Would an electric car work for me?

Telegraph

5 days ago

Dear Alex,
I'm considering buying my first electric car, or possibly a hybrid, but I don't know whether it would be suitable for my lifestyle. I work from home and need to use my car only about once a week for short journeys. While standing idle on my driveway for the vast majority of the time, would an electric or hybrid have to remain continuously connected to a charger? If so, would that degrade the battery? Or would it be preferable to leave it disconnected and charge it only when I need it?
– DH
Dear DH,
An electric car would be ideal in your situation. EVs are at their best on shorter jaunts around town, where the frequent stops allow regenerative braking to recharge the battery and therefore result in a much longer range.
And you shouldn't need to leave the car connected to a charger. It wouldn't degrade the battery to do so – although I'd suggest limiting charging to 80 per cent unless you need the full battery capacity for a longer trip, which is best practice with EVs.
What about the 12V battery? That is to say, the smaller battery also fitted to an EV, which runs the ancillary electrics. These can drain in certain circumstances, particularly if the car's electronics are being activated – perhaps by a third-party app communicating with the car – more often than the 12V battery is being topped up from the main traction battery.
However, the problem seems to be less severe than in hybrid cars and users tend to report that (perversely) the 12V battery is less likely to die if the car isn't left plugged in for long periods
With that in mind, my suggestion would be not to leave your new EV connected all the time. I'd just charge it to 80 per cent when the battery gets down to around 20 per cent; by my reckoning, given your mileage, you'll only need to charge a small EV like a Vauxhall Corsa E roughly once every three weeks.
Don't forget to factor the cost of a charging point into your calculations, though – even a fairly basic one will still cost about £800-900 these days.
If that puts you off, you could consider a hybrid car as an alternative – one of these should prove economical on your short local journeys.
I'd be slightly more concerned about the 12V battery going flat in a hybrid, but you could always invest in a solar or trickle charger to keep it topped up.
Dear Alex,
My car is subject to the Citroën airbags recall. I have been told it is not safe to drive and that I may not be covered by insurance. The earliest appointment I can get is 14 miles along the motorway from where I live. The dealership says Citroën's advice is that it is safe for me to drive it there, but I think they should collect my car and fix it. My local garage could offer nothing until a month later. What should I do?
– EJ
Dear EJ,
This recall programme has been going on for more than a decade, involving airbags manufactured by a Japanese company called Takata, one of the largest suppliers of airbags in the world.
In 2013, it was discovered that some of its products could cause serious injury, or even death, as the metal casings could rupture when the airbag was inflated, sending shards of metal at explosive speed toward the driver.
Since then, several manufacturers have become involved, but owing to the failure of the Takata subsidiary that manufactured the faulty parts to keep proper records, there have been issues in identifying which models they were fitted to.
As a result, extra models have regularly been added to the recall, including Citroën's C3 and DS3, with owners being asked to visit dealerships to have their cars repaired in batches.
However, earlier this year, a woman was found to have died in a crash as a result of injuries caused by a Takata airbag in a Citroën. At that point, Citroën issued the stop-drive warning and started to recall all the affected cars at once.
As you can imagine, this has placed huge demands on Citroën dealers, whose workshops are now inundated. Which is why, as you've found, getting an appointment to have the work carried out is easier said than done.
In an ideal world, Citroën would be required to pick up your car. However, I think a degree of realism is called for: the likelihood of each dealer being able to send recovery trucks for all the affected cars in their area is, as you can imagine, slim.
And were you to insist on recovery or a driven collection, you might find yourself facing an even longer wait. You'd have to use your nearest dealer, for one thing and as you've already mentioned that would push your appointment back.
I imagine most insurers will give you consent to drive your car in order for the repair to be carried out, in the same way they would for MOT repairs.
Call your insurer to check. Assuming they said it was legally OK, get the recall carried out as soon as you can, then put the whole sorry saga behind you.
If, on the other hand, the insurer says it will not provide cover for this scenario, contact Citroën customer service on 0800 093 9393 and ask whether they will cover the cost of transportation to the dealer.