I think there are pitfalls to EV's if you are not careful.

For sure if I were considering one I'd lease it on a short lease that was no longer than the manufacturer warrantee. There is no way I would buy one.

That said that are a good option for those of us who do short trips and home charging on a "granny lead" is a practical option but you MUST still use a 13A socket designed to support car charging, BS 1363-2, often marked with "EV". (This is due to the constant load). My sparky recommends a separate circuit as well as the safest way.

My preference, despite the short trips, remains a petrol engine and in the Skoda range I prefer the 1.5. It'll return 43 mpg around town with ease and over 50 mpg on a run. Given my low annual mileage I personally think a full oil and filter service once a year or at 5000 miles makes the most sense. The one thing short trips are good at is gumming up the engine internals. I also follow the advice after a long run at higher speed to allow the engine a few minutes at idle to cool down before switching it off.

On 02/03/2026 at 14:03, nta16 said:

I was looking at proper (forget the correct or marketing term) hybrid and "mild" (different ideas of what that might be) for my wife and all her short journeys and came to the same conclusion as Evolution13 that they're not best suited at all.

6k-milkes a year is low but not that low, or as I've put nowhere near as low as I see from neighbour's and looking at some new-ish replacement cars I've seen advertised, more like 1k-3k-miles a year, or less. It's the odd very occasional long journeys that would make electric only costings more difficult to pin down, at home or near(er) home should be easier to know and calculate.

Servicing an electric car electric engine is something to look forward to compared to the messy, costly, farting about servicing an ICE engine which isn't.

How do you service an electric car "engine"?

^^^ Arnold Clark Servicing Central Booking offered me a Special Offer when booking in an EV which was a Motability Car and i was not paying for the Service or Recall action. The Special price was for a Fuel Treatment & Engine Flush. They also said no Automatic Courtesy cars. I pointed out they had e-Corsa Courtesy cars the same as was getting serviced and they only come as AUTOMATICS..............Some BEV,s require a reduction diff oil change. Tesla, Nissan Leaf. Pollen filters, Brake Fluid changes. Brakes, suspension, steering components Servicing & Maintenance, Wipers, hinges. XXXXXXXXXXXBelow my Fixed for 12 month tariff. Eon Next. If i renewed 1 day earlier it would have been cheaper. 'He who hesitates!'

Edited 19 May19 May by Evolution13

1 hour ago, skoda998 said:

How do you service an electric car "engine"?

That was my piont. 😉

I can remember a number of years back, before electric was fashionable, watching a YouTube video of and Americian mechanic showing the old parts and materials used to service his ICE vehicle engine and then what was used on the electric engne "service", he said he knew which he prefered.

I seem to be the only one that remembers seeing stuff from the 1960s where electric cars "were the future" perhaps I was on fantasy island or it's false memory. A few years ago at a NEC international classic car show I saw a 1907 electric car. ICE won the battle all those decades (century plus) ago and the ICE manufacturers made sure it stayed that way for them as long as they could. Like the tobbacco, farming, sugar, pharmacy, arms, lobbies the motoring lobby is very powerful fiddling figures and currpting as much as required to keep their powers and profits.

I'm not for or against electric cars or ICE cars, only against the ICE manufacturers being allowed to stiffle progress and alternatives. Now the Chinese have such a dominance over electric cars suddenly lots more progress on alternatives or improvements to petrol and diesel engines, and to electric, how strange. 😁