A valid driving license, that’s it.

I know what you are thinking; well how do I charge my car? But don’t fear, we answer that in the ‘how to charge an electric car’ section of the guide. Spoiler: it’s not too dissimilar to charging your phone.

How do electric cars drive?

Just like your current car but typically quieter and more eco-friendlier depending on which powertrain you have. What’s a powertrain? It’s all the parts that make your car move, from the engine to the driveshaft and the axels to the differentials. Thinking about in human form, the chassis is your skeleton and the powertrain is the musculature system.

The easiest of them all, an EV is a full electric vehicle that runs purely on battery power. You will be required to charge this up either by using your domestic supply, a public charging point or a charging point at your place of work.

View the Electric Vehicle Range

The hybrid electric vehicle is where modern electrification of vehicles started. Featuring both a full-size internal combustion engine along with an electric motor and battery pack. Typically, the car will run on the battery alone at low speeds and then once an increase in speed is required, the petrol/diesel engine kicks in.

As you’d expect in a vehicle with a full-size engine, the battery isn’t large enough to take you long distances, however it would be able to make a short journey at low speed. In addition, it’s small enough that with regenerative breaking it will partly charge itself when you press the brake pedal. By sending the electric motor in reverse to act as a generator, which then charges the battery. Without being able to plug-in a full-hybrid, there will be occasions where the car has to burn fuel to charge the small battery.

View the Hybrid Range

Unsurprisingly, a mild hybrid electric vehicle is just a mild version of the hybrid electric vehicle. The key difference is that unlike a full-hybrid, the mild-hybrid is unable to power a vehicle by itself for an entire journey. Though it can allow the engine to switch off at low speed, or when stationary, and the starter-generator seamlessly restarts when needed.
 
Most commonly, the battery is there to help reduce the workload of the combustion engine. However, in some cases the design and setup of the powertrain means that the battery is utilised to increase power and speed.

View the Mild Hybrid Range

You don’t have to be a bright spark to understand that a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle contains a battery that you plug-in to charge up. The advantage of this is that the with a larger battery comes a greater electrical range than the more conventional hybrids. Meaning you are able to travel further before the combustion engine kicks in. In fact, depending on the model and driving conditions, you could travel up to 30 miles on the battery alone which in emission terms is zero.

The innovation behind the plug-in also means that a PHEV intelligently conserves battery life by utilising their efficient combustion engines on longer journeys. Whilst switching to the electric motor in traffic or at low speeds; making a significant difference to lowering the CO2 emissions.

View the Plug-In Hyrbid Range

60% of the population have off-street parking and even more, 84% of car owners have off-street parking. Which means the chances of being able to charge your car at home is high. Having a dedicated home charger installed (which is only a small initial outlay to help save money in the long run), is the most common way of charging.

A dedicated charging point will provide the fastest possible charging speeds, typically between 10 and 30 miles of range per hour when plugged in. You will also be safe in the knowledge the charging point has built-in safety features.

Just like when you’re at home, your car is often parked at work for prolonged periods of time meaning a great opportunity to charge or top up the battery of your car.
 
Many organisations are now installing charging stations for employees and visitors as a perk and these charging points are almost always the same as the one at home. So yes, you will have to take your charging cable with you; but there’s nothing else to it.

Commonly, electric vehicle owners will ‘top-up’ their battery whilst out at their destination. Whether this is at the shops, gym, cinema, you name it. These frequent top-ups mean that you won’t run low or have to wait whilst your battery recharges from empty.
 
Again, the speed of these charges are similar to when at home with 20-30 miles of range per hour plugged in. However, they are typically free to use as this offers an incentive for you to visit the business. Yes, you will still need to bring your own cable and you may have to download an app to start your charge; but in today’s world this is nothing out of the everyday.

There may be occasions when the remaining range on your charge isn’t enough to achieve your destination. Fear not as in this scenario you can take advantage of the growing network of high power rapid chargers found in service stations and other locations throughout the UK.
 
No, you don’t actually have to bring your own cable as the 43kW+ cables are tethered to the charging points and yes it will fit your car as there is a European standard to ensure this. As you’d expect, with these being expensive to install and run, there is a charge for using them but this is just like topping up with fuel en-route.