Driving Green: Why 2024 is the year to embrace electric cars

· Updated

5 reasons why 2024 could be your year to go EV

Remember smartphones coming out?

At first, only the tech fanatics got one (you know the type, queuing through the night for the latest iPhone).

Then, they became mainstream. Nowadays you’re an outlier if you don’t have one.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are on the same journey. They started off niche; now it seems like everybody’s getting one. In a few years, you’ll be the outlier if you’re still driving a petrol car.

The question is when – not if – you should take the plunge.

In this guide, we’ll share five reasons why we think this should be your year to go electric.

  1. The cars are better than ever
  2. Running costs are falling
  3. The EV market is booming
  4. Charging is quicker and easier
  5. EVs are the greenest option

1. The cars are better than ever

From camping trips in your parents’ Volvo to that runaround you had at college, petrol and diesel cars have been all we’ve known for decades.

That’s all changing now. And like any change, it takes a bit of getting used to.

But electric cars have come a long way since George Clooney invested in the Tango T600 in 2005.

For many drivers, they now outperform traditional cars when it comes to performance, running costs, and practicality.

Ranges are increasing

Back in 2013, David Cameron was PM, Wills and Kate had just had Prince George, and the Nissan Leaf landed in the UK with a 75 mile range.

75 miles was, well, a little underwhelming.

Fine for a few trips to the shops, but a weekend away? Unlikely.

Worries about EV drivers getting stranded with a flat battery have persisted ever since.

But fast forward ten years and you can consign the phrase range anxiety to the history books.

EVs now go on for longer and the network of public chargepoints is growing by the week (more on that later).

Today’s Leaf has a range of up to 168 miles. And with its whopping 107.8 KwH battery, the Mercedes EQS  has a range of up to 453 miles.

And when you consider that the average driver in the UK travels 142 miles per week in their car, range doesn’t seem such a big deal after all.

The choice of cars is huge

As well as supercharged batteries with massive ranges, there’s a much wider choice of vehicles available nowadays.

From supercars to city runarounds to practical SUVs, all bases are covered. You can even get electric vans.

There are household names such as Kia, Volkswagen and Citroën, as well as some new kids on the block, such as Seat’s Cupra and Volvo’s Polestar.

Plug-in hybrid or full electric?

There are two types of plug-in cars on the market – plug-in hybrid (PHEV) or fully electric (BEV – standing for battery electric vehicle).

PHEVs were developed to bridge the gap between an electric car and an internal combustion engine car. They’ve got both – a battery and a traditional engine.

They run on electric for shorter distances – usually with an electric range of about 30 miles. When the battery gets low, they switch to petrol or diesel. As the name suggests, you can plug a PHEV in to a chargepoint to make sure the battery’s topped up.

A BEV, on the other hand, is 100% electric – no gas guzzler engine in sight.

Which one is best?

PHEVs certainly had their place.

While charging station infrastructure and technology was developing, they were a safe bet. No worries about a drained battery, because you could go old-school and top up with petrol or diesel if you needed to.

But as the UK’s EV public charging network is growing and getting faster (as you’ll find out later in this guide), the case for a PHEV is running out of juice.

The problem PHEVs solved – anxiety about not being able to charge your battery – is becoming a non-issue.

And the fact is, PHEVs have a heavy battery and an engine in them, making them relatively hefty and inefficient. Because they’ve also got that internal combustion engine on board, servicing costs can be higher too.

We salute the PHEV for the role it’s played in the transition to electric. But the future? BEV all the way.

Key Takeaway

Worries about inadequate range and not enough choice when it comes to fully electric cars are a thing of the past.

2. Running costs are falling

Insurance. Fuel. MOTs and repairs. Running a car can account for a fair chunk of the household budget.

More than ever, petrol or diesel cars (let’s just call them gas guzzlers) are becoming the expensive option.

Normally you get a better product when you pay more (just ask Fortnum & Mason).

But with gas guzzlers, you get the opposite. A polluting technology that’s on its way out.

