10 years an EV driver!

[EVsince2016]

On 3rd June 2016 I became an EV owner, less than a month after my 1st EV test drive.

I last went to buy diesel for my car in May 2016!

A nice bright red 30kW Nissan LEAF with a 150 mile range, which turned out only actually to be 27kW usable and a 107 mile real range. Ugly as hell, so my family said.

In those days most chargers were free to use and were hardly used, so often ICE'd, but in those pre EV hating days where ICE drivers just felt sorry for you, moving was not a problem, nor was plugging in desperation into any 3-pin socket you could find.

My first innocent trip was to London, 111.5 miles return, not a charger in sight there or back. Range anxiety, running on vapours, or zero miles range forced me to drive very slowly, honked at by faster HGV drivers. I deferred longer trip again until enough chargers existed, even made Wales!

A highlight was meeting Robert Llewelyn at a small event in Oxford in the formative Fully Charged days.

Any other long time EV owners on here?

 

[MG Clive]

Nice one @EVsince2016, it's only been a couple of years for me, but there's no going back now.

 

[Rolfe]

Just three years for me, but ditto.

 

[EvTek23]

Well done!
You have been a pioneer for EV motoring. I'm glad to see you persevered in the infancy of a charging network, and proved longer trips were possible. I've heard many stories about Tesla owners getting rid of them and switching back to ICE cars due to lack of charging, and range.....just an excuse I reckon, the Tesla has one of the longest ranges.
Myself it's been 3 years like MG Clive and Rolfe, and my sentiments the same about going back to ICE as my main transport.

 

[Bam Bam]

On 3rd June 2016 I became an EV owner, less than a month after my 1st EV test drive.

I last went to buy diesel for my car in May 2016!

A nice bright red 30kW Nissan LEAF with a 150 mile range, which turned out only actually to be 27kW usable and a 107 mile real range. Ugly as hell, so my family said.

It is thanks to trailblazers like yourself that EVs have become available to the rest of us.

In those days most chargers were free to use and were hardly used, so often ICE'd, but in those pre EV hating days where ICE drivers just felt sorry for you, moving was not a problem, nor was plugging in desperation into any 3-pin socket you could find.

My first innocent trip was to London, 111.5 miles return, not a charger in sight there or back. Range anxiety, running on vapours, or zero miles range forced me to drive very slowly, honked at by faster HGV drivers. I deferred longer trip again until enough chargers existed, even made Wales!

We don't know we're born!

Any other long time EV owners on here?

Just two and a half years for us.

Could only afford an EV for a one-car household once the MG4 came along and we found our financial situation sufficiently improved.

 

[Lollipopman]

2 years for me, on my second MG, first one was the Hybrid plus took some getting use to but after 6 months upgraded to the HS PHEV Trophy and we love it. Love the safety features of the car and the cruise control is superb, when i first used it on the Hybrid plus the fact it slows itself down when approaching slow moving traffic then picks up speed without touching the accelerator pedal. Can't see myself changing manufacturer yet but now just got to decide whether to go fully electric on next purchase.

 

[5teep]

A bit over 5 years driving EV, I came in just as the EV cameraderie was beginning to fade. Was nice to rock up to a charger and chat to other drivers or have one come off a charge a bit early to let you on. There is still a bit of that about and I always try to be conscious of the time on charger. That said I do as little as possible public charging now, the price per kWh pains my Scottish soul.
I actually only became an EV owner less than a year ago, was never going to buy ice again after experiencing electric.

 

[Gomev]

On 3rd June 2016 I became an EV owner, less than a month after my 1st EV test drive.

I last went to buy diesel for my car in May 2016!

A nice bright red 30kW Nissan LEAF with a 150 mile range, which turned out only actually to be 27kW usable and a 107 mile real range. Ugly as hell, so my family said.

In those days most chargers were free to use and were hardly used, so often ICE'd, but in those pre EV hating days where ICE drivers just felt sorry for you, moving was not a problem, nor was plugging in desperation into any 3-pin socket you could find.

My first innocent trip was to London, 111.5 miles return, not a charger in sight there or back. Range anxiety, running on vapours, or zero miles range forced me to drive very slowly, honked at by faster HGV drivers. I deferred longer trip again until enough chargers existed, even made Wales!

A highlight was meeting Robert Llewelyn at a small event in Oxford in the formative Fully Charged days.

Any other long time EV owners on here?

Just coming up to a mere 6 years for me. I know others on here are much the same as me started with the ZS EV Gen 1. Range supposedly 140 miles.

 

[EVsince2016]

In year 2016, I drove to Peterborough, 101 miles in the autumn, absolutely no chargers en-route, so drove like grandma without heating on. Arrived at the one & only Ecotricity Electric Highway charger just off the A1. Covered in cobwebs, looked like it had never been used and I was on zero. It worked!

