Pro's and con's for buying an electric vehicle

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/new-wltp-and-rde-fuel-economy-and-emissions-tests-explained

It is to be hoped that the new tests do provide more accurate results than the old ones. Although they are of course still done under laboratory conditions. However, it does show how flawed the previous tests were, particularly in relation to EV's. If similar variations are found in the Smart to the Leaf, it would mean you would be lucky to get much over 60 miles range in real conditions.

A big factor must be speed and corresponding air resistamce (as well as temperature etc). 

OH did a calculation this week for our EV.

The average cost of running it, using electricity and a small amount of fuel works out at less than the average tax on a larger vehicles.

7000 miles @ £240

with a small fuel generator emitting non polluting 12 parts per million 

extensive mileage due to the battery generation capacity of the range extender and fuel saving design of the engine including regenerative braking and programmed driving

Would we go for a pure EV at present, no but they are very good in local situations. Most of the time we run it successfully only on electricity.

As with all vehicle initial purchase costs need to be considered.

Before buying an EV, I would want to have an extended test drive, until the battery was almost flat, to ascertain the realistic range..

They say it will be a more realistic test but you can bet they won't use the worst case scenario for the test. nighttime running with it bucketing down.  

We've done night time running in ours, up and down the M5 etc and been caught in motorway hold ups. Remember the cars run on two types of battery, one for transmission, one for instruments. Would you run a conventional car right down on a test? No. One thing with EVs is you have to learn to drive to the computer using the various "fuel" saving devices. We both enjoy driving the EV, getting back into a conventional car or our motorhome seems quite strange. One thing we don't have to look at is fuel prices. 

This article is 2 years old but have things changed? and with a replacement battery for an EV costing in the region of £1,000 I don't think we would consider one at the moment.

https://www.wired.com/2016/03/teslas-electric-cars-might-not-green-think/

As quoted by the Boss of Stagecoach buses just recently "it will be many years before a viable EV is available until then Hibrids can work or maybe some form of decent range extender,but the major problems will be getting the infrastructure sorted to cope with what the blue sky thinking of govenment want"

The batteries are modular, they come in a cell structure so that could mean replacements on a smaller basis. However most batteries are guaranteed for at least eight years at the moment.