Towing with an EV - trip report

Thanks Nutsy :-)

"No benefit in kind tax on both the vehicle cost and personal use of fuel. Salary sacrifice to fund the lease costs, saving substantial amounts of income tax and NI (personal and employer) - all fine if you are an employee but no good for us retired types."

I do pay car tax on the car, but its 1% of list, taxed at my marginal rate, going up to 2% of list for the 3 years. Its a very low rate. I also pay BIK at my marginal rate on charging at home and when on the road. In November the up front cost was a whopping £43, and I will be taxed on that value. That covered probably 750 to 1000 miles of driving, and bout 50 miles of towing. 

But I take your point on retired costs. 

"Also at the moment no VED or fuel tax - although that will no doubt change. Tax on mileage would require such massive, costly infrastructure that it will not happen in my lifetime."

I cant see how there could ever be a fuel tax on electricity for cars. Variable rate charging to encourage green use - yes, but taking electricity for EVs? Its not practical and would further penalise those that can't afford off road parking or local micro-generation. VED will climb - it has to, but so it will on ICE too. 

"Whilst I have no stats, I suspect that the vast majority of EV cars currently in use are company vehicles, but for privately owned EVs the cost is not justifiable."

I am not so sure. I think this year 2021, will have seen a huge increase in company EV, but prior to that , they were majority private. The tax breaks only kicked in in 2020 and lots of companies took a long time enable their employees with EVs. I have owned a PHEV for 4 years, it would have been cost prohibitive as a company car .

"Regarding the comments in this thread about the number of fuel pumps compared to the number of charging points, what is overlooked in comparing the numbers is the plain fact that filling a 110 litre diesel tank (my SUV) takes around 5 minutes max - compared to what for an EV? 1 hour maybe? So you need 12 chargers at least for each fossil pump. And I get 650 miles out of that, reducing to around 400 when towing."

Well - yes and no. Yes , an EV needs longer on a pump than an ICE, though the EV6, Ioniq5, and a few others can do 10% - 80% in 18 mins. Thats a 4x increase in time, not 12. Mine can to 10 - 80 in 45 mins given the right charger (so 9x not 12x). But - here is the key - I have done 8000 miles in my car since mid May. I can still remember pretty much each and every rapid charge I have done in that time ~ around 30 occasions. Of those only only about 12 have been for 30 mins or more, the rest the equivalent of a splash and dash. 

Thats an average of 266 miles per rapid charge, but I would think that of those 8000 miles, as few as 2000 have been fed by the rapids, and that number of charges for the miles is VERY high for me as the majority of the long rapid charges have been whilst towing. So perhaps 6000 miles have been charged either from home, or from slower destination chargers. I.e. for the average EV driver (who is home charging) doing reasonable but not mega miles, I would say is charging as few as 1/4 or less miles on public rapid infrastructure. The vast majority is from home. Its cheaper and far more convenient. 

@Nutsy, The point of metering for cost of electricity in your home is your meter. The internet connection in a smart charger is to allow the charger to know when local demand is high and turn off, or low and turn on, and is entirely over-rideable by the local user.

Smart chargers (conversely) are able to tell when electricity is cheap or expensive and turn on and off appropriately. They can also tell (if you have micro-generation) if you have an excess of free electricity and use that to charge your car instead of exporting to the grid.

I can charge my car perfectly effectively (but at lower speed) simply by plugging into a 3 pin socket, and can buy a dumb charger, or install a 32A commando socket with a commando to car charging lead. Tax on electricity for use for a specific purpose in the home is unenforceable. 

The value of intelligence is data and control based on policy. Charge cars when electricity is cheap, green and abundant, and don't when its expensive, dirty and scarce. 

They simply cannot afford to lose the VAT & duty currently collected from fossil fuels. 

Agree - the tax gap will have to come from somewhere, but it wont be from home electricity. My bet is on road charging and taxation the vehicle its self. It is after all entirely possible to install sufficient solar and wind power at home to run your house and charge your car completely off grid. Zero cost and zero tax - but only available to the rich (you need land and capital to do that). 

My toy (below) is not replaceable by anything electric - I don't mean in sheer speed - just the pleasure of driving the Alps in summer with the top down, listening to the wail of that 3.5 litre flat 6 screamer just behind my head.

No disagreement from me there, especially on the connection one feels with the car when used for pleasure. BC (before covid) I used to travel to the US, and on 4 occasions have rented cars to drive PCH-1 from San Francisco to LA. Three of those occasions were a Mazda MX-5, a Dodge Challenger R/T and a Mustang convertible. The sensation of a special car for that special drive was amazing. But I would LOVE to do that drive in my Polestar, or a Taycan, or Audi E-tron GT, or the imminent Tesla Roadster. Its't just a different experience, and equally irreplaceable, 

On the flip side, if you owned an Ioinq 5 or EV6, or a leaf or NV200 with a V2G charger, you could run your home from the 13A socket on the car. If you were fortunate enough to charge the car before the storm, a full 78kWh battery could run a kettle flat out for 28 hours. 

With a bit of judicious use of what you turned on and off, you could run your whole house for 3 days from one full battery.