Pros and cons of owning an electric car

Just like the electrons that power them, there are a lot of positives and negatives about buying into the electric car movement at the moment.

There is no doubt that battery-powered vehicles will become more popular in the minds of new car buyers as they become more prevalent in showrooms, with a raft of brands set to introduce new models in the coming years.

Like any significant transition – and purchase – there’s still plenty of questions about if or when to make the switch, so we’ve come up with a list of pros and cons about owning an electric car to rationalise and justify the decision either way.

Better for the environment
One of the most appealing elements of an electric car is the fact it does not produce any harmful exhaust emissions like a petrol-powered car, which is good for the planet in reducing greenhouse gases and combatting climate change.

Electric vehicles will play a huge role in reducing pollution from major metropolitan cities. However, it’s not all that clear cut in Australia unless you recharge the vehicle using a sustainable energy source such as solar or wind because the majority of our power grid is generated from coal-fired powerplants.

Quieter to drive
For the same reason – not having a combustion engine – electric cars are significantly quieter to drive.

EVs still make a noise when accelerating, but it’s more of a futuristic whizz as the motor winds up than a roar of explosions while the revs rise.

Strong pulling power
Electric motors produce power in a different way to a combustion engine, with maximum torque – the pulling power you feel when standing on the throttle – available right from the get-go.

What that means is EVs feel extremely rapid off the mark, are zippy around town and can overtake quickly at highway speeds.

Smooth to drive
Because EVs pack plenty of torque, and the electric motors can freely spin to speeds in excess of 20,000rpm, they do not require a conventional gearbox with multiple ratios.

Instead, most electric cars (but not all, exceptions including the new Porsche Taycan and the upcoming Audi e-tron GT which has the same underpinnings) have just one gear, which makes them exceptionally smooth to drive.

Space for a ‘frunk’
What’s a frunk? Well, dedicated electric cars are built differently to conventional vehicles with the battery pack mounted underneath the floor. And because electric motors are physically smaller and do not require ancillary systems like radiators, big gearboxes or transmission tunnels for driveshafts they can be mounted on either the front or rear axle – or both.

The consequence of all that is EVs offer better packaging opportunities to increase interior space and cargo-carrying capacity, like having additional boot space where the engine would normally be located; a front trunk… or frunk.

Free fuel
Electric motors can spin in both directions, consuming battery power when the vehicle is accelerating but also feeding energy back into the battery when the vehicle is slowing down and braking.

This is called regenerative braking, which essentially uses the wasted energy of decelerating to top-up the battery in small doses when driving. It’s basically free fuel!

Cheaper to refill
It’s impossible to refill the battery using regenerative braking alone, but when you do need to plug the car in it is cheaper to top-up a battery with electricity than it is to fill your petrol tank with unleaded or diesel fuel.

The cost will vary according to how and when you recharge, as well as the price of electricity from your energy supplier. At best, it can be totally free if you exclusively use solar at home or the office.

But, even during peak periods, recharging an EV such as the Hyundai Kona Electric, which has a 74kWh battery, costs between $20-24 – around half the price of refuelling a similar petrol-powered variant.

Cheaper to own
Electric cars are also more affordable to own over time, with lower servicing costs, as they have fewer moving parts and do not require lubricants such as oil, spark plugs and other items that regularly need replacing to keep a combustion engine optimised.

Some insurance companies also offer lower premiums and some financial institutions have reduced interest rate loans for electric cars as an incentive to shift into an EV.

Expensive to buy
At the moment, electric cars command a significant price premium over similarly-sized petrol-powered equivalents, simply because battery technology is so new and expensive and car-makers are spending billions of dollars in research and development to bring them to market.

But experts forecast the cost to produce batteries will drop significantly over the next five years and, as production of and demand for EVs increases, they predict there will a price parity between petrol and battery-powered vehicles by the middle of the decade.

Limited choice
While there is a lot of talk about electric cars, the fact remains there isn’t actually that many dedicated battery-electric vehicles available in Australia right now.

Currently, there’s only about a dozen fully-electric cars in local showrooms, ranging from mainstream brand models such as the MG ZS EV – which is the most affordable at just over $40K – as well as the Nissan LEAF and Hyundai’s IONIQ Electric and Kona Electric, to those from premium brands including the Tesla Model 3, Model S and Model Y, Audi e-tron, Jaguar I-PACE, Mercedes-Benz EQC and the cutting-edge Porsche Taycan.

There are plenty more coming down the pipeline though from a wide variety of brands across a broad range of body styles, from small hatches and SUVs to sportscars and even proper four-wheel drives and utes.

Range anxiety
The most common reason Australians are steering away from buying an electric car at the moment is a hurdle that has been dubbed ‘range anxiety’ – the fear of running out of juice and being stranded with a flat battery.

Early examples of electric vehicles had a total driving range that was limited to between 120-200km between recharges, which obviously ring-fenced them into the urban jungle as city commuter cars that needed to be plugged-in daily – just like a mobile phone.

Rapid advances in battery technology has improved that situation drastically, with the latest EVs offering at least 250km of driving range, like the MG ZS EV, with more advanced models, such as the Porsche Taycan and Tesla Model 3 and Model S, able to drive up to 600km between recharges.

Charging infrastructure
Sure, it’s all good to have a car that can travel that distance, but there are still plenty of questions about where and how to fill it up when driving away from your home base.

Well, Australia now has a fairly extensive public charging network thanks to organisations like Charge Fox and state motoring clubs, as well as Tesla which has built its own network of Superchargers around the country that can only be used by owners of its vehicles.

Most large shopping centres, hotels, multi-storey car parks and tourist destinations have dedicated spaces for electric vehicles with charging stations too.

Yes, there aren’t as many charging outlets as there are petrol stations – yet – but, with some planning and knowledge, it is possible to drive an EV almost anywhere in the country now.

Takes longer to refill
It will take you longer to get there though, as electric cars aren’t as quick to refill the battery as it is to top-up the petrol tank in a normal car.

The time it takes to recharge a battery is also dependent on where you fill it up. If you plug in to a household power point, it can take more than a day to fully recharge a near-empty battery.

With a higher-voltage wallbox – which are usually offered as an option when purchasing the vehicle – the time can be slashed to between four and eight hours, depending on the size of the battery.

Using a 50kW fast-charging public station, a full recharge generally takes just over one hour, while higher-powered ultra-rapid chargers (which only fill the battery to 80 per cent at the maximum rate) can refill a battery in less than half an hour.

Obsolescence
Even having said all of that, the rate of development for battery-powered cars that is underway at the moment is so enormous that – just as it is with mobile phones – today’s electric cars could be obsolete within a few years.

While that is a positive in many ways, it also means an EV on the market today might be harder to sell in a few years and is likely to experience a greater than normal rate of depreciation.