Went to visit the GWsR, 60 miles each way. Paid the chap at the garden centre to use his outdoor plug!

Longest I did with 0% / 0 miles was 10 miles.

You lot just don't know what range anxiety is

 

[Lovemyev]

Ten years for us also .
Started the EV journey back in 2015/16 with a VW Golf PHEV and loved it.
I knew after only a few short months, that our next car would likely be a full BEV.
Considered moving to an e.Golf after a couple of years, but the range was not the best and the equipment level on a top of the range car ( price wise ) was extremely poor.
Enter the MG ZS EV Gen1 in 2019 / 20 with the huge price incentives.
Then after a couple of years, moved onto the face lifted ZS EV Gen2 in about 2022.
In 2025 we updated again to the new S5 ( the replacement to the ZS EV ).
Probably covered around 90,000 in all three of these cars over that time, which sounds a lot.
But it’s only average mileage over that time frame I guess.
It’s amazing just how some people’s attitude to EV’s have changed over that short 10 years.
Back then it was rare to spot another EV on the road, now they are everywhere !.
Some of these drivers were the types that scoffed and made fun of EV’s back then.
Calling them milk floats / hair dryers etc etc.
Trust me, I have heard them all a 100 times over the ten years.
Look what you are driving now my friends.
Yeah - Thats right, it’s an EV !.
If you can charge from home on a cheaper off peak tariff, then your onto a clear winner.
Over the 10 years, we must have saved a considerable amount of money on fuel and service costs.
No going back for us at least.

 

[mj224]

About the same for me. My first was the Noddy car, a Citroen Zero. My grandson named it, especially as it was yellow. Not a bad little car, but the range was poor.

After 5 years of that, a brand new MG ZS EV. Great car roomy etc. Eventuality, the range seemed to be going down (mid winter), so I decided to upgrade to the MG4 SE 2024.

Another great car, its a beauty to drive-..............

 

[Slipstream]

On 3rd June 2016 I became an EV owner, less than a month after my 1st EV test drive.

I last went to buy diesel for my car in May 2016!

A nice bright red 30kW Nissan LEAF with a 150 mile range, which turned out only actually to be 27kW usable and a 107 mile real range. Ugly as hell, so my family said.

In those days most chargers were free to use and were hardly used, so often ICE'd, but in those pre EV hating days where ICE drivers just felt sorry for you, moving was not a problem, nor was plugging in desperation into any 3-pin socket you could find.

My first innocent trip was to London, 111.5 miles return, not a charger in sight there or back. Range anxiety, running on vapours, or zero miles range forced me to drive very slowly, honked at by faster HGV drivers. I deferred longer trip again until enough chargers existed, even made Wales!

A highlight was meeting Robert Llewelyn at a small event in Oxford in the formative Fully Charged days.

Any other long time EV owners on here?

Six years for me first car 2020 MK1 ZS came with free Rolex charger and 3 years free servicing. 180 miles range. Then 2022 MK2 ZS much improved on the old model. Then 2024 MG4. But I still prefer the SUV's.
Although I'd never go back to a ice.

 

[siteguru]

Six years for me first car 2020 MK1 ZS came with free Rolex charger and 3 years free servicing. 180 miles range. Then 2022 MK2 ZS much improved on the old model. Then 2024 MG4. But I still prefer the SUV's.
Although I'd never go back to a ice.

Several reviewers in the early MG4 days referred to it as an SUV .. I laughed at them and told them to stop being silly - it's a hatchback! They still wouldn't have it though.

Nice to see my opinion (hatchback not SUV) being echoed.

 

[Lovemyev]

Several reviewers in the early MG4 days referred to it as an SUV .. I laughed at them and told them to stop being silly - it's a hatchback! They still wouldn't have it though.

Nice to see my opinion (hatchback not SUV) being echoed.

