I ran an electric car with no home charging, here’s why you shouldn’t

The 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars is fast approaching, so you may be thinking about making the switch to an EV. There’s a lot to like about electric cars. They’re easy and relaxing to drive, capable of blistering performance and they are, in theory, cheap to run.

I say in theory because that depends entirely on your home charging situation. If you have access to off-street parking and a home charger, you can get some fantastic electric tariffs which allow you to get a full charge for peanuts.

However, if you’re one of the millions of people across the country who live in a block of flats, or any other property with no parking outside, you’ll have to rely on the public charging network.

I fall into the latter camp, and so thought it would be a good idea to find out how easy it is, or isn’t, to run an electric car with no off-street parking. I’ve therefore borrowed a Mini Cooper Electric for a month and will be using it as my only car.

Before we get into it, this isn’t a review of this car specifically. If you want to find out more about the Mini Cooper Electric, check out our in-depth review. This is the SE Sport model with a claimed range of 242 miles, which proved to be plenty for my day-to-day needs.

Where can I charge my electric car?

This was the first question I asked myself, and Carwow’s EV charger map came in very handy. A quick search for my postcode revealed a 22kW AC charger in a free car park just a 10-minute walk from my flat.

So the plan was to plug in, walk home and then return when the car was charged, something the handy Mini app would notify me of. Seems easy enough, but I ran into a problem quite quickly.

That charger had a four-hour time limit, and the Mini was saying it would take six hours to reach 100%. Slightly annoying given that I needed 100% for the next day’s driving, but no matter. From then on I just didn’t run the car down below 30% battery.

Over the coming weeks I learned to just plug in whenever possible. Most supermarkets and car parks have chargers in them these days, and frequent, small top-ups proved to be less of an inconvenience than trying to leave the car somewhere for hours on end.

Getting into a routine proved quite easy. I go into the Carwow office twice a week and it’s an 80-mile round trip each time. So I’d just charge the car the day before I went in and that would give me enough juice to make both trips, as well as leave enough for pottering around in the meantime.

It does become a slight issue when you have to break from routine though, because if you need to make a long, unplanned journey you can’t just jump in and go. If you had a charger at home you’d plug it in overnight and come out to a full battery every morning, but that’s not an option when using public chargers unless you want to pay hefty overstay fees.

How much does it cost to charge publicly?

This is where the biggest issue raises its head, because relying on the public charging network alone is really rather expensive.

Over the course of a month or so I covered 1,150 miles in the Mini, mostly using slower and cheaper AC chargers, but with the occasional rapid charge where necessary. The total cost was £219.67, or around 20 pence per mile.

For comparison, my personal 2010 Mazda MX-5 has averaged 35mpg in the nine months I’ve owned it, so to do the same 1,150 miles would cost around 17 pence per mile in fuel. That’s not a huge saving, but it’s also not a hugely economical car. Get yourself a sensible hatchback which does 50mpg and you’re looking at 12 pence per mile.

It’s not like the Mini was inefficient either, because it averaged 3.7 miles per kWh, giving it a real-world range of 200 miles. That’s only 40 miles off the claimed range, which is pretty impressive in the depths of winter.

Should you buy an electric car with no home charging?

This is the million dollar question, and it’s not a simple answer. Personally, I wouldn’t. I’m by no means against EVs, but with no home charging, running one was pretty inconvenient and more expensive than using a petrol-powered car.

This may not be the case if you’re a company car driver though, because the tax benefits of running an EV over a petrol-powered car could outweigh the hefty charging costs. Taking the Mini as an example, a petrol version falls into the 31% BIK bracket, which means you’ll pay £120 per month in company car tax. The electric version on the other hand will cost just £12 per month.

There are some ways you can make it work with no home charging as well. If your workplace has a car park you can talk to them about fitting chargers there, and it’s always worth nagging your landlord if your flat has an allocated off-street parking space, because it could be possible to fit one there. There are grants available to do this as well, and the potential increase in property value could make it worth their while.

If you can get a home charger then you can make huge savings in fuel over a petrol or diesel car. Get yourself on an EV energy tariff and you can get rates as low as 7 pence per kWh if you charge overnight, meaning 200 miles in the Mini would cost just £3.78, as opposed to the £29.70 it was costing me from the charger up the road.

With the Government pushing to phase out petrol and diesel cars, something has to be done to make electric cars more viable for those who have to charge away from home. Cutting the 20% VAT on public charging would be a good place to start, maybe that’s one for the 2025 Spring Budget.

Car change? Carwow!

Looking for a new set of wheels? With Carwow you can sell your car quickly and for a fair price – as well as find great offers on your next one. Whether you’re looking to buy a car brand new, are after something used or you want to explore car leasing options, Carwow is your one stop shop for new car deals.

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