Fuel prices and low emissions zones are making gas guzzlers expensive

Petrol prices hit 191p per litre in 2022, and they’ve been on an upward trend since 2020.

What’s more, cities are clamping down on gas guzzlers, to improve air quality and hit their own net zero targets.

From Aberdeen to Bath, we’re seeing more and more Low Emissions Zones or Clean Air Zones, that charge drivers of the worst gas guzzlers a daily fee. New ones are popping up all over the place, and they’re getting stricter.

It all adds up to an expensive, yet unsatisfying, experience.

On the other hand, EV running costs are falling

The falling cost of running an EV tips the scales even further in favour of electric.

Before you’ve even driven a mile, you can revel in the fact that you don’t have to pay any vehicle tax on a fully electric car.

You’ll also avoid those pesky low emissions zone charges.

And with electricity costs stabilising (and even falling), there’s less fluctuation in the cost of charging up.

You save even more money with the right tariffs and solar

Choosing the right tariff to charge your EV can save you even more money.

Lots of people charge up overnight. So, any tariff that gives you cheaper electricity overnight means you’ll pay less to drive your car.

And if you really want to make the most of your EV, get the ultimate setup: a home EV chargepoint paired with solar panels.

The cost of solar panels has come right down in recent years, and they’ll provide free juice for your car. Can you imagine the queues if petrol stations started giving away free fuel?

Key Takeaway

Electric gives you more for less. Petrol gives you less for more. Go figure!

3. The EV market is booming

EVs are now a common sight on the roads. If it feels like more and more people are taking the plunge, it’s because they are.

The EV market is in great shape.

According to government data, 80,000 new electric vehicles were sold between July and September 2022.

That represents over 40% of all new car sales in that period.

And the number of new fully electric cars sold has increased by 19% in the last year alone.

Those sales figures are only going to increase as we close in on the government’s ban on new petrol and diesel cars in 2030.

The second-hand EV market isn’t doing too badly, either.

New cars are one thing. But what about the second-hand market, representing the lion’s share of car sales in the UK?

The EV market isn’t that old (about as old as Prince George, it turns out), so the pool of used electric cars has been relatively small.

It’s growing though. A quick search on AutoTrader returns over 40,000 used plug-in vehicles for sale. Prices are starting to become competitive with petrol and diesel counterparts too.

In fact, according to data from the AA, an EV with 60k on the clock typically sells for half its original price. That stacks up nicely against petrol and diesel cars; according to the same report, they typically sell for 67% and 65% of their original price respectively.

Key takeaway

New EVs are flying off the shelves, and there are bargains to be had in the second-hand market.

4. Charging is quicker and easier

Once upon a time, EV owners worried about where they’d charge up. They’d plan long journeys around chargepoints, rather than the shortest route.

Nowadays that’s not a problem.

EV charging stations are everywhere

Back in January 2017, there were just 5,000 public chargepoints in the UK. That number has increased eight-fold.

You’ll see them at supermarkets, service stations, public car parks, leisure centres, shopping centres – you name it.

In April 2023, there were 40,000 public chargepoints across the UK.

To put that in perspective, there are just over 8,300 petrol stations.

And that number doesn’t even include all the private chargepoints on people’s driveways. Chargepoint mapping app Zapmap estimates there are about 400,000 of those.

Who said you’ll never find anywhere to charge your car up?

Chargers are getting faster

Next up on the list of EV anxieties to squash is the length of time it takes to charge.

And to be fair, back in the day chargers weren’t all that fast. But nowadays, speeds are much better. The motor industry even predicts we’ll see a time when charging won’t take much longer than filling up with petrol.

For now, you’ll have to make do with rapid and ultra rapid charging.

How fast is rapid and ultra rapid charging?

The time it takes to charge an electric car depends on the size of the battery, how powerful the charger is, and how much juice the battery has in it to begin with.

According to the RAC, a typical public rapid chargepoint takes between 20 to 40 minutes to fully charge a car.

