Electric vehicles

Charging costs, running costs, and honest comparisons against petrol.

The figure that gets left out of most charging calculations is loss. Some of the energy the meter records never reaches the battery — around ten per cent at home, more in the cold or on a slow trickle — and the meter is what you are billed for.

The other thing that decides the answer is where you charge. Home overnight and a motorway rapid charger differ by several times per kilowatt hour, which matters far more to the running cost than the car does.