At 23mpg average, I’ll just have not worry too much 😆

Jimb

On 23 April 2026 at 13:51 not done it yet Said:

I wo

But I’m a bit biased – I feed electrons to my vehicle.🙂  240 miles tomorrow and it’ll cost me less than £4.50 for electrons.  That will increase to £6, next month, but I’ll still get the same quality electrons.

Trouble is they come out as fast as you feed ’em in!

According to a friend of mine who was an enthusiast, Gardner advised the best way to dispose of old oil after an oil change was to mix it in with the diesel at a fairly low concentration. Diesel itself is not too bad a lubricant, adding a bit of oil might make it better. I wouldn’t try it on a modern engine, they are a bit fussy.

On 25 April 2026 at 17:57 blowlamp Said:

From T’internet:

“BP Pulse charging prices vary based on the type of charger and payment method. As of now, registered users pay around 77p per kWh, while contactless payments are priced at 79p per kWh, with subscription users paying 63p per kWh.”

So as soon as you can’t recharge at home, the picture changes.

Martin.

Electric vs Diesel UK: Which Is Cheaper Per Mile in 2026?

EV Depreciation vs Savings UK: When Do Electric Cars Break Even?

As Robert has said not a lot in it.

My 2.0 litre Mondeo Estate consistently averages 61mpg and thus has a range of well over 600 miles. It takes approximately 3 minutes to refuel I have had the car for 15 years and so it is fully depreciated, unlike NDY’s electric car. So why on earth would I want to swop? I much prefer smelly polluting ICE cars.

Andrew.

My Corsa D with the 1.7 diesel Izusu engine gets 46mpg around town and up to 70 mpg if I drive fully within the speed limits on motorways. When I had a new Hyundai i20 1 litre 48V hybrid courtesy car, it only got 45mpg at 70 on the motorway, I wouldn’t have been able to afford the fuel. As it is the diesel costs over £10 per gallon thanks to Donald.

As I posted on a different thread, I travelled for a total energy cost 250 miles for less than £4 for electrons.  The return trip will likely cost as much as four times that amount because I will be charging on solar and a fixed domestic tariff at where I am staying.  That 4p/mile (for the round trip) is not typical of my energy cost as about 90% of my charging is at Octopus Go tariff (6.5p/kWh currently, but rising to 8.625p/kWh in May).  Since October last year the car has averaged 3.6 miles/kWh.  I expect better than that now summer has nearly arrived.  Work out the energy cost yourself.

Those “break-even” claims also ignore the maintenance costs – just to make them seem better than an EV.  The maintenance/service cost for mine has been £200 over three years – and no Ad-blue expense (for diesel cars) for my EV.🙂

Robert very specifically picked on a Tesla Model 3 in his post.  Very unfortunate to use duff comparisons and be miffed when called out for it.  Many other small EVs will be doing much better than even a Tesla M3.  There are loads of them that have come to the market recently.

Depreciation, for mine, was initially high, but that is not the case now.  My purchase was a ‘must have’ at the time – when my wife was nearing the end.  There were only 4 cars, of that specification, in the country.   I have no regrets on paying the price at the time, considering our predicament.

Most comparisons are for similar sized cars, not necessarily to the same specification.  You won’t find a car with the same performance as mine at the comparison prices mostly quoted.

All things considered, EVs are the car of the future.  Nobody will be able to buy a new car, with just a fossil burning engine, in the UK in what – another 4 years time?  No more fossil-burning new cars from 2035 in the UK.  Some need to get used to it and not bury their head in the sand.

“No more fossil-burning new cars from 2035 in the UK.  Some need to get used to it and not bury their head in the sand”

The percentage of pure EV’s registered and used on UK roads is 5.7% of the total number registered in March 2026.

https://www.zapmap.com/ev-stats/ev-market

Not exactly popular are they?

Taking your comment and rewriting it to reflect reality:-

“Some need to get used to the fact that there is not enough copper being mined or produced to support the so-called EV revolution and not bury their head in the sand (or a copper mine!)”

That’s in addition to the copper required to upgrade power grids.

An EV requires three to five times more copper than petrol or diesel cars, not to mention the copper required for upgrades to the electricity grid.

“A normal Honda Accord needs about 40 pounds of copper. The same battery electric Honda Accord needs almost 200 pounds of copper,” said Adam Simon, professor of earth and environmental studies at the University of Michigan.

“We show in the paper that the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce.”

https://engineers.scot/news/2024-07-14-the-amount-of-copper-needed-to-build-evs-is-impossible-for-mining-companies-to-produce

On 26 April 2026 at 17:10 not done it yet Said:

<SNIP>

Since October last year the car has averaged 3.6 miles/kWh.  I expect better than that now summer has nearly arrived.  Work out the energy cost yourself.

Those “break-even” claims also ignore the maintenance costs – just to make them seem better than an EV.  The maintenance/service cost for mine has been £200 over three years – and no Ad-blue expense (for diesel cars) for my EV.🙂

Robert very specifically picked on a Tesla Model 3 in his post.  Very unfortunate to use duff comparisons and be miffed when called out for it.  Many other small EVs will be doing much better than even a Tesla M3.  There are loads of them that have come to the market recently.

<SNIP>

I don’t know how you could posssibly know that I “very specifically selected” any model of EV. I pretty much randomly chose the M3 as it seems popular and isn’t huge. My calculated miles per kWh (based on averages of published claimed and real world figures) was just over 4m/kWh so actually better than your EV. Your car would cost 21.39p / mile at the BP 77p rate. So at £1.60 a litre an ICE vehicle only has to make 34 mpg to match it.

Robert.

Why is there an implicit assumption that there is a one-size-fits-all solution, or even that one should exist? If you drive a 15-year-old car that gives acceptable economy and suits your needs, why change it? A perfectly good reason why there are “only” 5.7% EVs on the road at the moment. It would be daft to expect them all to change at once. To demonstrate how a single carefully-chosen number can be misleading, the same report from which that data point was taken also says,

“In 2025 473,348 new fully electric cars were registered, which was 23.4% market share of all new cars last year and 91,378 more fully electric cars than were registered in 2024.”

A different spin on the numbers?

I am very happy indeed with my new EV. I am fortunate in being able to charge at home using cheap overnight tariffs (arguably cheaper than using my own solar energy) and recognise that I shall have to bite the bullet for the 25% of any annual mileage where I cannot do that. But I’m still estimating that overall energy cost will be around 40% of the diesel for the same mix. But I don’t pull a trailer or do the kind of away-from-home commuting journeys that I once did. I do feel happier with reducing pollution and noise for the local journeys I do do.

“Your mileage may vary” has never been so true.