A few months ago we bought our first ev
Its an MG S5 and we bloody love it!
But after 55 years of driving a variety of petrol & diesel powered cars & vans, there are quite a few new things to learn.
None of these things are difficult, just new!As we are both now on the wrong side of 70, we thought we'd better get a wiggle on and try one of these 'ere ev motors.
the selection process
We've been very happy with the drive and level of comfort from our Skoda Yeti. So decided to look for something with a similar ride height and overall dimensions.
Driving range felt like it could be an issue; with the Yeti filled up with diesel, it often indicated that we were good-to-go for 650miles! Whereas ev range figures are about as useful as quoted broadband speeds!
We also wanted to use a Sales & Service department that was quite close to where we live, as it can be a pain to have to drive & wait for a service issue, if located some way away.
The current near equivalent from Skoda is the Elroq, although this is about 4" wider & 10" longer. However, that made it onto our list, as did the MG 4.
We were initially disappointed by a visit to our local Skoda/MG dealer to find they didn't have an Elroq demonstrator, and just by simply sitting in an MG 4, we knew that wasn't the car for us. We were not interested in the MG 5 because we knew this was an estate car.
However, the sales-lady pointed to a car that did look right and one which we knew nothing about: MG S5 ev
She explained that MG seemed to have got into a bit of a mess with model numbers. The MG 5 has been dropped, while the S5 is more of a small SUV design.
A test drive soon had us hooked, but while talking about price, trade-ins, finance & lead-times, we were told their demo car was for sale; registered 6 months ago, about 2700 miles on the clock, and about one third less than the price of a new one. ...sold!
What's it like to drive?
Peaceful!
There is practically no engine noise, just road (tyres) & wind noise. So you can hold a conversation with passengers, without raising your voice or turning your head.
Strictly speaking, an automatic car is one with an automatic gearbox. The ev does not have a gearbox, its direct drive. The whole speed-range sits under your right foot.
Unlike a traditional car, when you press the pedal hard, at any speed, the car just flies! Our MG is no racer, but can accelerate from 0 - 60mph in about 6 seconds.
It has a 'square-ish' shaped steering wheel, which took a while to get used to, but now I don't think about it.
There is practically no local pollution, compared to the carbon monoxide, partly un-burnt fuel, NOx and particulates that come out of an internal combustion engine.
This is not exclusively ev, but when you put the car into reverse, you get 2 views on the large Infotainment screen; rear showing where the car is going and looking down from above. Once again this took some getting used to; when reversing, I didn't know which view to look at, or whether to use the mirrors or look out of the rear windscreen.
how to charge it: home charging
Initially we bought a 13Amp charger cable, also known as (...I know not why) a granny lead. These generally provide AC charging with a max current capacity of about 10Amps. From memory, an hours charging increases battery state of charge (SoC) by about 4%, which in our car will give you about 10miles of driving.
The other problem with these granny leads is compatibility with 13A sockets; when used with standard (BS 1363) sockets, the sockets will get very hot. They recommend only using these leads with BS 1363/EV rated sockets (...you almost certainly don't already have these) and state that these leads should only be used infrequently for short duration charging!
We used ours (typically) for 3 to 3.5hrs per night, during the few weeks while waiting for a better solution.
Having spoken to Smart Home Charge we selected an UltraVolt Home 3 Pro charger and waited a couple of weeks for an installer to fit it.
In the meantime, we arranged for Octopus to upgrade our meters from 'dumb' to 'smart' (...this was via an even longer waiting list) and a few weeks later we had a charger which fell under the control of an "Intelligent Octopus Go" tariff.
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rather than a smart display, we chose an Octopus Pink box! |
This works very well; we plug our car into the charger during the day/evening when not needing to drive anywhere. If Octopus find cheap electricity during the day, they automatically turn on the charger for timed slots of 30 mins (or multiples). If the car still needs to continue the charge later, we are guaranteed cheap rate from 11:30 till 5:30 the following morning. IOG just takes care of it, we only need to remember to plug the car in!
Cheap rate is currently 7pence/kWhr. 1kWhr will get you somewhere between 2 - 4miles, depending upon conditions & how you drive. So basically: very cheap motoring.
When driving locally (...in our case, any round trip of less than 200miles) we just keep the car topped up to 80%. For longer trips, we charge to 100%.
To keep the battery healthy (...giving it the best chance of a longer life) the battery SoC should be kept in the range 10 - 80%. When charging for long range trips, we charge to 100% and then go soon after.
Leaving the battery standing at 100% is worse than just '100% charge & go' use.
public chargers & range anxiety
As mentioned earlier, driving range figures are difficult to interpret. We have reached an age where we don't want to drive for more than 2 - 3 hours at a time. If its not our craving for coffee, it'll be our bladders that force us to make a 'splash 'n dash' pit stop.
And as it turns out, this is a good way to deal with charging on long journeys. You need to get away from the idea of stopping 'to fill the car up'. With an ev its just a bit of a top up.
As an example, we recently had a 275mile journey from the south coast, heading in the general direction of Liverpool. We pulled into a motorway services after just over 2hrs, connected the car to a charger, waved our credit card at the machine, and went inside the building.
After paying for & drinking our Flat Whites, we were soon back at the car where we stopped the charger, and got back on the road. We completed our journey, starting with 100% and with just this one, 25min top-up.
The bad news (...but not really that bad for us) is that rapid/ultra chargers can be expensive; 89p/kWhr in this case, but Public charging is usually in the range 45 -80p/kWhr. However, the vast majority of our journeys are local, where we are only paying 7p/kWhr.
Supermarket & shopping centres seem to be rolling out quite a few chargers at the moment. These are often a bit cheaper, and the coffee is frequently better!
You can also get discount charge cards; we only have an Octopus Electroverse card at the moment. This gives an 8% discount for Electroverse compatible chargers.
Another useful one to consider is Zap Map, The maps on Zap Map & Electroverse are also great for locating public chargers.
conclusion
For us, driving and running an ev is perfect for our private needs, because:-
- most of our journeys are less than 200miles (round trip)
- we have off-street parking
- we are home-owners, so installing a Home Charger is easy
But if not all of the above apply to you, it may be a much tougher choice.
For long range journeys, motorway services, retail parks & supermarkets can be a great source for chargers.
A good resource for comparing electric cars is the Electric Vehicle Database
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