With petrol prices heading above £1.30 a litre in recent weeks, the big question for some of the more practical among you will be: can I save money by buying an electric car?
The simple answer is that many drivers certainly won't lose money and you could well make some financial gains – while driving one of the lowest-carbon models around.
Electric cars in their current form are never going to appeal to those pounding the motorways doing 20,000 miles a year. However, if you typically drive a series of shorter runs – ideally a longish, cross-town commute, 30 miles a day or 9,000 miles a year – you can make a strong financial case for going electric, particularly if you've got free parking when you arrive.
Renault has said it wants its cars – due in 2012 – to cost about the same as a diesel model after the government's cash incentive, which is worth up to £5,000, is deducted. So for many, then, the buying decision will come down to running costs. Opt for the new Renault Zoe and you'll pay about £70 a month or £840 a year to lease the batteries. This might sound like a lot, but it has the advantage that if there is a problem the lease firm has to pick up the tab.
Despite what you may have read about electric cars costing pennies to recharge, each recharge will actually set you back £2.50 to £3, depending on your electricity tariff. Each one should deliver about 90 miles' driving. This means the "typical" driver (9,000 miles a year) will pay £250 to £300 a year in electricity. Add in the battery leasing and you are paying £1,140 a year to move the car.
A diesel car that delivers 45 miles a gallon will cost almost exactly the same to fuel for the year, but a petrol car doing 35 miles per gallon will cost £1,500 a year – considerably more if you regularly get stuck in traffic.
So what about the other costs? Electric cars enjoy free car tax each year – but so do some low-emission diesel cars, and a few petrol models – so you won't save much there unless you are abandoning a gas-guzzler.
Servicing should be a little cheaper for electric – there is no oil or filter to change. However, it looks as though it will cost more to insure an electric car. Their complexity and higher replacement costs mean drivers could well be paying 25% more to their insurer. The long-awaited Nissan Leaf has been given an insurance group of 22, which places it in a higher category than many petrol-based vehicles with similar performance capabilities.
Of course, the biggest factor in running these cars – the cost of depreciation – is, at this point, unknown. Buy any new car and the loss of value – typically £5,000 a year for a family saloon – is the biggest cost of ownership. Cars depreciate at hugely different rates, depending on what the car trade deems to be their future value on the secondhand market. There's an argument that electric cars should depreciate more slowly than conventional models because of their low running costs.
External costs
However, if they prove unreliable, their complexity will be seen as a negative factor, and early adopters could see the value of their vehicle fall. It's very hard to say which way this will go.
But a big thing in favour of electric buyers is the reduction in external costs. In London, electric users will avoid the £10-a-day congestion charge, which could be worth £2,500 a year.
Perhaps more importantly, given that there are several conventional cars that also avoid the charge, electric users are increasingly being offered free parking. Many London boroughs, including Westminster, are offering the drivers of electric cars free parking in certain bays, which could be the clincher for many potential buyers. Councils in other areas should follow suit. If you are thinking of taking the plunge, you'll have to do the figures on your driving habits.
In the coming years, smarter electricity tariffs will hopefully offer cheaper overnight charging. As more electric models hit the market, purchase costs will only come down. Lastly, you may to want to consider where oil prices are going. Every increase will generate even bigger savings for electric-car users. And the value of no longer being in hoc to the big oil companies? Priceless.
'I was really surprised how nippy it was'
Neil Butcher, associate with engineering consultants Arup, Solihull, West Midlands
I grew up in the countryside in Sussex, cycling and fishing and outside all the time, and perhaps because of that I've always had a bit of an interest in the environment and in ways of minimising our impact. So when I was asked to help run the year-long trial of the i-MiEV for Mitsubishi, I asked to take part too.
My wife and I picked up the car in December 2009, and it was actually bigger than I was expecting, with proper headroom and space in the back. I've got two nearly grown-up children, and we could fit them in nicely.
I had a charging point fitted at home, and they installed one in my work car park too. I got really used to just parking next to it and plugging in when I arrived. In fact, it was a lot simpler than diesel, which is what I'm back to now. I find it quite a pain going to service stations now, to be honest. We did use our own car, a Renault Scenic, for longer journeys such as packing the kids off to university.
But the i-MiEV became our car of choice for everything else very quickly. I was really surprised, the first time I drove it, how nippy it was, but we quickly got used to how simple and relaxing it was to drive. For some reason you don't get irritated when you're stuck in traffic in an electric car, perhaps because you're not wasting electricity.
We were really sad to give it back at the end of the year. I think we'll buy one, but the only question is whether to go for it now or whether to wait a couple of years until the price comes down. They're not perfect. But we got really fond of that car.
'You really do notice how much lower the running costs are'
Brian Gooch, chartered accountant, Sheffield
I'm actually on my second Toyota Prius hybrid now; we liked it so much that when it was time to upgrade we chose a Prius company car again. It's a lovely car – very easy and quiet, and extremely economical.
We chose it because I was very keen to minimise my environmental impact. It's also much cheaper to run and to fill with petrol, and you do really notice how much lower the running costs are. Even with fuel prices going up, I'm paying about 10 or 11 pence a mile, and probably averaging about 50 miles to the gallon.
I walk to work, but we use it for getting the children to scouts and cubs, going to church and for longer trips to visit family. Last summer, we went camping for 10 days and managed, with the help of a roof box, to cram everything we needed in – it's a great family car.
To drive, it's lovely; very smooth and quiet. If you want to race away from the lights you can; apparently you've got the equivalent of a 1.9 litre turbo diesel engine under the bonnet.
And it's got a couple of special features that I have to admit I really love, such as the fact you don't need to manually unlock the doors, the car just senses that your key is nearby and unlocks them for you. If it's dark, it will even fade the lights up to greet you.
Ideally, nobody would be driving anything at all. But we're a way away from that, I think. In the meantime, I'd love to see electric vehicles become the norm.
'It accelerates like a video game, not like a laggy old combustion engine'
Tom Franklin, patent lawyer, San Diego, US
I was the second person in the world to own a Nissan Leaf. I'd thought about buying an electric car because I'm very interested in energy independence. You look at what the US is doing around the world and it is clearly influenced by our need for oil. And if you have friends whose kids have gone to war, that really brings it home to you.
It did take a little getting used to though. I lend it to friends, to colleagues and family whenever possible, and the first question they always ask is: what if you get low on electricity, won't you have to stop and charge it for six hours? That's just not the case, you just need to get enough to get you home. I can stop for quarter of an hour, top-up enough while I have a cup of coffee and be off again. But it is true that you need to plan a little bit more with an electric car. That's a paradigm shift that we need to make.
Actually, there are a lot of scary things about combustion engines too, but we're just used to them. We're used to filling up with gasoline that gets on your hands, with a smell you can't wash off, and warning signs on the pump. But in a few generations from now, when we describe the internal combustion engine to our great-grandkids, they'll say, "So there were hundreds of moving parts? And tanks of highly flammable liquid? And then lots of explosions?" They're really not going to believe it.
There are some really nice touches, such as the built-in navigation system, and the fact that as I approach it syncs to my BlackBerry and starts playing whatever podcast I've just downloaded. It accelerates like a video game too, not like a laggy old combustion engine.
But I'm past the giddy stage, to be honest. Now it's just our car.
