I wonder, is anybody else on here actually running an electric car? There is quite a lot of negativity but any actual experience?
Concerning battery life, I understand that Tesla have customer cars running at 800000kms on their original batteries. So is battery failure a real or theoretical issue.
And like everything, there are different electric cars for different needs. If you want to do longish distances on a single charge, Tesla and Jaguar are your main options at the moment.
But if you want an electric commuter/runaround, there are a lot of options.
We were looking for a small cheap used runaround. Having considered things like VW UP, Polo etc, I spotted a 2014 Renault Zoe for sale at a similar price. It had only done 10k kms. Took it for a drive and was pleasantly surprised, so we bought it.
Don’t get me wrong, it won’t win any awards for beauty and the interior is typically Renault plasticky, but it is brilliant for the job we bought it to do. Seats 4 adults reasonably comfortably for short journeys, has a decent boot etc. Even at 5 years old, it will do 95kms when fully charged - which is 95% of original battery life - this is more than enough for the runaround journeys we do. Indeed, it rarely drops below 50kms range before it is slow recharged overnight.
AND, it is actually very pleasant to drive, without the engine noise, it feels very refined and has that linear acceleration that becomes rather addictive. In fact, we only now use the ICE cars when we “need” to, eg doing a longer journey or need a V8 fix.
Also, I bought my Zoe on a lease battery scheme, so if the battery performance ever drops below 85% of original, they will replace the battery - this meant the purchase price was considerably lower than the alternative scheme as you don’t purchase the battery.
So, I am a convert to an electric car based on our personal use criteria - the Zoe fits our runaround brief perfectly.
I am also considering replacing our current SUV with a longer range used electric car, eg Tesla or iPace. I’m definitely keen to reduce my carbon footprint and, in Portugal, such a large proportion of electricity is renewable (even more so if you generate it yourself) that this feels like a good thing to do.
Of course, I will keep my V8 for ”weekend” use, and will feel less guilty about using it.
So my point is, electric cars can fill certain use criteria really well. There may not yet be a perfect electric replacement for the all purpose family car (because of range, charging speeds and price), and they are no replacement for a V8 sportscar, but if you have several cars in your family, don’t dismiss an electric to fulfill at least one of the transport criteria.