In the UK there's talk of a 3p per mile tax for EVs, 1.5p for a plug in hybrid. So if I want an EV for local driving, I should probably get a plug in hybrid with a knackered engine. ;)

Considering I currently pay 7p per kWh to charge at home, and average 3.6 miles per kWh, that's definitely noticeable, but not exactly the end of the world. With a 45mpg petrol car, I think the equivalent would be about 10p per mile just charged in fuel duty.

You're also paying £200 road tax, whereas an older small engine petrol/diesel would be paying £20 a year, so the current cheapest low mileage car might be a small petrol engined car registered before 2017.

I think I'd prefer them to defer the per mileage costs, not because I have an issue with them, but I think I'd rather there to be as few visible disadvantages in getting an EV as possible.

Running you cable across the pavement would be illegal. There's some moves to get channels installed in the pavement to allow you to run a cable that way, or little bollard things

https://www.gov.uk/government/...

But it's hard to describe getting either of those sorted as simple - I get why it's much harder for people without a driveway. You could pay for a charging subscription to get cheaper charging elsewhere, but it lacks the convenience of just plugging in on your driveway.

As the OP points out, the charging cost for even slow charging (probably around 40p or thereabouts is common) is way out of line with the 7/8p you might be paying on an EV tariff at home, and you can get those tariffs with even a dumb 3-pin plug charger, as long as your car is compatible.

Ours charges fairly slowly by modern standards - I don't think I've seen it hit 90kW, but then it only has a 58kWh usable capacity, so that's not so bad.

Often I find the charges sit in an annoying middle ground - too fast to bother waiting with it, but too fast to order food and eat it before I have to unplug it. Last time I stopped, I went into the restaurant, ordered food, walked back to the car and moved it, and was back to the table just as my starter arrived. For all the benefits of EVs, I'm not going to gripe too hard about that annoyance.

The drop to 11kW (the fastest ours can charge off AC) pings it out the other side, where it's not fast enough for a short stop. If it's a long stop, it can go down to 3kW and I'll still likely get enough on overnight to pull me back up to 80%. Hell, I was charging at 2kW last place I visited and that was more than enough.

But this is still talking about road trips, which isn't what the bulk of our driving is.

It's interesting how issues with ICE cars vanish in the presence of EVs. There's plenty of failures on ICE cars that end up costing more than it's worth to fix, by the time you're looking at an old car. If I have a ten year old ICE car, and the gearbox fails, it's not worth fixing. Hell, if the turbo dies, I probably couldn't justify an OEM part to fix it.

Why does the fact EVs can have the same severity fault get treated quite so harshly? Yes, old cars can be uneconomical to repair. But then I don't get a 100k miles / 8 year warranty on anything on my ICE, but I do get it on the battery of my EV.

On the plus side, I think there's sufficient timidity around buying used EVs that they're currently excellent value, so maybe I shouldn't complain.

I don't believe a significant number of schools are seeking a change in the law.

Right now, schools can set their own policy. Some introduce lockers, or lockable pouches. I've seen this implemented really badly where not having a phone in a pouch was a punishable offence, even if you forgot your phone, or deliberately left it at home. It's also expensive - you're looking at something upwards of £10k to setup something like this, and there's an ongoing cost in time as well as money needed to replace/maintain pouches/lockers over time.

More common is a rule of "not seen or heard", which is usually expressed as "your phone should be off in your bag during the school day". If you need to contact a parent, you go to the school office or similar. This rule seems to work well on the whole. You'll get some kids going to the toilets to use their phone, which definitely isn't ideal, but I don't think it's a widespread problem. Without lots of funding, I can't see anyone Faraday caging such rooms.

Bonus pain with slow chargers is if there's an issue with the charger (say it trips the circuit), the cable is locked into the charger.

Now, I've personally never had this happen, but I know it's happened a number of times to colleagues.

Agree entirely with your broad point that commercial charging being too expensive.

As an easy option to make it look somewhat better, 40p per kWh at Lidl for 50kW charging with no paid subscription is much better My nearest Tesla charger is 31p off peak. If I couldn't home charge, or use chargers like these conveniently, I'd probably pay for a subscription to Ionity for access to the faster chargers at 46p.

Home charging is /so/ much cheaper, and I'd do that even off a 3pin plug, as 2-3kW charging when you're at home covers you for a lot of routine miles. Paying 7p/kWh for home charging, and getting an average of 3.6 miles per kWh brings the cost way down. But then with plans to introduce 3p per mile road tax for EVs, that'll confuse people even more about the relative costs.

