{"id":244,"date":"2025-10-20T09:49:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T08:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/?p=244"},"modified":"2025-10-20T18:22:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T17:22:06","slug":"two-years-with-an-ev-the-truth-warts-and-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/2025\/10\/20\/two-years-with-an-ev-the-truth-warts-and-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Years with an EV: The Truth, Warts and All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been two years since we bought our first EV, and I thought it was time for a bit of real-world honesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, to be clear, we didn\u2019t buy an EV sensibly<\/em>. We did it as an experiment and I broke all the sensible rules. I ignored every single horror story and bought an old and cheap one. Curiosity got the better of common sense. But it was going to be our second car, with our main vehicle still being a trusty ICE variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t being completely idiotic either; tinkering with cars is my hobby. I\u2019ve pulled apart everything from modern cars to old classics. So, when EVs started becoming more popular I wanted to see what they were really like under the skin. Cue the purchase of a high-mileage, out-of-warranty electric car. According to most of the internet, I\u2019d just bought myself a very expensive paperweight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meet Our Experiment: The BMW i3 REX<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We ended up with a 2015 BMW i3 REX<\/strong>. The \u201cREX\u201d bit stands for Range Extender<\/em> – essentially a cheat code for early EVs. Under the boot floor sits a tiny petrol generator that charges the battery on the go. It doesn\u2019t drive the wheels, just keeps the juice flowing when the battery runs out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, we weren\u2019t fully sold on going all-electric, especially with an older, small-capacity battery. The idea of a built-in \u201cget out of jail\u201d card, a miniature petrol engine that could rescue us when needed, seemed ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Two Years, 13,000 Miles, and\u2026 No Drama<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So how\u2019s it gone? Disaster? Breakdown city? Not even close. It\u2019s been brilliant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve driven 13,000 miles in it since purchase. The battery\u2019s now got 106,000 miles<\/strong> and 10 years<\/strong> under its belt, and it\u2019s still holding 88% of its original capacity<\/strong> and interestingly, that figure hasn’t changed since purchase. When we bought it, my plan was to get the battery fixed if it ever started to fade. I\u2019d already found plenty of small engineering companies around the UK that specialise in repairing or refurbishing EV batteries – replacing failed modules rather than the whole pack. That sort of cottage industry didn\u2019t exist when EVs first appeared, but it\u2019s growing fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only forced repair so far has been an air-conditioning radiator hit by a stone, same story as any other car. The rest has been elective maintenance: refreshing suspension bits and replacing shocks, which I\u2019d do on anything I own anyway. I\u2019ve also replaced the tyres, they\u2019re slightly unusual EV-specific ones, narrower and lower rolling resistance, but even then, a set of premium-brand tyres came in at \u00a3131 each<\/strong>. A comparable high-quality tyre for a normal car would be around \u00a380\u2013\u00a3100<\/strong>, so not exactly bank-breaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s it. Nothing else. The \u201cservice\u201d was almost comical, top up a bit of coolant, look at the brakes, and\u2026 well, that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About That Tiny Battery\u2026<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yes, it\u2019s small. We get about 60\u201370 miles<\/strong> on electric power alone. But here\u2019s the twist: we almost never<\/em> use the range extender. I assumed we\u2019d be living on it. Turns out, when you hop into the car each morning and it\u2019s already at 100%, you stop worrying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We plug it in at night, it quietly slurps electrons while we sleep, and it\u2019s ready to go by breakfast. Most of our daily trips are under 30 miles, so it never feels restrictive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the cost? Ridiculous. We\u2019re on an overnight tariff of 6.75p per kWh<\/strong>, so a full charge costs about \u00a31.35<\/strong>. It has the feeling of driving around for almost free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Going the Distance<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When we do<\/em> need to travel further – like taking my daughter back to uni (a 500-mile round trip) – that\u2019s when the cheat code shines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A full petrol top-up for the generator costs around \u00a310<\/strong> and adds roughly 80\u201390 miles<\/strong> of range. Combine that with a 15-minute charging stop for a quick top-up, and you\u2019re good for another 150 miles. Realistically, it\u2019s one extra stop compared with a normal petrol car. Hardly the end of civilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the charging experience at public chargers has never been a problem. Always found one. On the odd occasion a charger hasn’t worked, we’ve just moved to a new one. Plug in, tap your card and go get some food. On one occasion my KFC took longer to arrive than the car took to charge!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the issues with public chargers were real. But in my experience those have been ironed out. Public charging whilst still expensive, isn’t an issue. And the point is you don’t often use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The i3 Itself<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As an actual car, it\u2019s a riot. Smooth, silent, and deceptively quick, a proper \u201cgrin every time you drive it\u201d stuff. I once read that from 30\u201370 mph it\u2019s quicker than a BMW M4. I\u2019ve no idea if that\u2019s true, but it feels believable, and it still makes me laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BMW might have gone bigger and flashier with later EVs, but the i3 was genius. If every EV had that little \u201cREX\u201d backup in the boot, I honestly think the world would have embraced electric cars much sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, i do ‘pub chat’ about it having a carbon fibre monocoque. Something only supercars and F1 cars have. (see, still a petrol head!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Bit of Perspective<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Whenever we write about EVs, we brace for the usual abuse – tin hats at the ready. So let me be clear: this isn\u2019t an evangelist\u2019s sermon. I\u2019m not saying everyone should run out and buy one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m keeping my old 911, thank you very much. Petrolheads will always have a place. But the endless doom stories about EVs being unreliable money pits? In our experience, it\u2019s just not true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re someone who uses a car to get from A to B, has a driveway or somewhere to charge, and values low running costs, an EV can make an awful lot of sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Would We Buy Another?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Honestly, yes. In fact, we\u2019ll probably never sell<\/em> this one. The i3\u2019s carbon-fibre body means it\u2019ll never rust, and newer replacement battery packs are hitting the market that can stretch its range from 70 miles to over 300 miles<\/strong> (Although not sure i’d trust them yet, but you see the direction of travel) And it still drives like new. I’m used to old cars rattling around when they get old. Not this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the mad thing – the \u201cold\u201d EV we bought as a curiosity might actually outlive most modern cars. Not bad for something that was supposedly destined for the scrapheap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been two years since we bought our first EV, and I thought it was time for a bit of real-world honesty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vehicle-ownership-help"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/know-yourcar.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}