Milton Keynes has probably the greatest concentration of electric car charging points of any location in the world. This arguably makes it the best candidate destination city for electric car drivers anywhere in the world.
Electric cars charging in Milton Keynes (Image: T. Larkum)
Of course, those are difficult statements to confirm since there aren’t international league tables of such things. However, a look at international charge point maps like Plugshare certainly seems to indicate that it has as many standard power charge points (some 170) as other candidate ‘hot spots’ such as Los Angeles in the US and Oslo in Norway. If you look further into the density of high power rapid chargers (56) it appears to win hands down against all comers.
Charge Point Locations
More to the point, however, is that charge point locations are very well organised in Milton Keynes. While in other cities the growth and placement of charge points appears to be organic, i.e. nearly random, they are well placed in MK. Specifically the city centre is arranged in blocks on a grid (in the American style) and charge points are placed along at least one and usually both of the long sides of each block. One block can have as many as a dozen standard speed chargers.
The rapid chargers are arranged more strategically. In the city centre there is one rapid to every one or two blocks. Outside the centre, in the suburbs, there is one to every second or third housing estate.
Rapid Chargers next to Milton Keynes Central railway station (Image: T. Larkum)
The result of having so many charge points in Milton Keynes is that anyone can visit the city in an electric car and be confident of finding somewhere to charge for the return journey. With a typical EV range of 80 miles this means that MK can welcome visitors from as far afield as Southampton in the south, Gloucester in the west and Nottingham in the north – they won’t have to charge on the way in or back home.
Chargemaster / Polar Network
The charge points in MK are part of the Polar network operated by Chargemaster. Therefore to make use of them it’s necessary to use a Polar app or swipe card, either on subscription (Polar Network) or Pay As You Go (Polar Instant).
With that arranged, it is possible to find a charge point near almost anywhere in the city centre. Their locations can be seen on the council’s charge point map (PDF) and on the online Polar Live map.
This makes MK the perfect place for EV owners, whether visiting occasionally for shopping or commuting in daily for work.
There are many incentives available to encourage drivers to move from polluting petrol and diesel cars to electric cars. They come from national and local government, car manufacturers, suppliers and independent organisations.
Electric Car Line-up (Image: Go Ultra Low)
Here we provide a brief summary of the main incentives currently provided to electric car drivers by the national government.
UK Government
Plug-in Grants
The UK government provides a grant off the cost of a new electric car as follows:
£4500 off cars with ‘CO2 emissions of less than 50g/km and can travel at least 112km (70 miles) without any CO2 emissions at all’. Examples include the Nissan Leaf, Renault ZOE, BMW i3 and Hyundai IONIQ Electric.
£8000 off vans with ‘CO2 emissions of less than 75g/km and can travel at least 16km (10 miles) without any CO2 emissions at all’. Examples include the Mitsubishi Outlander Commercial, Nissan e-NV200 and Renault Kangoo ZE.
Note that the grants are capped at 35% of the purchase price for cars and 20% for vans. Plugin Hybrids (PHEVs) with a retail price above £60,000 are not eligible (including the BMW i8 and Porsche Panamera).
There are three grant schemes available to help fund the cost of installing charge points:
The Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) provides grant funding of up to 75% towards the cost of installing electric vehicle chargepoints at domestic properties across the UK.
The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) is a voucher-based scheme that provides support towards the up-front costs of the purchase and installation of electric vehicle charge-points, for eligible businesses, charities and public sector organisations.
The On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) provides grant funding for local authorities towards the cost of installing on-street residential chargepoints for plug-in electric vehicles.
The Homecharge Scheme is the one that’s relevant for most electric car owners. Essentially it means that you can get a charge point installed at home for a few hundred pounds rather than at the full price of nearer £1000. For more details see Government Grant for Electric Car Home Charge Point.
Vehicle Excise Duty (‘Road Tax’)
Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), also known colloquially as ‘road tax’, is a tax levied by the government on every vehicle on British public roads, and collected by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). Major changes have been introduced for vehicles registered after 1st April 2017.
The current situation can be summarised as follows:
All-electric cars are exempt from VED (they pay at a rate of £0 per year) if they have a list price of less than £40,000.
Conventional cars and plugin hybrids are charged in the first year at a rate that depends on their emissions. Plugin hybrids are charged £10 less than conventional cars.
Thereafter conventional cars are charged £140 per year while plugin hybrids are charged £130 per year.
All vehicles with a list price of more than £40,000 pay an additional £310 per year for 5 years from the second year. For electric cars this mostly affects the Tesla Model S and Model X, but could impact high end versions of the BMW i3 and Mitsubishi Outlander, for example.
