There are more than 660,000 battery electric cars (BEVs) being driven in the UK.  Interestingly, about 40% of these BEVs were purchased in 2022.  So there are an awful lot of new electric cars on our roads, which means there are awful lots of new electric car drivers too.  In my own household, there is one driver who has been driving a BEV for 18 months (as at April 2023), two who have been driving a BEV for just under 12 months and one who is still using a petrol engined car.

If you are one of new BEV drivers, the following tips might be helpful.  I act, they may even prove useful to more experienced drivers of BEVs.

Battery Health and Charging

When I bought my first EV, a 2012 Nissan Leaf 24kWh when it was about nine years old, I hadn't really considered battery health or the life the car had already had.  My car had spent it's previous life on the island of Jersey, so wouldn't have likely travelled too far, too fast.  But it was, as I recall, getting on for ten years old.  And it was one of the early cars, which lacked the battery optimisation technology of today.

As it turned out, I should have been able to tell the state of the battery just by looking at the dashboard, but I didn't know...

My battery had a health rating of 8 out of 12, which might seem fine for a car of that age, but it had only done a but over 40,000 miles.

Battery health is an integral part of having an EV, so knowing the basics of battery health can extend the life of your car’s battery.  The healthier your battery is, the more energy it can hold.  If you fail to care of it, over time, your battery will degrade and you will lose some of your range.

To prevent battery degradation, the general guidance has been to avoid charging it to 100% every time you charge it.  This is especially the case if you are frequently using rapid chargers.  However, most modern EVs have systems to protect the battery.  They tend to have a buffer, so that a battery with a total capacity of 64kWh might only have a useable 61.7kWh useable capacity.  In addition, the onboard systems will slow the charge towards the end.  So, the advice to only charge to 80% is still valid for older EVs, but less so for modern ones.

Some new EVs allow you to pre-warm the battery ahead of charging, which also helps to protect the unit.

Home Charging

If you have the option to have a home charger, you should do it.  Being able to charge your vehicle at home, whilst you are watching TV, working from home or sleeping, is incredibly convenient.  Going out to a full battery means it is less likely that you will have to use public chargers, which can be expensive (in comparison) and sometimes busy.

Some smart home chargers enable you to save a lot more money, if you're able to make use of cheaper overnight or specialist EV tariffs.  However, it is worth checking to see which smart chargers are compatible with the energy companies.  I, when I moved home, went with a Zappi charger because it had a great reputation and was one of the units hat was noted as being compatible with solar.  I didn't yet have solar and home battery storage, but was planning to have it installed.

However, whilst waiting for the funds to pay for the solar installation, I found that my electricity bills were somewhere between £650 and £775 per month!  I contacted my energy supplier to see if I could get onto their specialist EV packages, but neither my charger unit nor my EV where listed as being compatible.  I contacted another supplier who had an EV deal that meant that charging would be a flat 10 pence per kW, but again found that my charger and vehicle were not listed as being compatible. 

So, do check the details before committing to having the wrong unit installed, or committing to the wrong energy package.

The Weather Impacts Range

Driving in the rain or snow has an impact on range, even in vehicles with an internal combustion engine.  However, you notice it more in an EV, partly because of the act you have a range estimation on the dashboard at all times.  However, cold weather has a bigger impact on the range of most EVs.  The batteries have to work harder to perform in cold weather and the chances are that you will want to heat the inside of the car too!  With an internal combustion engine, you have a great big heater (normally) right in front of you. The engine will deliver heat to the cabin as a by-product of doing its job.

However, with an EV there is no heat being generated.  When I set off on a cold winter's morning, after clearing the windows of ice, my bonnet will sparkle with the frosty ice that covers it.  When I get home, over two hours later, it's still sparkling with the frost.  If you look at an ICE vehicle, the frost will have disappeared quite quickly.

So, without the heat generated fro the engine, an EV has to use an actual heater to warm the vehicle up.  That takes energy.  My impression is that an EV uses more energy to warm the car in winter, whilst an ICEV uses more fuel to cool the car (air conditioning) in the summer.

If you visit ev-database.org/uk you will be able to see their data on ranges for individual cars in cold and mild weather.

