One of the reasons for changing to an electric car was the differences between the cost of fuel.
While my initial month’s driving suggested that I may save up to £80 in fuel costs that was before the events of this week.
Electric supply disruption
You may have seen that there was a fire that affected an interconnector, an electric highway, between the UK and France. The result of this fire has been that the interconnector has been that the interconnector has been shut down probably for a few months.
The result of this is that wholesale Electricity prices have jumped and as that price affects the price consumers pay especially those on variable tariffs and those on smart tariffs such as Octopus Agile where the price varies every half hour depending on the wholesale price.
In the past this has meant if wholesale prices dropped when there was a greater supply than consumption and led to very low or even negative pricing but if supply is reduced this is unlikely to occur.
Suppliers going out of business
In addition with the sudden increase in gas prices worldwide a number of UK energy suppliers have gone out of business and there is a reduction in competition for energy thus meaning that despite the price cap that the government has placed on energy price increases it is likely that domestic energy prices will increase this winter for everybody.
Does that mean that I regret my purchase of an electric vehicle ?
While the price of running my car may increase with the rising prices the benefits of having a zero emission car to my mind outweight any problems that this may occur.
Even on standard suppliers tariffs having the ability to charge at off peak times has some cost advantages that will persist s there is a base supply of electricity at night that is greater that the neds and cannot be turned off so there will always be some time where electricity is cheaper and charging can be programmed to those times.
Even if the cost increased by 100% this would still be a saving over the cost of petrol or diesel each month and the minimal road tax and reduced service costings are also a saving.
I am really enjoying the driving experience in the car and have no regrets and hopefully the opportunity to update the blog on a regular basis with my thoughts as I use it more.
Please add your thoughts on the pricing of electricity and whether it alters the economic argument for electric vehicles or does the environmental benefits means such considerations are subsidiary ?
I have changed my energy supplier to Octopus Energy that has a referral scheme whereby if you change to it using this link you will get a credit of £50 ( I will also get a credit of £50) http://share.octopus.energy/peach-rill-315