Tesla Model S – tax is boring but electric cars are not (Image: T. Larkum)
Company Car Tax (‘Benefit in Kind’)
If you have use of a car for personal transport, and that car has been supplied by your employer, it will be considered a taxable perk by HMRC – a ‘benefit in kind’ (BIK). The Benefit-in-Kind (BIK) is then taxed at your appropriate personal tax rate (usually collected through PAYE).
Petrol and diesel BIK rates depend on the car’s CO2 emissions, and there is a large matrix of rates covering different emission categories up until the scheme changes again in 2020. In summary:
Petrol cars are in the range 13% (technically 9% but see below) for low emissions to 37% for high emissions in 2017 (but starting at 16% in 2018 and 19% in 2019).
Diesel cars are in the range 20% to 37% in 2017 (but starting at 22% in 2018 and 25% in 2019).
All-electric cars are at 9% in 2017 (13% in 2018 and 16% in 2020)
From this we can see that all-electric cars are effectively taxed the same as a very low emission petrol car. However, in practice there are no conventional petrol cars that have such low emissions – they are all plugin hybrids – so in effect all-electrics and most PHEVs are taxed at the same rate of 9%, and the smallest petrol car and biggest PHEVs (e.g. Mercedes C350e) will start at 13%. A typical petrol car like a Ford Focus will be taxed at something more like 30%.
Note that proposed tax changes for 2020-21 are generally even more favourable for EVs, with the BIK being determined by the electric range. It could be as low as 2% for EVs with a range greater than 130 miles (and 5% for a range greater than 70 miles).
Of course, tax is always a complex issue and you should take advice on your personal situation.
Update: We’ve added a blog post about capital allowances for businesses here.
If you want to charge your car away from home, and can’t get by with a 13 Amp ‘granny cable’, then you will need to join one or more of the national charging networks. That gives you access to the public charging points available around town centres and on the motorway and trunk road systems.
There are a number of sites where you can look up charging points, including:
In an occasional series I will cover the biggest networks: Electric Highway, Polar Network, POD Point and so on. Here we begin with the Electric Highway, created by Ecotricity and now owned and operated by Gridserve.
“Our low-cost, rapid and high power charging infrastructure is reaching every corner of the UK, covering 85% of the UK’s motorway network.
We provide rapid and high powered charging at some of the lowest rates in the UK. Our next generation chargers are supported by renewable energy from our solar farms.”
My BMW i3 on charge on an Ecotricity DBT rapid charger at Corley Services (Image: T. Larkum)
Our View
If you join just one network it probably has to be the Electric Highway (EH) as they have a virtual monopoly on charging at motorway service areas (the exception being Tesla with their Superchargers). The good news is that the majority of services now have at least one rapid charger, an increasing number have two and some have even more. So for long distance driving with your electric car you can pretty much get around most of England by charging at motorway services. Coverage outside England (in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and particularly in Wales) is however poor.
The reliability of Ecotricity charge points has historically been quite poor, but this has started to improve since the takeover by Gridserve.
Curiously, apart from at motorway services the majority of EH rapid chargers are in the car parks of IKEA superstores (due to a partnership deal between them – see IKEA Electric Vehicle Charging).
The majority of EH rapid chargers were large white units manufactured by DBT-CEV. These provide DC charging at 50kW for CCS (BMW i3 etc.) and Chademo (e.g. Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi Outlander) connectors, and AC charging at 43kW (Renault ZOE). Typically the first ones installed were ‘single headed’ with just Chademo cables for the Leaf. Later they were ‘double headed’ with the addition of a Type 2 cable for the ZOE. Current installs are ‘triple headed’ with the addition of a CCS cable for the i3 and Hyundai IONIQ.
My Renault ZOE charging at an Ecotricity 22kW medium-fast charger (Image: T. Larkum)
Note that most EVs with a Type 2 connector (not the Leaf or Outlander) can be charged with any rapid through the Type 2 cable but only the ZOE can use it at full power (43kW or 22kW). Some can use it at reduced power (e.g. the i3 can use 11kW) but most will drop down to 7kW, like charging at home. You should use the CCS or Chademo connector for rapid charging, and only use the Type 2 if these aren’t working (it will be much slower).
Before using DBT rapids Ecotricity installed a small number of ‘medium’ chargers providing 22kW. Some of these are still in place and can be seen alongside the DBT ones; again, you should make sure that you understand which charger and cable/connector is most appropriate for your circumstances.
Volkswagen e-Up charging outside the Experience Centre (Image: T. Larkum)
The biggest manufacturers of all-electric cars sold in Europe are Nissan with their Leaf in 1st place in terms of sales (and e-NV200 van in 5th), Tesla with their Model S in 2nd place, and Renault with their ZOE in 3rd place. These manufacturers are, of course, Japanese, American and French respectively. What is interesting is that there is only one German entrant in the top 5, BMW with their i3 at 4th place, despite the fact that German manufacturers dominate the European market for fossil-fuelled cars.
