Stop dreaming – now is the time to buy your first EV

THIS week’s Auto Express shows that EVs have gone from emerging alternatives, suitable only for early-adopter technophiles curious to explore the latest advances on the market, to mainstream vehicles applicable to the masses. Even as recently as last year, who’d have thought that an electric car would have been capable enough on all fronts to go toe to toe with one of the best in the business, the BMW 3 Series?

That’s exactly what we’ve got in this week’s issue

– and the result of the shootout between electric and diesel power on Page 68 is an interesting and nuanced one. However, regardless of the winner, pitching Tesla’s latest (and arguably greatest) offering against the BMW has thrown up some intriguing evidence that proves that electric cars are genuinely viable today.

Some simple maths shows that, with around 260 working days in a year, and a total of 12,000 miles travelled over the same period (still far above the UK’s average annual figure of 7,600, according to Department for Transport stats) most drivers might travel around only 45 miles a day. What’s more, in reality, you could realistically cover as many as 36,000 miles over the course of 12 months and still not need more than an average 150-miles-a-day range from an EV.

Of course, life isn’t as regular or as predictable as this, so there’ll undoubtedly be more than a few occasions where a longer, sometimes unexpected, trip is necessary. But with a true 220-mile range from a car like Tesla’s Model 3 (and even farther from more affordable electric cars such as the Kia e-Niro, for example), plus an ever-growing charging infrastructure in the UK that already has nearly 15,000 power points, the situations where you could get caught short are almost certainly few and far between. Add in most EVs’ incomparably low running costs and it’s clear that we’re at a real tipping point when it comes to electric-car usability.