Advantages Of Electric Cars

With electric cars becoming increasingly popular and likely to become the norm in the next 10-20 years.

It’s important that potential EV owners start to think about the benefit of electric cars.

That way, you can plan whether they are right for you.

Let’s have a look at what an electric car has to offer.

Benefits Of Electric Vehicles

Below we are going to list just a few of the benefits of electric cars, these are just a handful and there are plenty more out there:

No Fuel Emissions

Probably the biggest benefit for electric cars is the fact that an electric car will no longer burn fossil fuels which in turn causes carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, to be released in large quantities into the air causing air pollution and affecting the air quality. The heat is trapped in our atmosphere by greenhouse gases and this causes global warming. It also means lower fuel costs.

This is why the UK government and governments around the world are looking to reduce each country’s carbon footprint and slowly phase out petrol and diesel cars by 2050. The reason an electric vehicle doesn’t produce emissions is that it is run on a lithium-ion battery which is charged using electricity. There is no petrol used in fully electric cars. Hybrid cars would use petrol or diesel as well as electricity, but this is why it’s called a hybrid because it combines parts of electric cars with a regular car.

What’s even better with driving electric cars is if you were to charge your car at home and you had solar panels which in turn charged your electric car using solar power, you would be reducing your carbon footprint to almost nothing.

Affordable Energy Tariffs

The cost of petrol is always going to be a major disadvantage to cars and one of the main reasons people switch to electric cars is to save money on running costs.

Electricity is always going to be cheaper and with certain energy tariffs, you can find great deals by shopping around to help charge your electric cars.

Hypothetically speaking, some cars cost £80-100 to fill with petrol or diesel. Whilst depending on the size of your electric car and its battery size, you may have your electric cars fully charged for between £15-25. As you can see, this is a drastic change in price and that’s just one charge.

If you were to do this over 6 months, 12 months or even years for electric cars, you would soon save a lot of money each year.

Low Maintenance

Every vehicle needs maintenance, but electric cars tend to need a lot less than regular cars. This is because electric cars don’t have as many moving parts as a normal car and conventional engines such as a traditional combustion engine can have a lot go wrong with them if not properly maintained, whereas electric cars have far less because it’s a battery and electric motor.

Electric motors has less than 20 moving parts whilst an internal combustion engine has hundreds, so you can see where the problems and costs might arise in diesel powered cars compared to electric cars. This is one of the main advantages of electric vehicles, people are less likely to have to fork out as regularly compared to petrol or diesel cars.

Better Driving Experience

Due to more manufacturers entering the electric car market, the design, comfort and driving experience of an electric car has increased drastically. A few years ago, people had low expectations of what to expect from electric cars, nowadays, brands such as Tesla have done a lot to improve people’s opinions on electric cars and an electric car benefits from a much smoother driving experience now.

The electric cars now, tend to have a much sleeker design, they pull away quickly with good acceleration, they are lighter than a conventional diesel car and they are much quieter when driving than diesel engines. All of these things combined with regenerative braking benefits the drivers driving experience of an electric car.

Less Noise

An electric car is known for being a lot quieter than a normal car. When you start the engine and pull away, you can hardly hear anything. It will be like a low humming noise, compared to a combustion engine which you can clearly hear as soon as it turns on.

The reduction in noise pollution is another major benefit of electric cars that a lot of people are unaware of.

Better Resale Value

Second-hand electric cars also allow you to get into the EV market at an affordable price. If you are looking to switch from petrol or diesel to an EV, this might be the best way of doing it in terms of affordability.

It’s also worth noting that the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2030, therefore it’s important that you start thinking about the electric car cost and the switch to electric cars in the next decade or so.

Disadvantages Of Electric Cars

With everything, there are always pros and cons, below we will take a look at some of the disadvantages of electric vehicles:

Battery Range On An Electric Car

People often get nervous about the range of an electric car, but this has improved greatly in the last few years and although they still don’t travel anywhere near the same distance as a full engine of petrol, some models can still go well over 150 miles on a single charge.

Hybrid cars can travel further as they use fossil fuels and an electric motor but an electric vehicle can still do the job. It’s only if you’re looking to do a long-haul journey, rather than filling it up a combustion engine where you may not have to stop, you may have to pull over a couple of times with an electric car in order to top up the battery.

If you plan to do a long journey in an EV, make sure you check one of the apps and find out roughly where you can stop to charge your electric vehicles, you don’t want to get stranded in the middle of nowhere with an empty battery.

Charging Time For An Electric Vehicle

This is one drawback that puts people off, especially if you have to use public charging stations as they might only have slow charging stations which take a while and you don’t want to have to wait around in a supermarket car park or hotel whilst your car charges.

The way around this is to do the majority of your charging at home overnight. Have a home charger installed which is usually a 7kW and plan your charges whilst you are in bed asleep. Not only does this not waste time, but it saves you money as fewer people use the grid at night so you get cheaper rates for charging.

Battery Life

This is hardly a disadvantage, but the batteries used in EV’s are likely to last between 10-15 years. There not unlimited and can be costly when they need to be repaired so that is something to think of when buying an EV, especially if you get a second-hand electric car.

Most manufacturers offer a 7-8 year warranty on the battery or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first. So you can have peace of mind knowing that if you do get a new EV, you shouldn’t have to worry about the life of the battery for a very long time.

Initial Investment

The upfront cost is by far and away one of the most challenging aspects for any prospective buyer. EV’s are not cheap and you can find other petrol and diesel cars at a fraction of the price, not to mention having to pay another £1000 roughly to have a charger installed at your home.

This initial cost for electric cars is steep and a lot of people can’t afford it, but you can look at leasing an electric car and there are government schemes for helping with certain costs whether your a homeowner or a business.

Last Word

Hopefully having read this guide, you can see the advantages and disadvantages of electric cars and why there that much more appealing compared to regular combustion engine cars.

The no carbon emissions and reduced costs on fuel and maintenance are some of the biggest benefits and why a lot more people are starting to switch over to electric cars. Not only that but from 2030 all new sales of petrol and diesel will be banned meaning the only new cars you’d be able to purchase are hybrids or electric cars.

With these things combined, more and more drivers are looking to sell their regular vehicle and invest in an electric vehicle. See some of our other guides on electric vehicles for more information on electric cars in general and what to expect from electric vehicles.