The electric car is undoubtedly on the rise, though they’re not unanimously popular. More and more petrol stations and car parks around the country are getting hybrid or electric car charging points. But should you be driving an electric car?
With everyone becoming increasingly aware of emissions and their effect on the environment, sales and production of electric cars and their hybrid cousins are unsurprisingly on the rise.
Most car manufacturers now sell at least one hybrid model, but with just 2% of vehicle sales being electric in the UK, this surely isn’t enough to meet the goal of banning petrol cars by 2040. But there are some pros to driving an electric that you may not know about.
It can be much cheaper to run a hybrid car – and even cheaper for an electric car. Electric cars are normally charged overnight when electricity prices are cheaper due to lower demand. Hybrid cars often charge themselves while running on their normal engine, but are also more economic in regards to fuel consumption, making them surprisingly cheap to run.
Most electric cars are also road tax free, and hybrids much cheaper on road tax than their regular petrol or diesel counterparts, for essentially the same car! However, if you’re looking for speed and traditional engine noise, you won’t find that with these cars. Electric cars have no engine noise at all, and hybrids don’t either when operating off their batteries. The instant response of the electric battery does make them seem quick off the line, however their heavy batteries will eventually slow them down.
But if you’re looking for a safe, environmentally-friendly car which is cheap to run (though not quite cheap to buy just yet), you might be along the right lines with an electric car – or a hybrid at least.
