Charging my car

[BusyBumbleBee]

Five years ago I bought a plug in hybrid. In the whole of that time the only place I have been able to charge it is at home where it costs me about 10 pence per KWh. In Goldilocks weather 1KWh takes me three miles

So with great fanfare my local authority announced that it is putting charging points in all the car parks it owns (quite a lot actually). Found one this morning which was just 300 yards off the A140 and right next to a "Subway" (very good coffee there) - Ideal, thought I, for a top up. But after examining the T&Cs and the price a whopping 30 pence per KWh, I decided against it.

A rip off price - if this is he way local government is encouraging the use of Electric cars then heaven help us

What do other Fools pay to charge their cars?

[UncleEbenezer]

Have you checked out where the commercial networks are available? For example, there are charging points from Pod Point at my local Lidl. Their website has some indications of costs.

Do you have a special charger at home, or do you have something that runs off a regular domestic power point?

[Slarti]

Have you checked out where the commercial networks are available? For example, there are charging points from Pod Point at my local Lidl. Their website has some indications of costs.

The 2 at my local Lidl are free, according to your link.

Slarti

[BusyBumbleBee]

Do you have a special charger at home, or do you have something that runs off a regular domestic power point?

Hi UncleE, I have a PodPoint at Home and also a cable I can plug into any 13 amp socket in the boot of the car. PodPoint charges it in under 2 hours - off 13 amp socket takes about 4 hours. There are no PodPoint chargers near me!
with kind regards - BBB

[supremetwo]

[quote="BusyBumbleBee" A rip off price - if this is he way local government is encouraging the use of Electric cars then heaven help us. What do other Fools pay to charge their cars?[/quote]

What is the likely maximum number of kWh dispensed by a charging station per day?

What is the capital cost?

Maintenance costs?

Cost of incoming kWh?

Take those into consideration and you will probably find that your local council tax payers are subsidising the 30p.

[gryffron]

30p/kWh is still cheaper than petrol. But only just. And only because hybrids with all those heavy batteries are usually less petrol-efficient than non-hybrids.

You haven't said what your car is, but using a Prius as an example...

Typical real world figures for a Prius are 42 mpg. Fuel costs would be 12.5p/mile. http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/prius_v
Also claims your 3miles/kWh for full electric. So electric @ 30p/kWh = 10p/mile it is still cheaper.

Though most modern non-hybrids can achieve >42mpg, so would be cheaper to run using petrol alone. So using your council top-up, your super-expensive hybrid is costing more to run than a non-hybrid which you could have bought for half the price. Oops

Gryff

[Redmires]

I thought the benefit of 'all electric' was the huge cost savings. Seems that all is not what it seems. I average about 70mpg in my Ioniq (non-plug in) hybrid which equates to around 7.5ppm. And once the majority have made the switch, what will happen then. The government will have a huge fuel-duty sized hole to fill which has to come from somewhere. This will probably be filled by road tolls and added to the cost of the charging will be a lose-lose situation for all concerned.

[djbenedict]

I thought the benefit of 'all electric' was the huge cost savings. Seems that all is not what it seems. I average about 70mpg in my Ioniq (non-plug in) hybrid which equates to around 7.5ppm. And once the majority have made the switch, what will happen then. The government will have a huge fuel-duty sized hole to fill which has to come from somewhere. This will probably be filled by road tolls and added to the cost of the charging will be a lose-lose situation for all concerned.

Road tolls and/or mileage-based charging can't come soon enough for me. The current cost of driving is far too low because so much of the negative impact is externalised.

[BusyBumbleBee]

30p/kWh is still cheaper than petrol. But only just. And only because hybrids with all those heavy batteries are usually less petrol-efficient than non-hybrids. ... You haven't said what your car is, but using a Prius as an example... Typical real world figures for a Prius are 42 mpg. Fuel costs would be 12.5p/mile. http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/prius_v
Also claims your 3 miles/kWh for full electric. So electric @ 30p/kWh = 10p/mile it is still cheaper.

