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The beginner's guide to electric cars

FAQs about car charging stations, electric vehicles and everything you need to know about electric driving and charging. Our Learning Center collects all the facts and figures that will come in handy for electric drivers, car charging stations owners and installers.

What is an EV?

As the name suggests, an electric vehicle or EV runs completely on electricity using car charging stations. There’s no petrol or diesel powering the engine – in fact, there’s no engine at all. That’s because EVs run on an electric motor that you can charge at home, or at an electric car charging point.

EVs have far lower carbon emissions than traditional petrol and diesel engines, which means they’re better for the environment. And they can even be zero emission if they’re powered by 100% green electricity.

What is a plug-in hybrid vehicle?

A plug-in hybrid vehicle, or PHEV, works by combining a traditional petrol or diesel engine with an electric motor. This means that PHEVs can be plugged in and charged from mains power, just like EVs – but they’ll need petrol or diesel to run for long distances.

PHEVs have lower carbon emissions than traditional combustion engines, but they’re not as green as EVs.

Can you save money?

Most electric vehicles can cover up to 100 kilometres with 15 kWh. Their low energy loss makes means that they are not very energy intensive. While petrol or diesel engines convert a maximum of 35 % of this energy into driving force, an electric car reaches 90 % and more.

How to charge an EV?

You can charge your EV easily at home, or at one of our public car charging stations.

Charging your EV at home is convenient and cost effective – you can just plug it in the car charging stations and leave it to charge overnight. You’ll need to install a wall unit charge point, but you can get a government grant to help with the installation cost.

How long does it take to charge an electric car?

It depends on the type of EV charger you use – slow, fast, or rapid – and the size of your battery:

  • Slow chargers (up to 3kW): These typically take between six and 12 hours to charge, so they’re best for overnight charging.
  • Fast chargers (7kW to 22kW): These usually take between three and four hours to charge.
  • Rapid chargers (43kW to 50kW): These can charge an EV to 80% in around 30 minutes.

What’s the range of an EV?

Most new electric cars have a range of around 300 – 400 Km although some can go up to 500 km on one charge, and this will only improve as EV technology advances.

Again, the battery life of an EV will vary depending on the make and model of the vehicle. Most manufacturers offer 8 years warranty for their batteries.

What’s the battery life of an EV?

Again, the battery life of an EV will vary depending on the make and model of the vehicle. Most manufacturers offer an eight year or 100,000 mile warranty for their EV batteries.

All EV battery lives get shorter over time, but there’s much less wear and tear than with traditional engines because there are less moving parts.

Where can you charge your EV?

At our various stations covering major highways and Metros cities.