Until last year I had zero interest in anything EV. My daily was an Audi S6 Avant I’d bought with the intention of keeping for years and the weekend/summer car was the SL.
Then Porsche brought out the Taycan Cross Turismo. It was the first EV that looked like a decent car, built by a car manufacturer that happened to be electric. I spoke my accountant and it become blindingly obvious that simply from a tax perspective we should be running company car EV’s through our business. The same week we arranged test drives and ordered two, which we’re buying and intend to keep for 5 years.
I realise I’m in the minority – I own a company so as a company director when you look at what it costs to buy and run a petrol V8 outside of your business when paying for it all with income that has been drawn from the company on which corporation tax has been paid, then personal income tax vs and EV paid for by the business, offset against CT with a current rate of 1% BIK tax it was just a no brainer. Effectively I can buy and run a £100K Porsche for less than a £50K Audi. It’s not exactly dull either when you drive. On the test drive I felt like I was driving the future.
So with that on order and the current state of the car market (going back a month or so) I was offered a daft amount of money for the Audi so I sold it. Leaving me with a two seater sports car. A large dog and partner who is a wheelchair user. I need a cheap estate runabout until the Taycan arrived. Except there wasn’t such a thing as a cheap anything in the current climate. On a whim I looked at EV leases, decided we may as well lease a couple of runarounds through the business for £300 a month as opposed to buying a used liability privately. After several enquiries to lease companies about lead times for various cars that looked interesting – VW ID3 and the like, we changed tack and asked what was available for immediate delivery. The reply was Mazda MX-30’s.
So a quick google search to find out what a Mazda MX-30 was and why no one wanted them (shit range) and we had two ordered and delivered 10 days later. They do 100 miles on a charge.
So I’m currently a one EV one ICE household with another EV due early Feb.
My experience of EV’s so far:-
They are ideal if you have the facility to charge at home off road (or daily at your place of work). You have little need to do more than 200 miles a day with any regularity.
The Mazda is a comical thing, it is not a car I would ever have chosen had it not been for the circumstance of it’s choice. However having now lived with it for 1000 miles it is incredibly difficult to fault it for what it’s designed to do. It is a city car, designed for local driving, shopping, station runs, school runs etc. For this it’s perfect, it is the motoring equivalent of white goods. It’s not the slightest bit interesting but it does exactly what it’s designed to do very well and has been a bit of an eye opener. If you need to drive more than 120 miles in one go forget it. That’ll be what we use the Porsche for.
The higher the price point the faster they charge. My business partners Taycan arrived earlier this month and he’s tried a fast charger once which was only operating at half it’s advertised speed. That charged him from 5% to 80% in 40 minutes. In the Mazda it’s an hour to 2 hours (for half the range) due to the rate at which power can be pumped into the battery. So not all EV’s are equal.
My life suits EV’s, not everyone’s will. However I really don’t think we’re far away from vehicles with 400-500 mile true range at which point they become compelling.
That said I still enjoy my SL and I’m also currently looking to buy something with a V12 in it before they become extinct. The problem comes if you’re looking for a single vehicle to do everything. That’s a tough job for an EV at it’s current state of evolution, but I don’t think it’s as far away as many people think.
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). The range is ok one way - a round trip is the problem.