I think right now, the price of second hand EVs is pretty much fine. Take a look at the price of used MG or Nissan Leaf.

If your employer runs a salary sacrifice EV scheme, and you're a higher rate tax payer, that also pulls down to cost of getting a shiny new EV, if you've got the spare money to route that way.

Even worse, there's the token hybrids, that often get referred to as "Mild Hybrids". These have a teeny tiny motor (I've seen 3bhp quoted on one, but I think closer to 10bhp is more normal) along with a small 48V battery to go with it, and it tries to help smooth out torque gaps, but doesn't really do owt for economy.

Non plug in hybrids, like the original Prius, did something to kick start the movement, but they do feel rather outdated now.

I get mildly annoyed at the absence of middling chargers. I want a charger that can add on the range I need while I have lunch, as that goldilocks zone doesn't seem to exist. I end up popping out to unplug the car before I've finished eating, which is obviously the end of the world.

I've definitely been unable to charge at slow 3.5/7kW chargers because they were busy, but then I was on holiday, and wasn't urgently needing a charge, so just plugged in another day.

I'll ignore that this was actually about the EU and not Canada.

Sure, but currently ICE cars are artificially cheap to run. Take away the subsidies and then what does the picture look like?

https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/...

But I'm still not convinced Canada is such a huge problem, on the whole. People don't drive huge annual mileages, and average commutes are pretty low. Temperature I don't buy as a massive problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Yes you lose range, but generally it's a much nicer experience than a typical ICE car in cold weather. You get a lot more worries about range and cold weather performance from people who don't drive EVs than those that do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So far in 2025, 95% of new car sales in Norway were electric. I think the idea that people don't want EVs is a flawed simplification.

It can save me boxes of crap. I have so many power adaptors with weird connectors in boxes, that I can't bring myself to throw away as I don't even recall which device they're for. I'm not overly worried if it saves me money.

I rather like being able to connect all my devices with a single cable. Phone, laptop, headphones, fan, battery, drone, raspberry pi... e-bike! And the fact I can make do with lower powered power supplies, so I can run my laptop off the car's USB ports is ace.

I'd much rather this than device specific docks and cables as now it means I often don't bother even travelling with a power supply, just a USB-C cable, as I know I'll be able to find what I need.

Slow as legislation is, I think it can adequately keep up here, and non-EU countries can benefit from the standardisation.

Much as magsafe might be nice, I've never used the charger that came with my Macbook, because why would I want a single device charger?

Sometimes it's more that you acknowledge the route taken, not just the destination. Universities might have lower entry requirements for state schools than private schools. But that's not discrimination, it's a recognition that private schools give you an advantage, so an A is effectively worth more when earned in a tougher environment.

If you discriminate relentlessly up to the finish line, and then flip a coin if they're equal, you get vastly more advantaged people than disadvantaged people winning the race, and you end up with a weaker team as a result.

I think you need to learn the difference betwen equity and equality.

Sure, my wording wasn't clear here. But I did used to go a couple of minutes out of my way to get cheaper petrol. Sometimes I'd queue to get a pump (not often), and if they didn't do pay at pump,.you then go in, wait to be served, then off you go again.

It was no big time cost, but it's just gone almost entirely for me, and I won't miss it.

You're right, in as much as I have a single EV, so I have no contention for the charger at home.

There's no stress about overcharging, as you can set whatever limits you want. I can set a different limit automatically for different days of the week, set per location, per car. If I forget to plugin, it doesn't matter. Forget to plug in twice, so what? With a >200 miles range, even the US average of about 40 miles a day is no big deal.

You telling me you've never driven to fill up with gas with the needle on empty and had a degree of anxiety? I've pulled off the motorway before to discover that the petrol station I wanted to fill up at was unexpectedly closed, and had to drive to the next nearest one, which was also closed, as they'd clearly had a supply issue. So I had to drive to another one in the hope that was okay, with the car showing 0 miles. That happened once ever, and I wouldn't claim that gave me fuel anxiety with ICE cars, but I've never actually had that experince with an EV so far.

I've also been stuck in big traffic jams on the motorway and been slightly anxious about fuel consumption. With an EV, a traffic jam on the motorway typically means you use less battery than if it was clear, so that issue vanishes,

Would I choose to have an EV if I couldn't charge at home or work? No, I don't think I would. But even a 2kW charger I don't think would be a problem for most people, with a single car.

I'm not here to sell EVs. I think they're less good for really long distance travel, and the costs don't work out if you're a private buyer and don't have home charging. But I think most of the issues are inflated by people who don't use them, and imagine the problems to be worse than they are.