EV without option to charge at home

Check your local charging options. Prices can vary a good bit. Cost aside, Metropolitan areas it's very feasible! Factoring your local charging options it can cost about the same as petrol or still be a lot cheaper. Where I am I've got some chargers at 0.25 p kwh and others at 0.75kwh.

I’ve been charging my EV using public chargers and it’s definitely doable. Sometimes it takes a little bit of planning ahead if you’re driving longer distances but you get used to that pretty quickly. The plugshare app is your friend!

Public charging isnt great price wise compared to ICE, although its probably better right now due to global events. Slower chargers are most cost efficient, so try to use them if you can.

An EV is more efficient than ICE, less maintenance and right now, costs less to top up. A typical suburban drive effiency is around 5-6km/kWh. A typical public charger is around $0.6 - $0.8/kWh. You can roughly work out how much you currently spend on your Corolla and how much an EV will cost/save you. An EV is very efficient around the suburbs with regenerative braking and it also makes driving a bit more enjoyable. It's quiet and a better drive than ICE.

I had the same concern except I'm in eastern Sydney. I live in an apartment, and I drive infrequently but as a single father to a toddler I very much needed a car and the EV novated route was a clear financial win for me after I ran the numbers. And public charges have been completely fine for me. I just drive my KIA EV3 (bought mainly for the 600km range to reduce charging frequency) up the road to the local aldi or Bunnings every 10 days or so and plug it in to a DC fast charger and by the time I'm done with a quick shop (~30mins) I'm fully charged and it costs me about $15. It would be cheaper going to a curbside AC charger, which are plentiful in my area, but this method suits me and is still a hell of a lot cheaper than petrol, especially right now. I don't know if it would suit someone who needs to charge more frequently though.

Hmm so "worth it" depends on what you value.  You can check the prices of the chargers near you in their apps and calculate approximate costs. I normally charge at home but a couple months ago did a 2 week road trip in a rented EV and could only use public fast chargers. Drove 1600km and I calculated I saved about $300 compared to doing that same trip in a petrol mid size SUV and like... $10 compared to a hybrid RAV4 (based on published consumption figures vs my distance travelled). This was with petrol costing the equivalent of $AUD2.65 So if you can find slow chargers in your area and work that into your routine I think your refuelling costs will be cheaper in an EV. But maybe not enough to justify the change in routine if you're excluding non-finnancial motivation.

At 61k base model that a lot of petrol

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If I didn't have the option to charge at home then I wouldn't have bought an EV. The ROI just extends out too far but for my case I was just looking at a cost effective transport option and really the EV part was second to that. Not to mention the ease of just plugging it in and having it charge while I sleep.

This is the point that I’m currently getting hung up on. It would be a different calculation if I didn’t already have a working car.

I did the experiment and made this video…Owning an EV without home charging https://youtu.be/OKZ5AFn6Bw0

hi, I use public charging and the prices range between 35c - 50cKWh for AC charging, like the AC pole chargers and car park chargers. The national median price for fast DC Tesla Superchargers is 49c/kWh. Some other brands of fast DC chargers are dearer (50-80ckWh) So, if your EV uses 15kWh per 100km, and you use AC charging, the cost for you would be $5.25-$7.50/100km or if you use Tesla Superchargers, $7.35/100km. If you use other brands of DC chargers, it may be $7.50-$12/100km.

You’re walking into a real headache. Wouldn’t a Prius be a better option if you don’t have a personal charger? The Prius is a very good car, going by reports.

Yes quite possibly. But I have the novated lease option which doesn’t apply to hybrids.

Thanks, this was super useful. Pretty much has made the decision clear. There’s no way that doing this is going to be worth it for me considering the loss of time. Situation might change if my neighbourhood ever gets some public chargers.