Can someone persuade me?

[spooksman]

Go for it and if you order using my referral code, we will get 1000 free miles each.

I always forget to put that on my posts, I'll never get any free miles

 

[Neilman]

I always forget to put that on my posts, I'll never get any free miles

Spooksman, for info, if you don't already know it, it is against TMC rules to include any referral codes in your visible signature.
You may have noticed everyone else saying "PM me for code" - that is why.

 

[Drew57]

Agreeing with everything above - I've had the M3 LR since April, just over 3000 miles & apart from two 35 min supercharger sessions everything else has either come from house solar/batteries, a couple of local retail park Tesla destination chargers or Tesco/local zoo free Pod Point chargers (....literally spent less than £1 so far - on the day the Zappi home charger was installed to briefly check that it was working OK at 32a).

Using Octopus Agile at low £ rates in the winter will obviously start to cost us but even at around £5 for ~300 miles it still won't be much.

Plugging in and leaving the charger to decide when will be the lowest (so far zero) cost is very liberating & all this before daily driving a Model 3 - such a great experience that I would happily pay what I previously spent on diesel !

 

[TheEVadvisor]

Go with Pod-Point or Zappi wall chargers which are some of the best and most reliable. They will come and do a full survey and also the OLEV government grant will pay for most of the installation costs the installers will do the paperwork

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I guess it will just be a change of mindset i.e. not treating like a petrol car and running it until empty but trying to charge wherever and whenever possible. I have checked on Zap-Map for my local town which is only a few miles away and my office, despite only being across the road from a shopping centre with a Tesla shop there are no chargers above 7kW it seems.

I also wanted to ask about home charger installation, I'm sure theres lots of info on here but how much does it cost these days? We have power outlets in the garage which is fed from the CU in the house but do they need to be installed in a specific location?

 

[Avendit]

^ what they all said.

Only things I would add in addition to keeping it topped up is that even if you arrive somewhere with only 20% battery left that is 40 miles in the winter, 60ish in summer. Are you likely to have an emergency requirement of more than that within less than an hour of getting somewhere? By the morning, even charging off a 3 pin plug you will be up to 50% again and good to go for 100-150 miles. From a 'proper' home or destination charger you will fill up over night.

 

[Avendit]

Go with Pod-Point or Zappi wall chargers which are some of the best and most reliable. They will come and do a full survey and also the OLEV government grant will pay for most of the installation costs the installers will do the paperwork

Any of the qualifying chargers are fine, you just have to choose your style and price point. OLEV will pay a few £100 of the install, this should leave you on the hook for £300-1000 more, depending on your choice of device. In Scotland you get another £300 off too, but the paperwork is a sod :-\. All installers should do atlleast a photo survey before agreeing a cost.

 

[gavine]

Many EV drivers, myself included, had major range anxiety BEFORE we got our cars. Once you own the car, you realize that the range is much more than you need on any given day and the anxiety goes-away very quickly.

We are a one-car household and it is a Model 3. When we got our first Tesla in 2014, we kept our ICE car because we were concerned we might need it for longer trips. We always took the Tesla and eventually got rid of the ICE car.

 

[darkNstormy]

Currently it's a sweet spot for getting an EV, especially on salary sacrifice. I do high mileage so it was a no brainer to go for the LR AWD. You will benefit from the low BIK at the moment. A lot of new chargers are being added to the infrastructure, and in their early stages will often be on free vend (see threads about Ionity chargers) so you can get a few free miles. You save a fortune not having to buy fossil fuel for a vehicle (in my high mileage scenario, the amount I was spending on petrol a month is the same as I pay to lease the M3). I do regular trips between Teesside-Manchester and that uses 50% of the battery in summer (my record is 37% by doing exceedingly boring hypermiling driving). Getting a charger installed at home is usually a pretty straight forward experience. As others have mentioned, most people just keep their car topped up every night to about 80% (there are forum threads debating what you should charge to with regards to battery life in the long term). It is practical enough to have as your single family car (my friends in the same street will attest). Range anxiety is something you have before you own a Tesla.

Have a play with A Better Routeplanner with journeys you are likely to make. Read as many threads on Tesla forums so that you are prepared for both the best and the worst. There are niggles (I may be overstating that or understating depending on your own personal experience!!). Watch Tesla videos in Youtube and immerse yourself in what it's like living day to day with an EV, then it's not so scary. I was very close to getting an e-tron instead but the supercharger network swung it (and the superior range of the LR) and I am really glad I went Tesla.

 

[Tam]

...only car in the household...

I quit gasoline since 2012 for the past 8 years and it's no problem for me.

...10 minute charge on a home charger? I imagine very little?...

Yes. That's why I need to know where's the nearest Tesla Supercharger and I always plug in my car first when I arrive home.

...the costs...

Tesla still honors its warranty even without any maintenance.

...technology fails and the car doesn't charge at home...

Most often is because of the dead 12V battery but it should give out low voltage warning first.

When technology fails, Tesla has Roadside Assistance for free during the warranty to tow your car away. Tesla used to provide free loaners but lately, it's just Uber rides while your car is being repaired.

 

[gangzoom]

I do have a few concerns though

Your concerns are understandable, after all an EV is in many ways a totally different ownership prospect versus what you have now.

I had the same concerns back in 2015, though I could justify the cost of a S back than I struggled with spending so much money on brand new tech.......which is why I ended up with one of these on PCP for a couple of years.

I didn't get a Leaf because I wanted to drive around in a Nissan Note look a like, I got one because it cost £200/month with no deposit, and at the time I was spending nearly that much on petrol costs alone.

I figured if I didn't like it, or the tech was a disaster I can just give back or even store it till the end of PCP for very little financial risk.

That was back in 2015, 60k EV miles later I have no worries about the tech and am so unbothered about I keep the car charged at 50-60% daily, I cannot actually remember when I last charged it to 100%.

Yes its a leap of faith to go EV, but actually these days with an EV as good as a 3 its more like a tiny step. Once you have owned an EV you wouldn't miss the combustion engine.