I'm looking at a 2021 R135 Zoe. Last year i did 17000 miles in my current car, 90% on motorways.
Now you can get good rates charging at home I'm looking at electric, and wondered what current users actually get at journeys on the the motorway.
My commute is a 66 mile round trip, 45 miles at 70mph, about 16 miles 50mph and the rest 30mph.
In theory I can save over £100 a month in fuel, but this depends on actual range.
Don't forget less repairs, tax, and tyre replacements than an ICE which add to the savings.
You may indeed save about £2k per annum on fuel but make sure you check out the insurance costs before committing, as that may well wipe out a fair proportion of your saving, unfortunately.
On the infrequent times I need to get good range from a full charge I reduce my speed to 56 or even 53 mph if the road is quiet and the 180 miles I need to cover is achieved with 25% or more battery and an indicated 50 - 75 miles in hand at the end. It is tedious but it works if I want to move the car from London to S. Wales without an intermediate charge. These days a large part of this run is limited to 50 or even 40mph anyway for road works. I do not suggest this as a strategy for regular commuting but it shows what is possible if you reduce speed below the legal limit. I have seen an indicated 270 mile range on several occasions 5.2mph/kWh i.e. distance covered of 180 plus remaining indicated range.
Being Very conversative on my approach
Assuming Petrol Car, £1.40 p/litre, 45mpg, = cost 14p/mile
Electric Car annual average 3.5miles/kwh , home night charge rate 6.99p/kwh = cost 2p/mile
Therefore 12p/mile saving * 17000 miles = £2,040 saving / year, £170 / Month saving.
I have achieved 5 miles/kwh on a gentle run in the summer and also a petrol car may not achieve 45mpg, so the saving could be more. Richy
Early days for me but done some experimental driving and comparisons to ABRP's calculations which seem very realistic.
In my case doing 70 and just driving normally (not accelerating like the Stig, but not shy about reaching the top end of the green part of the dial when I want to get on with an overtake or get up to speed on a sliproad) if I did purely motorway miles - measuring from junction to junction - summer is looking 160 miles. Winter 120.
Lighten your foot and you'll go further. Drive against gale force winds and you'll go shorter.
Last week I did a 67 mile round trip, mostly on motorways, I had 79% charge when I started and 39% when I returned.
It all depends on the weather and speed. The colder the weather and the faster you drive, the less mileage you'll achieve.
Doing 70mph in cold weather can give you a range as low as 130 miles.
You might want to look at the "Battery Life" YouTube channel where many EVs have been tested with several Zoe ZE50 135 tests a few yrs back. Summarising, there were long distance tests at 56mph and at 90mph/top speed but a number of shorter (so less accurate) tests at other speeds.
100% to maybe 5% tests with range estimated to include residual 5-6% capacity
range at 56mph 254miles 5.1m/kwh
range at 90mph 125miles 2.55m/kwh
Shorter tests of ~60km each:
53mph 5.1m/kwh
64mph 4.0m/kwh
73.6mph 3.1m/kwh
81mph 2.8m/kwh
It was found that there was between 48.4 - 50kWh available battery capacity down to zero displayed range though even at zero miles there is anything up to 2kWh of crawler capacity remaining.
Just keep an eye on the battery before the end. You may find that if the weather is terrible it will use a bit more and maybe you would need to switch off A/C etc
I do a 110 mile trip both in winter and summer on similar roads although usually just under 70mph. In summer I roughly use 60% and winter 70% of the battery.