Electric Cars

Public fast-charging points

Public fast-charging points are often the quickest way to top up your electric car’s batteries if you find yourself running low. You’ll most commonly find them installed in motorway service stations and public car parks.

These chargers are usually rated at 50kWh – this means they can supply a battery with 50kW of energy every hour. As a result, you can charge most electric cars from almost empty to approximately 80% charged in about half an hour.

Some manufacturers recommend you don’t use these rapid chargers too often. Overuse can damage the batteries, eventually reducing the car’s range and shortening the lifespan of the batteries. Fast charging points can be quite expensive to use, too, so you’ll probably be better off using a slower but cheaper public charging point for regular top-ups.

You’ll also be able to charge your car at other, less speedy public charging points. These usually come in 7kWh and 22kWh varieties. Using a 7 kWh charger you’ll be able to boost your car’s range by approximately 30 miles for every hour of charging, while the more powerful 22kWh chargers can add around 80 miles of range in the same period.

Home charging

You can get wall chargers installed in your home or garage, too. These usually come in 7kWh and 3.7kWh outputs. The former will be just as fast as a 7kWh public charger but the slower 3.7kWh system will only be able to add around 15 miles of range every hour. You’ll still be able to charge your car from empty to 100% charged overnight, however.

These wall chargers range in price from less than £300 to more than £1,000, but the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme means you can apply for a Government grant to cover 75% of the purchase and installation cost. This grant is capped at £500.

If you don’t have a wall charger fitted your other option is to charge your car using a conventional three-pin socket. Unfortunately, these are rated at just 3kWh so fully charging your car will take significantly longer as a result. Unless you do very short journeys, it’s best to consider this a backup rather than a regular means of charging your electric car.

The Government Plug-in Car Grant can help you save as much as £4,500 on a selection of new electric cars. To be eligible, a new car must be capable of travelling at least 70 miles in between charges. They also have to come with a warranty covering their batteries for at least three years, or 60,000 miles.

It depends on the type of electric car you drive, the batteries it has and where you buy the electricity from.

Take a look at your home electricity bill. You will see a price per kilowatt hour (kWh). The average price these days for your home electricity is around 13p per kWh.

You then need to look at how much electricity your car's batteries can store. Take, for example, the Nissan Leaf - its batteries have a 40kWh capacity.

To work out how much it costs to charge an electric car, you multiply the price per kilowatt hour by the capacity - in the Leaf's example that would be 13p x 40kWh = £5.20.

Charging your car at public charging stations is usually done either by paying a monthly subscription or paying for the time you use to charge your car.

Just like conventional fuel, charging your car at motorway service stations can be more expensive, so check before you travel.