Last autumn, John Ramsbottom decided to replace his old hatchback petrol car. The 72-year-old retiree, who describes himself as environmentally conscious and keen to reduce his carbon footprint, decided to look into electric vehicles.
He already has solar panels on his roof and a heat pump in his home and said swapping his car would be “another step towards a greener way of life”.
However, after taking a look at the sums, it did not make financial sense and instead, John had to buy another petrol car.
John, who lives in Stockport, Greater Manchester, says that as he lives in a terraced house with no driveway and only on-street parking, charging the car would be incredibly difficult and he’d have to resort to using public stations.
As well as being inconvenient, he says the cost of this would work out far more expensive, and would simply “not be viable”.
John says his current petrol car runs at a cost of 14p per mile. He estimated that charging an electric car at public points could cost around 18 or 19p per mile. He says home charging could cost him 9 or 10p per mile if he could get a charger installed, but this would come at great expense, meaning all his possible solutions have been thwarted.
“To make it viable financially you need that home charging point. Doing it publicly is a non-starter,” he says.
“I looked at the possibility of converting the front garden into a heavy paved space, but the cost of doing that was about £5,000, which really rather ruled that out on top of the electric vehicle cost.”
The cost of getting a charger installed varies depending on the wattage but usually ranges from £500 into the thousands.
John also looked at using a company called Kerbo Charge to install a through-pavement channel to allow him to charge at home, but this was blocked by his local authority Stockport Council.
“It was a roundabout process and I even got my local MP involved, but the response from the council was no good – they didn’t want to know,” he says.
Councillor Grace Baynham, cabinet member for parks, highways and transport services at Stockport Council, said installing more electric vehicle chargers was “a key aspect” of the council’s climate strategy and that last year it had signed an agreement with charging provider Be.EV to install rapid and ultra rapid chargers in the borough.
“However, we are awaiting central government guidance on what technologies, policy and legislative changes are required for on-street electric charging to be installed on our highways,” she added.
John has been left disappointed and says that ultimately he thinks others – particularly those without the ability to have their own charging points at their homes will be deterred from getting electric vehicles.
“People are not going to get these solely to help the environment if it costs them more. Some might do it if the cost is parity with petrol but you aren’t going to get people on board unless it saves them money. There needs to be an incentive,” he says.
“The irony of it is that people who perhaps need access to this cheaper transport perhaps don’t have these houses where they can access it. Then the privileged who live in more leafy areas can access it.”
Research from Compare the Market shows the typical annual running cost for an electric vehicle is now £525 cheaper than a petrol car on average, once the car itself has been bought.
The data, which looked at insurance costs, fuel and taxes, showed that for a typical 45 to 54-year-old, the average annual cost of running an electric vehicle is £1,195. In comparison, a petrol car typically costs £1,720 to run for 12 months.
i has previously spoken to some electric vehicle owners who says that their new cars save them money when compared to their petrol costs perviously.
But each of these drivers has had a charger at home, and have each admitted that the costs would be far higher if they didn’t.
John accepts that for now, he’ll have to bite the bullet and continue driving a petrol car, but he says at present, it’s a shame that there are larges swathes of the population in his position, and that it’s a shame that they are all missing out.
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