100kW
An ultra rapid chargepoint puts out north of 100kW of power, and typically gets the job done in 20 to 25 minutes.

7,000
At the start of 2023 the UK had almost 7,000 rapid and ultra rapid public chargepoints. That’s up from 2,800 in January 2020.

Not all cars can accept such a mighty charge rate though. The fastest chargepoints, which can deliver up to a whopping 350kW, are limited to top of the range cars, such as the Porsche Taycan and BMW iX.

So, next time someone says to you: “But you have to wait for ages to charge them up”, you can wow them with the latest industry stats (we won’t tell).

Charging at home makes it even easier

Home chargepoints aren’t as powerful as rapid and ultra-rapid chargepoints, but that’s not usually a problem.

Because you’re at home, it’s no sweat to plug-in on your driveway and leave it for a while – overnight ideally.

You can kick back and enjoy the fact you’ll never have to make that annoying visit to the petrol station before a trip again.

A smart home EV chargepoint also gives you the opportunity to charge your car with free solar energy.

Like strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, they’re the perfect companions.

When it’s sunny and you’re generating more energy than your home is using, you can use that extra electricity for your car. Smart home energy systems can do it for you automatically, without you having to lift a finger.

Key Takeaway

Chargepoints are getting much faster and the network is multiplying quicker than rabbits.

5.Electric cars are the greenest option

It’s true, electric cars aren’t perfect.

Like anything us humans manufacture, producing an electric car has an impact on the environment. The batteries require particular raw materials, and there’s the question of what happens when they reach the end of the road and need recycling.

But, short of running around in a Fred Flinstone car, electric is the greenest option available to us if we want to continue traveling in private vehicles.

The internal combustion engine burns petrol or diesel. That creates fumes which pollute the air we breathe and add to global warming by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Electric cars, on the other hand, create no fumes. They’re zero emissions.

Driving them doesn’t make the air dirty, and it doesn’t add to global warming.

The carbon footprint payback period

Let’s bust a myth: that electric cars are just as bad for the environment as petrol or diesel cars.

The manufacturing process for an electric car does have a bigger carbon footprint than a petrol or diesel car, because of the battery.

But that extra carbon footprint gets quickly outweighed by the electric car’s zero emissions.

**15,000mi
**
A study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency worked out how quickly. It found that it takes about 15,000 to 20,000 miles driving an EV to “pay off” the extra carbon footprint created by making the battery.

After that, you’re in the black.

Or should that be in the green?

Did somebody say, “solar panels”?

And yes. We couldn’t wrap up this section without another shoutout for solar panels.

Solar panels don’t just give you free juice for your electric car. They also allow you to charge up with zero impact on the environment. It means you can reduce that carbon footprint payback period even quicker.

Key Takeaway

All cars have an impact on the environment, but electric treads the lightest (Fred Flinstone’s aside).

The final word

It seems like EVs have been in the wings for ages, while we waited for the technology to catch up.

Early adopters jumped in the driving seat quickly, but most of us have been a bit more hesitant.

There were worries about range, where to charge up, and the cars themselves.

We think, however, that 2024 is the tipping point.

  • Bigger battery ranges mean longer journeys aren’t a problem.
  • There’s a vast and growing network of chargepoints.
  • The market is maturing, with huge choice and second-hand deals to be had.
  • And the increasing cost of driving a gas guzzler, combined with the option to charge your EV for free with solar, makes the economic argument a no-brainer.

An electric car also slots seamlessly into a modern, low carbon home’s tech ecosystem. By pairing one with solar panels and a smart home energy system, you can ensure all your solar energy gets put to use, saving you money and helping the planet.

About Powerverse

We’re industry experts in home energy management. Our easy-to-use app is built for your future electric home. It will effortlessly sync your solar, battery, heat pump, EV charger and more, helping you cut costs and your carbon footprint on your way to becoming energy-independent. Curious to know more? Talk to one of our experts. 

Also, if you’re considering installing solar panels, we’d be more than happy to recommend several trusted partners who can provide and install them for you.