I can’t understand why anybody would regard the MG4 as an SUV or even a so called cross over myself .
Why - Surely its lower ride height is a dead giveaway, it’s much closer related to a 5 door hatch like a eGolf etc etc .
If you park a MG4 next to an eGolf say, they have very similar ground clearance.
In the same context, if you park the MG4 along side a similar body sized model, like the VW T Roc or any of the smaller counter parts, then the ground clearance of these cars are much greater.
I do consider that the smaller SUV models, are better suited to the term “crossover” models.
But now we tend to call them all either small / medium and large SUV’s .
When the flavour of the month switched from hatchback to small SUV’s, manufacturers wanted to react quickly to changes in the market, or miss out on sales.
So many manufacturers opted for “jacking up” principle, by increasing the ride height of some of their current production models, and renaming them, in order to respond quickly to changes in market demand.
I will use VAG as an example, but the other manufacturers did follow in a very similar maner.
The Golf hatchback had a “spin off” as the TRoc.
The Polo had it’s ride height increased and became the TCross.
Acting quickly to the demands of change in the market, is the name of the game.
MG responded in a similar way back in 2019.
They spotted a gap in the market for a medium sized ( affordable to many ) family sized electric car.
Then did this by removing the ICE and transmission system from a car already in production, which was already known / tried and tested.
Of course the ZS was the easy target.
In 2019 it came to the market with very little competition and certainly NOT at that price point that MG offered tbh.
The rest is history.
Almost every manufacturer now adopt a genetic standardised running board / floor plan system or sometimes referred to as a skate board.
This makes switching build schedules to suit customer taste and demands at the factory, relatively easy.

 

[MG Clive]

I can’t understand why anybody would regard the MG4 as an SUV or even a so called cross over myself .

MG call the MG4 a 'Family Hatchback', so that'll do for me.

 

[Rolfe]

I was replacing a Golf and my requirement was for a Golf-sized hatchback. The MG4 was exactly right. Fits nicely in the Golf's space in the garage.

 

[Eclectic]

Just over 8 years for me, the first five with a 40kW Renault Zoe, and the last 3+ with my MG ZS LR. The Zoe had its quirks, but never let me down, and with the free chargers scattered about, was the most economical car I've ever owned.
I saw one charging on a charger outside out local Sainsbury's, and looked it up. 186 miles on a charge?!! That would work, so I had a couple of test drives and was sold on EVs
The MG was a big step up, and I like the car a lot, but it let me down badly, being off the road for 3 month with the HV battery shut off due to a module failure within the battery, and MG UK showing themselves up as totally uncaring. Even so, I still like the car, and it drives well and suits our needs.

 

[Paul225]

On 3rd June 2016 I became an EV owner, less than a month after my 1st EV test drive.

I last went to buy diesel for my car in May 2016!

A nice bright red 30kW Nissan LEAF with a 150 mile range, which turned out only actually to be 27kW usable and a 107 mile real range. Ugly as hell, so my family said.

In those days most chargers were free to use and were hardly used, so often ICE'd, but in those pre EV hating days where ICE drivers just felt sorry for you, moving was not a problem, nor was plugging in desperation into any 3-pin socket you could find.

My first innocent trip was to London, 111.5 miles return, not a charger in sight there or back. Range anxiety, running on vapours, or zero miles range forced me to drive very slowly, honked at by faster HGV drivers. I deferred longer trip again until enough chargers existed, even made Wales!

A highlight was meeting Robert Llewelyn at a small event in Oxford in the formative Fully Charged days.

Any other long time EV owners on here?

Can only report 8 years of MG EV - when I started driving all those years back my grandfather gave me a mileage book to record petrol costs and mileage - at lock down (Covid) I added up 5 books and converted litres to gallons - I presented the answers in my book Diary of a Publicity Guru - these are they - just for info !!

CAR STATISTICS

The answers on my 53 years of petrol motoring are -

21 cars and 3 garage cars awaiting new car deliveries

669,699 miles

20,883 gallons of petroleum

Costing £46,383.29

 

[ffcwickford]

I have only been an EV driver since 16/4/2025 - but will never go back. At home charging allows me to get my costs down to around 2p per mile - can't get anywhere close to that with ICE! The haters will always hate - they will arrive late to the party in maybe 10 years time and regret they didn't do it earlier. Battery degradation is much less than at first feared and there is so little that can go wrong with an EV. One new UK entrant Aion is bringing its V Electric SUV with something they are calling Great 8 - 8 yrs /100k warranty, 8 years MOT, 8 years servicing and 8 years AA cover included as standard. Other EV manufacturers will have to up their game to compete as that is worth a considerable amount of money when you think that you my consider the balloon payment at the end of a 3-5 PCP agreement!

 

[KevReg]

Well, it's about a month for us, and it's all down to you early pioneers! It's taken us 4 years since we went solar and even then the choice, range and pricing seemed too daunting so we went PHEV. That freed any "range anxiety" through a lack of public chargers. We had a list of potential EV's, with a large boot for the dogs. Ioniq5, Tesla Model Y and a few others had too steep a rake for the dogs to sit upright. E-Scenic discarded as dealer closed the local showroom that week; Jeep Compass, Smart #5, and several others were the same underpinnings as Citroen e-C5 Aircross but the vaunted "comfort" ride felt the same as our PHEV, just quieter. Then the ECS was lifted to £50k and looking at the £40 - £50k bracket the S6 stood out as best compromise. Best of all was price, too good to miss.