BHPian caravatar01 recently shared this with other enthusiasts: 1. My usual drive is a 50km round trip from Home to Office (3 days a week):At both ends, there are AC chargers available. The office provides an 11KW AC fast charger, which charges my car from 10-100% in about 5 hours, and is also free for employees to use. Home has a 7KW charger (common 8 guns for the entire apartment complex), which charges Rs 11/KwH. With my car range at 420KM in the city, I hardly use the Home charger and rely on the Office charger. I charge my car once a week. With this setup, I am able to cover my city drives and weekend highway drives quite easily. Sure, sometimes I topped up at my Home charger, and have just once used DC charging.2. DC Charging Infra:I have done four 300+km trips in the last month, and only once had to use DC fast charging. With the evolving infrastructure, DC fast chargers as popping up every day on highway routes. Surely, they are on the expensive side, with rates of Rs 20-25/KwH, and I hope this reduces once the government sets up functional DC chargers. The cost may drop to Rs 15-18/KwH. But even with the current setup of Rs 20-25/KwH, the cost of running the car is less than a Petrol car (My Verna used to run at Rs 7/km on highways and Rs 10/km in the city). Even on the most expensive charger, my car would run at Rs 3-4/km.3. Cost of the vehicle:With tax breaks and incentives to manufacturers, the cost of EVs has come down significantly. This is also attributed to the introduction of competition (read as ‘MG’) to indigenous brands. If I compare the cost of my Creta Electric against a top spec Creta Turbo Petrol N line (like-for-like comparison in terms of features), On Road cost of the Creta Electric is lower. This is because there is no Road Tax in Karnataka for EVs below 25L. I understand that this might not stay for long, as the government would get greedy once the volumes of EVs increase. But at the same time, the cost of EVs might get lower.4. Are EVs Green?Well, it depends – from which Supply Chain point are you looking at them from? Operating them in greener, yes! Even more so for people who have access to Solar Energy. Boy, I hope one day I can get a similar setup.5. Long Distance Drives: With a range of 400km on highways, long drives on highways are very much possible. Yes, of course, there is an additional layer of planning required in order to charge your car. But the chargers are plenty, especially in South India. For me, I like to plan my travels down to the T, and hence this is something I enjoy rather than dread. As for my experience with DC charging, I have only used it once until now, and the car was able to charge by 50%+ by the time I had my lunch.6. Big Question is the Sale value. While calculating TCO, EV fares much better than ICE until we come to the point of including Sale Value. If you are using your EV for 8-10 years, then the Sale value becomes a moot point. However, if not, this is a serious unknown which would only be clear as time passes by. I am very happy with this change in my life of switching to EV. It is lighter on the pocket for me, the experience is much more premium, and the convenience of a 1 pedal drive is out of this world. As it stands today, I am not switching to ICE any time soon. Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