Volkswagen Passat GTE (Image: T. Larkum)
The Germans do make electric cars – Mercedes has the B Class Electric and Volkswagen has the e-Golf and e-Up – but they appear to make no effort to market them. Historically they have also had lacklustre range and high prices. The bottom line is that they haven’t sold in significant numbers.
Volkswagen Passat GTE (Image: T. Larkum)
German Plugin Hybrids (PHEVs)
Instead it seems that German manufacturers have decided that the plugin hybrid (PHEV) combining an electric drivetrain with a conventional petrol engine is what people want. Or at least they see it as an intermediate step towards full electrification. Considering PHEVs, the top 10 sales now include Mercedes with the C350e in 2nd place (after the Mitsubishi Outlander), the BMW 330e in 4th place and the Volkswagen Golf GTE at 6th place.
Volkswagen Passat GTE (Image: T. Larkum)
In fact, Volkswagen has arguably embraced PHEVs more than any other manufacture. They currently offer both of their two biggest selling cars, the Passat and the Golf, in PHEV form as the ‘GTE’. Both of them offer the ability to commute (up to about 20 miles) on electricity with the option of using petrol for longer distances – they also have pretty good 0-60 times too.
Volkswagen Golf GTE (Image: T. Larkum)
VW on the Rise
With these cars in the vanguard, and with the e-Up and newly improved e-Golf to come, Volkswagen may soon make significant inroads into plugin sales in the UK.
Volkswagen Golf GTE (Image: T. Larkum)
These were some of the thoughts that came to me looking at the row of EVs charging outside the Milton Keynes Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (EVEC). Of the eight cars, three were from Volkswagen (so nearly 40%). We ourselves are looking to start offering VW plugins soon, and I’m sure we’ll see VW as an EV brand on the rise from here on.
Volkswagen Golf GTE (Image: T. Larkum)
As ever, if you want to test drive any of the cars mentioned here just get in touch.
The Government has just announced that Britain is to ban sale of all diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040. The writing is on the wall, with some sources saying that most cars sold will be electric as soon as 2025. If you want to learn about what’s coming, and how owning an electric car is going to affect you, then this guide is for you.
I have been driving an electric car for four years; first a Renault ZOE (48,000 miles) and now a BMW i3. Through my blog sites at Fuel Included and My Renault ZOE I have answered tons of questions about home charging. I decided it was about time to put all the answers together in one place, in a downloadable eBook.
Click on the image, enter your name and email, and download your free guide.
If it leaves any questions unanswered, just get in touch (contact details here and in the eBook).
I saw my first autonomous electric pod in Milton Keynes today while taking a lunchtime walk.
Although I’ve followed the development of the Lutz Pathfinder for a few years, this was the first time I’ve seen one ‘in the flesh’. It appeared to be undergoing testing on undeveloped land on the eastern side of the city centre.
Unfortunately what’s not clear in the picture is that it’s stationary. Someone is hunched down on the far side with a laptop.
There weren’t cars only on display inside the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (EVEC) at the launch. There were also a large number charging up outside, presumably getting ready for test drives for the public for the opening the next day.
Electric cars ready for free test drives in Milton Keynes (Image: T. Larkum)
The large numbers and broad range of EVs available was impressive.
How about a quick quiz: can you identify them all? The answers are given below.
Electric cars ready for free test drives in Milton Keynes (Image: T. Larkum)
Of course, whether you own an EV or are considering your first, you’re welcome to test drive any of the vehicles on show for free. Just get in touch and we’ll help arrange it.
Answers to the Quiz: these are the electric cars waiting to give test drives (from nearest the camera to furthest away):
Last weekend saw the long awaited opening of the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (EVEC) in Milton Keynes. It officially opened to the public on Saturday 22nd July. It is funded through a government scheme awarded to the local council and is managed by Chargemaster, the company that has installed the majority of charge points around Milton Keynes.
The Preview Event at the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (Image: T. Larkum)
The EVEC is essentially a car showroom for electric cars but is located in a shop space on Crown Walk in the main centre:mk shopping centre (it’s close to the middle and next to Boots). It doesn’t resemble an out-of-town dealership so much as the boutique style shops developed by Tesla, Apple and most mobile ‘phone companies.
EVEC Purpose
The aim of the Centre is to both showcase existing electric models and be an information point for EV ownership in general. Visitors will be able to talk with staff about all elements of owning and running an EV, with test drives available too. It has been established to increase the number of EVs sold in the area. Milton Keynes’ target is for 23% of all new cars registered locally to be electric by 2021.
The Preview Event at the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (Image: T. Larkum)
We are grateful to Chargemaster for inviting us to the Preview Event on Friday Night (Jo’s thoughts: A Little Bit of Zen). Most of the other guests appeared to be existing EV owners. The showroom housed examples of the Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, Volkswagen Golf GTE and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. There were drinks and snacks, and then introductory speeches by David Martell, Chief Executive of Chargemaster, and Ted Foster, the new EVEC Manager. After the talks we had an opportunity to talk to Ted and the other staff.