Cold Mornings

Whilst the cold weather does have an impact on the range of an EV, there is a benefit that comes with most EVs.  Either through an App on your smartphone, or within the car, most EVs allow you to ask the car to warm up at a predefined time.  So, if you know it is going to be a cold morning tomorrow, you can programme you car to defrost and warm the cabin ahead of your departure.  Not only does this mean you don't have to start your day by manually scraping ice from your windows, but the work is done whilst plugged in to your charger, minimising the impact on the battery and your range.

Acceleration, Speed and Battery Charge

One of the fun aspects of driving an EV is the fast acceleration.  However, as it does with a petrol or diesel car, this gobbles up a fair amount of energy.  This obviously drains your battery faster.  In comparison, again as with an ICE car, accelerating gently will save you energy.   You should also note that driving faster will use more energy.  You don't have multiple gears in an EV, so the optimum speed in an EV will be lower than in an ICEV.  If you’re trying to eke out your battery to make it to your destination, keep an eye on your speedometer and drive slower.

Wheel Size and Tyre Pressure

‍Many people seem to prefer to have lager wheels and lower profile tyres on their cars.  If you look at buying a new car, you may notice that the higher the specification, the larger the wheels.  When I was driving the Mercedes EQE and discussing the trim levels with the salesman, he pointed out that he top of the range car had larger wheels and that the impact was about 30 miles less in range.  In addition, if you don’t have the correct pressure in your tyres your rolling resistance will increase, which will have an impact on your range, as more energy is required to move your car.

Plan Your Route

Years ago, people would tend to plan before setting out on a long, unfamiliar journey.  This may have been a combination of using an atlas and, if you had them, local street maps for the area you were going to.  And then we found satellite navigation (SatNav).  People stopped planning to the same degree, because you had mapping software in your car and then subsequently on our phones.

However, if you're driving to unfamiliar areas in an EV you would be well advised to do a little planning to assess where chargers might be along your route and in the area you will be staying.  I say this, whilst having to admit that I rarely do this myself.  I have asked venues I have been booking whether they have EV charging facilities, but that's about as far as I've gone in planning trips.

What I have done, especially when heading to Cornwall for a mini-break, is use an App called ABRP (A Better Route Planner).  This is a SatNav App that is compatible with Apple CarPlay (and therefore probably with Android Auto).  You need to enter the details of your car and it will then ensure that, when calculating a route to get to your destination, it includes stop overs at chargers along the way.  It will tend to guide you to a charger before you are too low on power, so that if you have to divert to another you have the range to be able to do so.  You can find out more about the App at abetterrouteplanner.com or download the Apps from Apple's App Store or the Google Play store.

You shouldn't have to worry too much about not finding a charger, as there are now (March 2023 figures) 40,496 public charging devices, with 65,845 connectors at 23,902 locations in the UK.  There were an additional 1,827 installed in the month before. You can get the up to date data at zap-map.com.

Regenerative Braking

With some EVs you can use one pedal driving, whereby you push the accelerator a little firmer to increase speed, hold it steady to maintain speed, ease back to slow down or release the accelerator completely to effectively brake.  When slowing down, the car will recuperate energy into the batteries.

Even without one pedal driving, EVs will use the slowing power of the vehicle to add charge to the battery.

As you lift off the accelerator, for example when coming up to traffic, going down a hill or approaching a junction, you will go from using energy to propel the car forward, to recuperating energy whilst slowing the car.  Not only is this a bonus to aid the protection of the car's range, but it means you actually use the brakes far less than in an ICE vehicle.  EVs go quite staggering distances without needing new brakes and you may even be advised to deliberately apply the brakes (safely) when not needed, just to keep the pads and discs clean.

Practice

When my daughter first got her brand new EV, I advised her to go and try to charge at a public rapid charger; before she actually had a need.  This was so she had a chance to explore what to do and what might be problematic, without the aded stress of actually needing a charge.  This was worthwhile and, whilst she has had some charging woes, she has been able to cope well with public charging.

Get Advice from the EV Community

If you have a Facebook account, make full use of it.  There are many, many EV groups on Facebook.  For each EV manufacturer there will be at least one Facebook group.  And there will be groups for individual EV models too.  There are UK EV driver Facebook pages, pages for private hire and taxi EV drivers and pages for those who tow caravans with their EVs.  I must be a member of at least 20 different EV groups on Facebook.

There are also websites and EV club groups that sit outside of Facebook and a quick search using a search engine will no doubt find those that are of interest to you.

I will be providing links to the useful websites that I can on the Useful Websites page here and if you are aware of any that aren't listed please do let me know.