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In the wake of British Gas fitting our new electric vehicle charging point at the beginning of this year, BusinessCar also wanted to see just how practical, or not, a pure-electric vehicle actually is.
We took delivery of a Nissan Leaf EV and a petrol-powered Nissan Juke to see which would cover the most miles over the course of a fortnight; the Juke being called into action on the days the Leaf didn't have the range to complete my journey.
The bad news is that the Juke took it by a much wider margin than anticipated - 1101.3 miles versus 227.4 - but there were some particular circumstances that didn't help the electric Nissan.
The way my diary worked out meant there were a couple of times where I had to go somewhere on the way to work, such as a meeting that added another 35 miles to my journey to the office and tipped it just over what was worth risking from a range point of view. That attitude towards range anxiety has in various EV trials proved to diminish with time. Trips from Sussex to Daventry and Milton Keynes on the other hand, wouldn't have been possible without a lengthy pause for recharging no matter what the attitude to range anxiety. If I had just been in the office, then the majority of the mileage would have been in the Leaf, which generally speaking was comfortable with a 35-mile trip between charges. The one exception was the time I took the longer but mainly motorway route to work and arrived with nine miles of battery life left after a 40-mile run, despite the Leaf claiming more than 100 miles of range. Higher speeds sap the battery, and only a lengthy stretch of 50mph roadworks saved me, although I could have helped the situation by easing off from the motorway limit the rest of the time.
My own lack of EV experience/stupidity also cost the Leaf running time. Attending another carmaker's event at the Stratford shopping centre in east London, I was too late to charge the car when I got back to the office in order to get home, so switched to the Juke. But with a bit more research, rather than spotting them on the way out, I would have known there were charging points at the centre, which would have boosted the car enough to add another 70 miles to its total at the expense of the Juke.
Another example of range paranoia was a trip to see my parents, where a combination of recharging time worries and the distance - 40 miles of mainly dual carriageway - meant I chickened out and took the Juke when, with reduced speed and a recharge over lunch, I would probably have been fine.
It makes the point that pure-electric vehicles are very different to the convenience of internal combustion engines. They won't suit everyone, but experience is the only way to find out how they can work. After my fortnight with both cars I feel much wiser about the concept of EVs and I'm certainly now better equipped to judge their real-world utilisation as a result.
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Business Car Magazine © 2020 | Business Car is part of NS Media Group.
