Volkswagen ID.3 Forum

We’ve had our id3 for nearly a year and 18000 miles and use either our home charger 7kw or the free ones at work 7kw so really at the moment this topic doesn’t affect us but I’d like to know others thoughts

When we first got the car there was loads of free chargers up to 50kw and then they started charging for use at 30p per kWh then 42p, 50p and now our cheapest local chargers are 57p per kWh.

We do a lot of motorway miles in our tour at 70 mph so only average around 3.2 miles per kWh or a real world range of 240 ish

Even with petrol and diesel at record high prices if I was using public chargers an ice would be cheaper

I wonder if things continue will people opt to go back to petrol or diesel, I know this is assuming that you can’t charge at home or work but for some this won’t be an option

3.2 m/kWh @ 57p/kWh is 18p/mile. Even on most long journeys of course you can charge full at home before you leave. @7.5p/kWh it's ~2p/mile.

My ICE with similar performance to the ID.3 will do 50mpg (diesel) on the motorway. At £2/litre that's about 18p/mile too. So for a theoretical journey that is all on the motorway without charging up in advance, there is price parity. Petrol will be similar (slightly lower cost, slightly lower mpg). (Sure you could buy a slow diesel and drive it at 55 to get 60-70mpg - as someone usually says - but then you could buy an Ioniq and drive it at 55 to get 5-6 m/kwh or something.)

Of course that theoretical journey doesn't really exist outside of holiday roadtrips unless you do loads of motorway journeys and rely only on public charging. I read somewhere recently (don't know the veracity of the data) that the average UK journey is 7 miles. My ID.3 will do 4-4.5m/kWh at slow speeds on my commute in heavy traffic (about that distance). If I charged on a rapid charger, which I don't, that would cost 13p/mile. From home it's ~ 1.7p/mile. On the same journey a couple of days ago my ICE returned about 30 mpg. That's about 30p/mile.

In summary you can only show price parity by taking an extreme case, running an EV is still way cheaper in the vast majority of scenarios.
(Edit to add, I'm not saying I think everything should buy an EV on cost grounds though. Some people do, but the upfront cost is so high that for anyone who would normally buy used, it still makes no sense financially).

Chris wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:39 am We’ve had our id3 for nearly a year and 18000 miles and use either our home charger 7kw or the free ones at work 7kw so really at the moment this topic doesn’t affect us but I’d like to know others thoughts

When we first got the car there was loads of free chargers up to 50kw and then they started charging for use at 30p per kWh then 42p, 50p and now our cheapest local chargers are 57p per kWh.

We do a lot of motorway miles in our tour at 70 mph so only average around 3.2 miles per kWh or a real world range of 240 ish

Even with petrol and diesel at record high prices if I was using public chargers an ice would be cheaper

I wonder if things continue will people opt to go back to petrol or diesel, I know this is assuming that you can’t charge at home or work but for some this won’t be an option

Factor in the cheaper servicing costs and zero road tax (currently) and electric is still cheaper per mile.

I was in the same position as the OP - but after 6 months of ownership was able to move to home charging and for the last 4 months octopus go.

My 15000 miles have cost me £1000. 6p a mile.

I think it’s a poor argument to compare 57p charging to £1.90 a litre. Perhaps better to compare 57p to motorway services costs £2.20-£2.30 a litre… when I was reliant on public charging I used podpoint rapids (still less than 30p), Tesco and other free slow chargers when I could - if you use the Bonnet app right it’s sub 40p…

You only have to make one full charge in four for free and it brings the cost right back down.

Plus Summer temps and driving at 65mph bring that efficiency up to 3.8 or higher… which then makes it even cheaper than ICE.

Anyway. For me this doesn’t matter - as I’d happily pay more than ICE being happy that I’m not pumping out NO2 into the city air where I live. Zero tailpipe emissions.

The 18000 miles Ive done have probably cost me £200 between octopus go and free work charging and I don’t need to use public chargers due to our trips typically being below 200 miles, I’m just saying that for those who can’t have an home charger should really look at the maths because an ev wouldn’t be cheap

Currently no road tax, servicing doesn’t seem cheaper and buying an ev in the first place is higher than an ice

I’m not sure why we’d be comparing services fuel costs, 20+ years of driving and I’ve never used them and the services are no more expensive than our local geniepoint charger

We like our car, the tour has a good range and decent spec so just to be clear I’m not being negative towards ev’s

the.kes wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:05 am
Factor in the cheaper servicing costs and zero road tax (currently) and electric is still cheaper per mile.

Cheaper service costs? Have you seen the cost of the ID3 service plans vs the actual work involved?

There's little to no financial reason to buy an EV right now if you're 100% reliant on external fast charging at 57p per kWh (or more!).

Looking to weigh up a £150 VED saving vs buying a near £40k EV instead of a £30k equivalent ICE as well as paying diesel sized fuel bills for going electric (if you can't charge at home on a cheap rate) and I think you'd be off your rocker to buy an EV right now. No home charging? stick to an EU6 compliant diesel.

All of the purchase incentives have evaporated from the Government (Grant) and the dealerships (Deposit Contributions). If you're not scoring on the running costs by doing most of your charging at home, new EV ownership is going to cost you at least as much as running a new Diesel, and have the added inconvenience of a long charge vs a 5 minute fill with Dino juice.

Add in the government removal of the plug in car grant and It’s all rather depressing.
Good job we don’t have a climate emergency

monkeyhanger wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:58 am

the.kes wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:05 am
Factor in the cheaper servicing costs and zero road tax (currently) and electric is still cheaper per mile.

