Rob Cooling: Why I’ll never go back to a traditional car

Electric cars nottingham

We’ve had four EVs to date and the experience has been amazing, myself and my wife have decided we will never go back to traditional cars. Our daily driving is well within the range of our electric cars but I’ll elaborate regarding how we manage our longer journeys.

Our family car is a 40kWh Nissan Leaf with a range of 120 (winter) – 180 (summer) miles. The 70 per cent reduction in running costs significantly offsets our lease costs but even if EVs were more expensive we would happily pay because they are simply a better product. We enjoy numerous day trips to the Peak District and this tends to be well within the Leaf’s range although there are chargers en-route if needed. There’s a slight learning curve to using the chargers but this is becoming simpler, once you’ve got the relevant app or special card it’s not so bad and soon all chargers will accept card payments anyway.

Taking an electric car on holiday to the Peak District
Taking an electric car on holiday to the Peak District

We met other EV drivers on holiday when we were returning home from Exmouth and had the usual enthusiastic chat about how awesome our cars are. Next year we are travelling to several holidays and there’s plenty of chargers we can choose from when we need them, some places even have chargers at the destination which makes life even easier than a traditional car. We’re also embarking on a 1,000 mile mystery road trip across seven days and will take each day as it comes, the network is strong enough that we can confidently do this. We often holiday in little cottages in the countryside and several times have charged the car at the holiday house using the three-pin plug – with the owner’s permission of course.

Rob’s EV charging at a service station near Exmouth

Yes the public network is currently patchy and the current range is limited to about 150 miles but with a little bit of planning and a sensible break every two hours it can actually make the journey more enjoyable and adds a feeling of adventure to the experience. It’s important to bear in mind these limitations are all short term. Range and charging speed is constantly improving whilst the recharging network continues to expand and simplify. The new generation electric cars will establish a 250+ mile range as the standard across the next few years, my old petrol car needed to refuel every 300 miles so it’s not greatly different but the EV has the advantage of being able to ‘refuel’ itself at home or sometimes even at the destination.

Rob runs the Nottingham-based Apple Driving School. You can find out more about how making the switch to an EV has helped his business here

 

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