EVEC Test Drives
As well as providing help and guidance on electric cars and EV driving, the EVEC is also making cars available for test drives. These can be short accompanied drives, however there is also the option of week-long extended test drives. For these there will be a charge (we understand about £70) largely to cover the inevitable cost of insurance. That’s seems fair to us – £10 per day to drive a new car, particularly considering the fuel costs will be negligible.
The Preview Event at the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (Image: J. Pegram-Mills)
The enthusiasm of the EVEC ‘gurus’ is clear and we certainly appreciate the enthusiasm and resources that have gone into building and staffing the first dedicated electric vehicle showroom in the UK (and probably in the world). We wish it every success and will be supporting it by passing local customers to it for test drives.
If you live near Milton Keynes and are interested in taking a test drive in any one of a large range of new electric cars (including the Renault ZOE, Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, Golf GTE, and others) just get in touch with us on 01908-904020, or by email at sales@ fuelincluded.com.
Ecotricity recently changed the cost structure for their rapid chargers. Below is a summary of the letter they sent to their customers explaining the changes.
It is about a year since Ecotrictity introduced ‘charging for charging’ on the Electric Highway, after being free to use for five years. Charging was set at a rate of £6 for 30 minutes, with intention to monitor use and later produce “a more sophisticated approach to charging”.
With that now done a new model has been developed and rolled out, promising to give
“more flexibility and typically lower charging costs across all makes and models”.
The new rates are charged at 17p per unit, which they explain is
“pretty much the rate that people pay at home”
the cost of providing the service is administered via a £3 connection fee for all sessions.
Dale Vince wrote
“In our modelling this will typically lower the cost of charging for all makes and models as well as charge more proportionally for energy taken.”
They have also increased the maximum length of charging sessions to 45 mins, it is hoped this will offer greater flexibility to those customers who need a bit longer to charge up.
For Ecotricity customers there currently is no connection fee, this reflects their opinion that their customers’ energy bills help them build the network.
Those existing Ecotricity customers that benefit from the offer of 52 free charges in a year will continue to benefit from this arrangement until their first anniversary with the company, or their first 52 charges (whichever comes first). After this they will be automatically transferred to the new charging model.
The new rates and process came into effect on 26th June 2017, it is recommended that customers of update their mobile phone app’s to pick up the new tariff changes.
I was recently lucky enough to have an extended test drive of the MINI Countryman Plug-In Hybrid, a car I’ve been keen to experience since I got word that the electric MINI’s were coming.
With an electric range of 24.8 miles (NEDC) this car could be the answer to fairly short distance commuters who are not quite ready to go All-Electric but want something a bit more eco-friendly and a little more trendy than some of the other PHEVs on offer.
On first impressions of the exterior I really liked it, it was sleek and just a little aggressive, it’s reasonably sized yet still manages to keep some of the iconic MINI features.
MINI Countryman Plug-In Hybrid
Inside I found it roomy and comfortable, the 3 driving modes made it easy to switch from fully electric (Max eDrive), Petrol use only (Save Battery) and Auto eDrive – the option where the car decides what fuel source to use based on your driving style.
There are some useful features to help you ‘keep an eye’ on your consumption and your fuel usage. The first being the trim surrounding the display, when using electric it glows yellow and gives you an indication of your remaining electric range. You can also toggle through different options on the display to show you the percentage of battery remaining and remaining range. The E-Instruments gauge is to the left of your tachometer and this shows you the status of your fuel usage (i.e. when you are using petrol and when using electric).
On usage, it breezed through my short 12 mile commute to work on fully electric – I knew it would. I used the car around town on the Saturday taking it to the DIY store where the roomy boot space came in useful, again only using electric for my short journeys. On the Sunday I travelled a bit further, taking the MINI to Woburn Centre Parks. With a car full of family I decided to try the ‘Auto eDrive’ driving mode. It changed effortlessly between petrol and electric fuel whilst maintaining a quiet ambience within the cab.
The Navigation software was a little complicated to read, but I think this is just the style of the software, much like the BMW Navigation system. I’m sure I would have got used to it after a bit more use.
My experience on charging will be a little different to others as I don’t have a charge point at home, it was doable but I did need to charge publicly quite often which wasn’t ideal. Not having a home charge point doesn’t cause me any issue with my fully electric car because I don’t need to charge up as often but this approach doesn’t lend itself well to a plug-in Hybrid, as you do need to charge it everyday to make real use of the electric motor.
Overall I really liked this car. It was good to drive, I love the look and I can certainly see this being a top player in the PHEV market.
If the spec, look and feel of the MINI Countryman PHEV is anything to go by then I eagerly await the all-electric MINI.
