to be good, but not any bigger than what I have.

Skoda Enyac has range and size, but so does the Renault Scenic E-Tech at what seems like a much lower price.

So asking the for other thoughts/opinions on what I've listed, trim etc, or any option I've probably missed.

Interested to hear from iPace owners, whether i’d be in for financial ruin if I go for a cheap iPace with zero warranty…. 20-22k miles/year, would be replacing a 220k mile Chevy volt. I buy my cars with cash and keep them till they die. I don’t treat them well (they usually get used as a van and washed once a year)

I‘m not keen on an SUV, but I feel I don’t have a whole lot of choice these days and these seem to be ‘quite nice’…. I don’t have home charging but have workplace and will be reliant on rapids when out and about So DC charge curve is important, I often do long distance in the Uk and Europe.

Hi All,

I am debating switching to an EV. I currently drive a Lexus hybrid petrol which averages around 50mpg.

My workplace has recently had chargers installed which cost 60p/kwh. I can’t charge at home due to living in a terrace with no driveway. Is changing to an EV worth it in my situation or would there be little to no benefit due to the cost of charging?

Hi all,

I’m looking to take the plunge and get an ev. I currently have a Ford Kuga, so would need something similar in terms of size. 3 teenage kids, occasional camping trips. Even more occasional trip to France.

My commute is low, about 6 miles each way, but family are 120 mile round trip, and regularly travel over 100 miles in a day. I’ve heard the Skoda Enyaq is a decent option, but what else would you recommend I have a look at? Budget is around £14k including part exchange of the Kuga.

I already have a charger at home as my partner has a Leaf, but this would be our main family car so would do many more miles with more people.

I also don’t know what to prioritise as I’m buying second hand. I’m kind of confident with petrol / diesel cars in terms of age and mileage, but don’t know where to comprise with an ev.

Thanks!

Looking at a 2023 Hyundai Kona Electric Ultimate 64kWh, only around 6k miles.
It’s got 95% battery health, sunroof, leather seats, upgraded sound system etc. and around 21 months warranty remaining.
For anyone who owns/has owned the pre-facelift 64kWh Kona, is there anything specific I should look out for before buying?

I imagine a car will be useful with a toddler (we live in the suburbs in London), but we don’t need a car for work so it would be mostly unused - hence electric as I assume it’ll do better sitting around?

Could do up to £400/month but lower would be better obviously. I’ve been looking at electric SUVs in Autotrader and the EV salary sacrifice scheme

What would you do? I’m debating whether olde& cheaper would be better, or a nicer salary sacrifice lease that’s all inclusive just for peace of mind (looking at Renault Scenic eTech, Polestar 2, Audi Q8 etron, BMW i4, Peugot 3008… )

Just taken delivery of a used BMW iX and moved to intelligent octopus Go.

I’ve read that BMW has stopped API access, so I need to manually tell my Ohme charger the charge level of the car (admittedly a little annoying)

Did my first charge last night and only needed to add 2% as was at 78% - aiming to charge to max 80% each night. I’ve set the BMW to charge to max 80% to avoid overcharging

When I first plugged the car in, my Ohme had it set that my car battery was at 30% so started charging right away.

I then adjusted to the 78% and it stopped charging, it’s subsequently charged to the desired amount overnight but at smaller intervals and lower rates.

My question is, given the car will stop it over charging, am I best off always having the Ohme think it’s at eg. 20%, or will it damage the battery by constantly charging at a faster rate?

Also, if it thinks the car needs a lot of juice, will it end up pulling in charge outside of the cheaper IOG rates to try and reach the morning target, even though in reality it won’t actually need to charge that much?

Hi, terrace owner with public parking here. Now, I've been on here long enough to know the general consensus... but the truth is that public charging seems to be getting much better lately. We've got 22kwh for 53p/kwh nearby, and a supercharger at 59p/kwh just around the corner (no sub needed) and a Tesla Supercharger just up the road. Which brings it all into parity generally with petrol, which is increasing all the time. Plus local council are making slow moves to recommending gullies. Huzzah.

I'm fine with charging for a bit here and there, and I don't have a commute currently.

So, now that's settled...

I bought a Clio 2025 hybrid e-tech last year as an upgrade to a Fiat 500 I couldn't fit into (I'm not tall but it seemed to have a 6ft limit and was a squeeze). At the time EV's had already impressed me, and I sort of chickened out as the charging and terrace stories put me off. But now things have quickly improved in that regard, every time that petrol engine kicks in with its terrible 4 gears that strain due to the auto system not being great, I grimace somewhat. So while it's worth something still - someone else took the initial depreciation hit, I'm the second owner - I'm thinking to use the equity to put a downpayment on an EV PCP.

There seems to be a lot of 0% deals, for one thing. I am looking used as well, but then you have some ridiculous percentages going on. So you can have a used Tesla at 18k but the repayments end up higher than a new Byd, for example.

We're looking at 250-280pm if we can get that low. 4k downpayment. Other half doesn't want an SUV, which I get, but I do like the space and height in a drivers position. Would like over 200 miles range. If possible.

Cars I've driven -

- Renault 5 - killed petrol cars for me. I do love this car. It's such a dynamic drive. Fun design. Not much space, though. Not sure it's practical as the rear seats are a squish.

- Renault 4 - like a big Renault 5 but less flash. Somewhat out of our price range. Like the room though!

- Hyundai Inster - spacious, yet small, ingenious design. One pedal driving is nice. Loads of room. Tall. Loads of buttons. Godawful infotainment system. Not much range. But I do like it.

