My first month in an electric car
Car enthusiast Sam joined our Business Development team in September. We asked him to give us some insight into his experience with his first electric car.
Here is what Sam had to say.
On the 3rd of October my first electric car arrived at the office. My Volkswagen ID3 sat proudly amongst the other cars, its bold styling contrasting the dull office car park.
A few things were running through my mind:
Would I run out of electricity every few hundred yards?
Would the entire driving experience be ruined?
Would I spend every journey staring at the range?
How would I charge the car?
Over the last month, most of these questions have been answered, but new questions have come into the light.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that the experience whilst driving is not entirely different to what it would be in a traditional, combustion engined car. The steering wheel feels normal, as does the infotainment system. The only noticeable difference being that the engine noise is replaced with, well, nothing. Silence is a great word for the entire driving experience. There’s almost no noise whatsoever, apart from some wind noise and the quiet whine of the electric motor doing its best Blade Runner impersonation.
Cars, and our attitude we have towards them, demonstrate our natural draw towards routine and habit.
Much like on a cold, dark, frosty morning in winter when we venture out to turn the heating on in the car before the commute to work without thinking too much about it, in an electric car you begin to plan in charging sessions. I don’t have a home charger as I live in a flat, and I don’t feel like throwing a charging cable through my 3rd floor kitchen window to plug in and charge. As a result, after work once a week I go to a charging station near the office and plug it into a fast charger, and now after only a few weeks with the car it’s become almost habitual - I now have a new routine.
Small and frequent journey’s are an electric vehicle’s natural habitat, but how does it perform on long journeys?
Over the Halloween weekend I drove with 3 friends to Haye-on-Wye in Wales, a mighty 300 mile round trip for the ID3. A mixture of city driving, motorway driving and McDonald’s Drive-thru should be enough to put any EV through its paces. That being said, apart from the range dropping alarmingly fast in the hilly Brecon Beacons, it was smooth sailing. My other car, a BMW M140i, would have trembled at the mere sight of a puddle, the ID3, however, seemed to enjoy the unpaved, muddy roads to the farmhouse.
I am only one month in but am happy to report that I have been converted.
My new ID3 provides all the comforts of combustion engine cars - from the steering to the entertainment system. However, my electric car also drives like a dream, smooth and silent making my commutes to work relaxing and enjoyable.
Have any more questions on electric cars? Book a call with one of our Specialists
How can I get an electric car with salary sacrifice?
Salary sacrifice is an employee benefit where the company will lease a car for an employee, in return the employee will pay for the cost of the car with their gross pay (before tax). As a salary sacrifice car is considered a ‘company car’ it is subject to a small benefit in kind (BIK) tax - this is currently set at 2% till 2025.
Check out our EV salary sacrifice calculator to browse the latest electric cars to salary sacrifice!