Though most modern non-hybrids can achieve >42mpg, so would be cheaper to run using petrol alone. So using your council top-up, your super-expensive hybrid is costing more to run than a non-hybrid which you could have bought for half the price. Oops Gryff

How right you are Gryff, However the car I have is one of the first Volvo Plug in Hybrids, "Twin engined" as they prefer to call it. I was aware they were developing it and bought one as soon as our local dealer could supply one when the price of Diesel was close on 150 pence per litre. It was just about 'Value for Money' because it had (then) the highest spec of any Volvo and was a luxury car costing a lot and I love it. Since purchase it has averaged 91.6 miles to the gallon (of diesel) and on, say, a 300 mile journey on motorways which is mostly on diesel - it will do 54 to 55 mpg if you keep the car below 80 and don't go mad on acceleration.

So I am happy with it - and very glad I didn't buy a Prius which has always seemed a bit of a fudge to me cos it doesn't do as many miles to the gallon as mine.

I still have no idea what a fair price is to pay for 'electricity at the pump' but it is certainly a lot less than 30 pence -

On mpg - you need Goldilocks weather to get any were close to what they say you can get - and with the aircon working this morning, I struggled to get 20 miles from the battery. - kind regards - BBB

[AF62]

Road tolls and/or mileage-based charging can't come soon enough for me. The current cost of driving is far too low because so much of the negative impact is externalised.

For that to have the correct impact it would be a courageous politician who went for it.

Mileage based charging would drive all the people with 'ideas' to lobby to use the charge to persuade people not to do what they do now.

Drive in town - bad idea, you should be on the bus or walk. So what shall we set the mileage-based charge to persuade them not to? The 12p / mile which is the current tax on fuel isn't going to do it, so how about 24p? probably not, 48p?, hmm, 96p, probably getting closer, but lets make sure and round it up, shall we say £2 a mile.

Now taking shortcuts through villages is bad, but the distance isn't very long - £5 a mile if you don't live in the area.

Rush hour driving is not to be encouraged, so lets put a 150% surcharge on anyone driving between 7am and 9am.

Dropping the kids off at school; very bad. Lets put a £10 surcharge anytime anyone with kids at a school drives within 1/2 mile of it.

Shall I go on?

[djbenedict]

Road tolls and/or mileage-based charging can't come soon enough for me. The current cost of driving is far too low because so much of the negative impact is externalised.

For that to have the correct impact it would be a courageous politician who went for it.

Mileage based charging would drive all the people with 'ideas' to lobby to use the charge to persuade people not to do what they do now.

Drive in town - bad idea, you should be on the bus or walk. So what shall we set the mileage-based charge to persuade them not to? The 12p / mile which is the current tax on fuel isn't going to do it, so how about 24p? probably not, 48p?, hmm, 96p, probably getting closer, but lets make sure and round it up, shall we say £2 a mile.

Now taking shortcuts through villages is bad, but the distance isn't very long - £5 a mile if you don't live in the area.

Rush hour driving is not to be encouraged, so lets put a 150% surcharge on anyone driving between 7am and 9am.

Dropping the kids off at school; very bad. Lets put a £10 surcharge anytime anyone with kids at a school drives within 1/2 mile of it.

Shall I go on?

Many of those sound like eminently sensible ideas to me, ideas which start to cost the negative effects of driving and apportion it to the source, rather than externalising them.

[Watis]

As a driver myself, I am aware that for all of us, the problem is that driving somewhere feels like it's free.

Having given this some thought, I have decided that it is because, in our minds, the act of paying for fuel is divorced from the act of expending it.

If petrol was free but you had to put a pound coin in a meter every five miles to keep it going, it would bring home how expensive any given journey is.

Friends and neighbours should be encouraged to lift-share on shopping trips, for example. And encourage working from home where that's possible.

Watis

[JohnB]

And the fuel is one of the smaller elements of running a car. For all but a few bangers, depreciation, insurance, servicing etc all add up to a much bigger sum, especially purchase price, which can be 10 years from usage, and is a sunk cost.

The 2 key problems with road-pricing are privacy and how much money is used running the scheme, all the electronics, billing, notification and bother. The Congestion charge returns very little to Transport For London.

Regarding the OPs concern, the expenses of installing 10MW feeds to filling stations to replace the huge energy density of a petrol tanker, is likely to always mean a premium cost, after we get past the gimick of free charging points we have at present.

I think many people will notice the difference between the 'free' electricity they have at home from solar panels, and the premium they are charged roadside, unless the government controls prices, and their history on feed-in tarrifs has not been good.