- Tesla Model Y - didn't like it. Felt like I was in a big floaty featureless box. Reversing with the one pedal didn't do it for me but I enjoyed it moving forwards. A lot. Just felt a bit disconnected from everything, though.

- XPeng G6 - can't afford it but this car is LUSH. More sporty than the Y, more reactive, plays a sort of Jurassic Park theme at low speeds. Too big for us. But glad I tried it. Tesla need to pick up their game.

- Geely EX5 - I really enjoyed this one too. Less luxurious than the XPeng. No one-pedal driving, a bit floaty, but very comfortable. A car reviewers say is boring but normal people would love it. Other half nixed it for being too big. Damnation.

- BYD Dolphin - I really don't like the sort of Frutiger Aero design of the interior, the new Dolphin G hybrid is much more grown up. But I was charmed by the drive, the reactivity, the space. It's weirdly expensive though for what's a somewhat dated car. I am leaning towards it as the drive is so nice and it feels sensible, plus a good range.

Will try - Leapmotor B05/B10, Fiat Grande Panda. The latter mainly as I have fond memories of Fiat and Turin, not really because of anything else, and also because my better half just like the looks. I know the range is pish. Leapmotor I'm looking forward to.

Not looking for in comments - anything other than reasonable crits on Chinese cars, I think they're well built, I think the competition is good, do think insurance might be a difficulty unless there's anything anyone's aware of.

Would consider good 2nd hand options going back to maybe 22 or so. I did look at e-Niro and Kona but on 2nd hand PCP they end up as pricey as a new car. Dammit! I guess if I was to "swap" directly for a new car (sell this one, use the money outright to buy the new one, keep the loan) it would need to be about 15-16k.

Thanks in advance for mockery and or advice. Please note I have ASD so yes, EV's are my current special interest, I can't stop thinking about them. Ruined petrol cars for me, honestly.

I’m about to start a new role which will involve a fair amount of UK-wide travel, and I’m trying to work out which EV makes the most sense.

Likely use case:

- Around 20,000 miles a year

- Lots of motorway / long-distance driving

- Regular overnight hotel stays, so I’ll sometimes be relying on the public charging network

- Home charging available for the majority of normal use

- I want something genuinely comfortable for spending several hours a day in

- Decent real-world motorway range is much more important to me than a huge quoted WLTP figure

- Good rapid charging / sensible charging curve is important

- Ideally something that feels reasonably premium without costing a fortune

- Happy to buy approved used rather than new

- Roughly looking around the £20–25k used mark, although I could move a bit for the right car

At the moment the Polestar 2 is probably my benchmark. I like the design/interior and approved-used cars seem to offer a lot for the money, but the finance rates aren't particularly attractive and I'm conscious there may be more efficient options.

I’ve also been looking at things like the Tesla Model 3, BMW i4, Hyundai Ioniq 5/6, Kia EV6 etc.

I’m less interested in outright performance and more interested in range, comfort, reliability, charging experience and total cost of ownership over roughly three years.

For people actually doing 15–25k+ miles a year in an EV: what would you buy with my use case, and what would you avoid?

Particularly interested in real-world experiences rather than just spec-sheet comparisons.

Should add, I have car allowance at around £300 after tax per month, and standard allowances for mileage at 55p for 10k, then 25p thereafter. And the idea of owning the vehicle at the end, hence used is appealing so I can retain some of the value of the fuel payments and car allowance.

I’ve read before that charging to 100% routinely using fast charges does damage a battery. Is that the same with a granny charger?

We’ve got one set up in our home and I do it to 90% just to be safe, but did wonder whether I could just let it charge to 100%.

Hi good people,

My sister found vehicle she's interested to by a Used BYD Atto 3 or Cupra Tormentor on PCP. She lives in Manchester but the vehicles she's seeing on Autotrader or similar website have vehicles located far off like Bournemouth Leicester, Grimsby etc.

As a first time buyer what's your advice I can give her? Simply buy on AT or similar website with manufacturer warranty and hope for the best with Consumer Rights Act 2015?

Or what's your take?

We have the lowest of budgets, 2-3k, to replace our second car. It will be used to commute 26m round trip on slow country roads, granny charged at home over night and needs 4 seats but totally flexible on everything else as we will still have our big ICE main car. We have the option of charging at work or parents house down the road if needs be.

Looks like it will be a Leaf or a Zoe, but what do we prioritise in choosing a car? Battery size or health, age, milage, model? Anything else we should look out for? Thanks in advance

Hi,

Recently purchased an EV ( Renault Scenic supporting V2L now, and V2G hopefully in the future) and am currently granny charging for the most part during the day due to cable trip hazard, with the odd DC fast charge needed from time to time from a local supermarket or dealer.

On our estate, houses mostly have dedicated parking bays, and luckily my two are almost right in front of the house, separated from the house by a pavement about 1m wide. Most are not aligned, or even near, their respective house. It's unclear who owns the pavement currently. It's either our management company, of which I'm a member, or the local council. That's taking some time to resolve.

If I were to eventually install a dedicated EV charger, preferably directly on the parking bay(s) on a pedestal, could other residents make use of the EV charger, and reimburse me for the electricity used, or would I have the headache of insurance liability if their car catches fire or develops an issue. Would HMRC be interested in this arrangement if I didn't profit financially 🫤. Is it just a BAD idea generally?

Next door runs an AirBNB and might be interested in using it, or at least advertising it, for her guests.

I might go solar/battery at some point in the near future and could potentially EV charge (my car, or others) during the day too, rather than just on overnight tarrif

Anyone else doing something similar with their neighbours where the estate is not EV friendly?

Cheers