How is Charging your EV the Ultimate Time-Saver?

Want to find out how easy it is living with an EV? We’ve written a few blogs so far talking about how you have pretty much all the infrastructure you’ll ever need. Providing that you have a drive, or garage to go with your electric car. Most electric cars will cover 200 miles with ease! And with most employees only driving 200+ miles every couple of months, it seems an obvious solution.

However, motoring is all about freedom. Sooner or later you may need to charge at a public charge point. Or maybe you want to just because it can be free! Not to mention the extras such as preferred parking spaces and reduced parking costs!

How do you Adapt to Life With an EV?

Let’s take the convenience argument first. If you want to drive 200 miles from home and back you have two choices. You can take the traditional model, which is to waste time driving to a garage; wait in a queue; fill up, wait some more in another queue; then finally paying. Alternatively, you could fill up overnight on your drive without leaving the comfort of your bed. From 4 pence per kilowatt on off-peak tariffs, you can get 200 miles worth of charge for £2!

How Do I Charge An EV?

Once you’re on the road for more than 3-4 hours, things do become less convenient.  But there are still many more options than you would think. In the UK, we have around 30,000 charge points. These range from 7kW chargers, giving you around 20 miles charge per hour, to 100kW chargers, giving 200 miles in 40 minutes. Apps like ‘zap-map’ show at the touch of a button charge points by provider and recharge rates on your route.

The most convenient way to recharge your car is at motorway services. Every service in the UK (bar one) has ‘Ecotricity’ charge points, which are relatively underutilised. All have 2 types of charge leads, making them suitable for all EVs. Most currently charge at 22kW/hour, with many upgraded to charge at 50kW/hour. What this means is that an hour lunch stop at the services will typically get you 160 more miles.

It’s not as cheap if you’re not an Ecotricity customer, at 30 pence per kW. This means it will cost around £15 to get 200 miles of charge, but this is of course almost half the cost of the equivalent petrol or diesel. And again, it’s halved if you are an Ecotricity customer! To put this in context, if you need to cover 400 miles, you’ll need to make an hour lunch stop and recharge fully at home, but you’ll cover 400 miles for well under £20.

Living with an EV is even easier if you stray from the motorway network…

Many hotels, pubs and city car parks have charging facilities, lots of them free of charge!

For the more adventurous journeying to Europe, you’ll find a huge network of 100kW chargers which give 200 miles extra range in half an hour! Europe is largely joined up from a charge point perspective with only 1 or 2 suppliers offering compatibility overall, such as ‘Plug Surfing’ or ‘New Motion’. The UK less-so, but if you subscribe to ‘Charge your Car’, ‘Polar’ and ‘Ecotricity’ you should have all the network you will ever need.

Yes, living with an EV may seem to cut down some of the spontaneity we associate with the joy of driving but look at it another way, it’s more enjoyable, cheaper and who wouldn’t benefit from an hour break every 3 -4 hours. Best of all, you can use that money you’re saving from the switch to bag yourself lunch on the road – success!

Read more about how going electric can save you loads!