Cheaper service costs? Have you seen the cost of the ID3 service plans vs the actual work involved?

There's little to no financial reason to buy an EV right now if you're 100% reliant on external fast charging at 57p per kWh (or more!).

Looking to weigh up a £150 VED saving vs buying a near £40k EV instead of a £30k equivalent ICE as well as paying diesel sized fuel bills for going electric (if you can't charge at home on a cheap rate) and I think you'd be off your rocker to buy an EV right now. No home charging? stick to an EU6 compliant diesel.

All of the purchase incentives have evaporated from the Government (Grant) and the dealerships (Deposit Contributions). If you're not scoring on the running costs by doing most of your charging at home, new EV ownership is going to cost you at least as much as running a new Diesel, and have the added inconvenience of a long charge vs a 5 minute fill with Dino juice.

To a point I agree but looking at the current VED rates for a sub £40k diesel emitting 116g per km, over the average three years ownership you would be paying £500 and rates will go up, that is a lot of money that does not make a vehicle move along the road.

the.kes wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:20 pm

monkeyhanger wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:58 am

the.kes wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 8:05 am
Factor in the cheaper servicing costs and zero road tax (currently) and electric is still cheaper per mile.

Cheaper service costs? Have you seen the cost of the ID3 service plans vs the actual work involved?

There's little to no financial reason to buy an EV right now if you're 100% reliant on external fast charging at 57p per kWh (or more!).

Looking to weigh up a £150 VED saving vs buying a near £40k EV instead of a £30k equivalent ICE as well as paying diesel sized fuel bills for going electric (if you can't charge at home on a cheap rate) and I think you'd be off your rocker to buy an EV right now. No home charging? stick to an EU6 compliant diesel.

All of the purchase incentives have evaporated from the Government (Grant) and the dealerships (Deposit Contributions). If you're not scoring on the running costs by doing most of your charging at home, new EV ownership is going to cost you at least as much as running a new Diesel, and have the added inconvenience of a long charge vs a 5 minute fill with Dino juice.

To a point I agree but looking at the current VED rates for a sub £40k diesel emitting 116g per km, over the average three years ownership you would be paying £500 and rates will go up, that is a lot of money that does not make a vehicle move along the road.

In the grand scheme of total running costs in owning a new car, £500 over 3 years is coppers, especially if that EV with no VED has cost a lot more to buy/PCP/lease than the ICE equivalent. Over the course of 3 years, that £500 "saving" might even be eaten up with having to buy an extra set of tyres for the EV over those 3 years as tyres do generally wear faster on the likes of the ID3. Unless you can charge the EV at home or are perpetually hogging the free charger at Tescos, you're going to be paying as much to fuel your ID3 as your Golf GTD, but you'll get the GTD for less, and filling it in 5 mins. Plugging in at home and unplugging in the morning is no inconvenience. Plugging in at a fast charger and waiting 40 mins or more for a decent charge is a PITA and relatively expensive. I can't see many people without their own driveway in a rush to become an EV owner if there's no financial incentive to do so. There's a lot of us here who are EV converts purely because of the situation from last year whereby there were grants, deposit contributions and dealership discounts to be had., and we have the means to charge at home.

Properly on topic...

My new job will involve me driving from Newcastle to Milton Keynes 1 or 2 times a month, but otherwise working from home. That's 235 miles each way. Realistically, i'm going to have to put about 70kWh into the car away from home.

Given that current turn up Moto services motorway rates are about 57p per kWh, I was wondering whether i'll save any significant money on a subscription service rather than turning up and paying out my 57p per kWh.

Does anyone have a comprehensive list of the viable options in the subscriptions, with monthly fees and member rates of charging?

Thanks in advance!

Am driving to Spain in ID3 Tour pro S and have same dilemma
VW we charge is £9.99 a month to get better rates or maybe just Bonnet pay as you go which I will use as I charge from home everytime.You will have full charge from home so you will need top up on the way back,pay as you go with bonnet .

Isn't bonnet the same price as the likes of Gridserve for PAYG (57p a kWh), rendering it pointless?

I'll have to look into the VW unit prices to see if the savings make the £9.99 monthly fee worthwhile.

Bonnet is 50p I think? It makes sense for Ionity particularly if you are using them but decide wecharge isn't worth 9.99/month. Probably not worth it for anything else.
Note that Gridserve is not part of any subscription available at all. It's contactless credit card only. Although Instavolt has an app I don't think it is part of any subscriptions (or offers one itself) either. Same goes for MFG. You don't get any of those on Bonnet.
So it really depends what you want to use. It's worth noting that if you pay the expensive Wecharge subscription now, as well as cheap Ionity, you supposedly get other DC chargers on wecharge for 35p/kWh - that includes Osprey and Shell.
So there aren't that many options but the right answer depends what chargers you want to use.

MH. I’d do the trip a couple of times before getting subs and see where works for you. Guessing you’ll need about 100kwh (over two charges)? May be somewhere free/east in MK?
Otherwise a stop on the way down and on the way back. ionity near Leeds? Skelton lakes I think. Wolley edge services N and S are lined up to get a Gridserve hub perhaps before the year is out.

Or get the train and have a beer on the way home

MotMot wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 7:23 pm MH. I’d do the trip a couple of times before getting subs and see where works for you. Guessing you’ll need about 100kwh (over two charges)? May be somewhere free/east in MK?
Otherwise a stop on the way down and on the way back. ionity near Leeds? Skelton lakes I think. Wolley edge services N and S are lined up to get a Gridserve hub perhaps before the year is out.

Or get the train and have a beer on the way home

Train? What train? Do they run these days?