Did Switching to an EV Save Me Money?
Back in February, I switched from a dinosaur drinking Land Rover, to an EV. But has switching actually saved me money?
So my Land Rover was an old 2007 jobby that I bought to handle the country roads where we live. But it transpired that short of a few days of really bad weather here and there throughout the year, I didn't actually need the Landy. On those days, I can just work from home. 🤷♂️
Since the Land Rover was expensive to run, I started looking around for a replacement and ended up buying an EV. It's been around 5 months now and I have a better idea of what it costs to run it. So has switching to an EV saved me money? Let's look...
The numbers
After some very basic complicated maths, here's a pretty accurate summary of the annual running costs for both the Land Rover and the MG EV:
| Landy | MG EV | |
|---|---|---|
| Loan | £0 | £1,728 |
| Fuel | £3,000 | £100 |
| Servicing | £250 | £150 |
| MOT | £35 | £0 |
| Tax | £700 | £0 |
| Misc | £0 | £750 |
| Total | £3,985 | £2,728 |
The misc item here for the MG EV is the home charger, which cost £750 for supply and installation. That's obviously a one off cost that won't be applicable for subsequent years. But even with that included, it's still a £1,200 saving above running the Land Rover for a year.
But let's look further down the line; I have the MG on a 3 year PCP deal (PCP is basically hiring the car with the option to buy it at the end of the term), so if we extrapolate those number out to 3 years of running costs, here's how it looks:
| Landy | MG EV | |
|---|---|---|
| Loan | £0 | £5,184 |
| Fuel | £9,000 | £300 |
| Servicing | £750 | £450 |
| MOT | £105 | £0 |
| Tax | £2,100 | £0 |
| Misc | £0 | £750 |
| Total | £11,955 | £6,684 |
I've over-estimated the fuel costs for the MG. After 5 months I've spent just £12.28 on electricity to charge it as I mostly charge in work. But I've rounded it up to £100/year just to make sure I cover things like charging the car when I'm on vacation, or the occasional longer trip, although we'd likely use my Wife's car for that.
So looking at those 3 year numbers, the MG saves me a whopping £5,271 over the 3 years. Bear in mind that the PCP "loan" payments equate to £5,184 over the 3 years. So the MG is effectively paying for itself. Well, it's not because it's costing me a couple grand a year to run, but you know what I mean.
So in short I've saved a shit tonne of money switching to an EV. Next month (July) I'm going to charge the MG only at home to give me a better idea of what it would cost if I didn't have the ability to charge at work. I think that will be an interesting comparison for people who don't have that ability.
Until then, my advice is that if you're thinking of switching to an EV, do it. It's certainly saved me a few quid.
Want more?
So you've read this post and you're still not satisfied? Ok then, here's some other stuff for you to do: