My daily commute from rural North Yorkshire to Leeds is a 50 mile round trip, which I was doing in a diesel Range Rover Evoque. Burning through 1,400 litres of diesel a year cost £1,890 and generated 3.6 tonnes of CO2.
In 2018 I traded-in the Evoque for a second-hand BMW i3 electric car and even got enough cash back to buy an extra set of rims fitted with winter tyres.
Electricity is measured in kilowatts (kWh). I trickle charge my car at home using a standard outside 3 pin wall socket (no expensive infrastructure needed). This puts in 2.2kw per hour. In the cold weather I need 16.5 kWh for 50 miles, which takes just over 7 hours of overnight charging, when the grid is cheapest. I have never needed to charge in the peak evening period.
I use 3,300 kWh of electricity annually for my commute. I pay an average of 7.31 pence per kWh. I’ve chosen an innovative, 100% renewables, ‘time of use’ electricity tariff called Agile from Octopus Energy. It incentivises me to charge during the cheapest periods.
Switching from diesel to electric has reduced my annual commuting fuel bill to £241, saving a whopping £1,649 per year.
Regarding CO2 emissions for the 3300 kWh of electricity I use, the 2019 National Grid electricity mix was 215 grammes of CO2 per kWh. That means my CO2 emissions from commuting in the i3 is only 710 kg, which is a reduction of almost 3 tonnes, compared to using the diesel Evoque.
If I didn’t have charging at home I could use public chargers. There’s lots of options, often at supermarkets or in car parks. Prices vary and are sometimes free. Even if we assumed a typical price of 30p per kWh, my annual commute would then be £990 using public charging and that would still be only half what I used to pay for diesel and, with no tailpipe emissions, is much better for the environment of course.
