Dear Editor,

LAST week’s round up of news from Cornwall Council reported on work by the Cornwall Climate Action Group. They mentioned that in the last 10 years the ownership of electric cars in Cornwall has jumped from just under 900 to nearly 9000. This is not surprising considering how cheap it is to fuel an electric car or van. A trader who came to work on our house had recently swapped to a new electric van. Instead of paying £80 per week for diesel he is now paying £50 per month.

This has prompted me to write to you. For some time now the price of diesel and petrol has been high enough to mean you can buy and fuel an EV for less than the cost of fueling a petrol or diesel car. I thought this may be of interest to your readers.

Here’s how it works.

If your diesel can average 45mpg (10 miles per litre) at £1.85 per litre you will pay £1,850 to drive 10,000 miles a year which is roughly 200 miles a week. A reasonably efficient EV will cover the same distance for £200 when charged at home on cheap rate electricity at 8p/kwh. This is a saving of £1,650 per year or £137.50 per month - £137.50 is enough to buy a four year old Vauxhall Corsa Electric on finance.

There is a worry that you need an expensive at home charger — you don't. Simply plugging your car into a normal socket will add about 50 to 70 miles to your range. If you do 200 miles a week then you would need to plug in three nights a week. If occasionally you need a lot more miles for the following day you can add more by including charging at peak rate — anything up to 150 miles over night. A dedicated car charger will add that many miles a night at cheap rate.

If you pay a fixed price for your electricity the cost of changing your car will not change regardless of whatever Humpty Trumpty gets up to. If you have solar panels you can charge the car for free.

Sadly there is still a massive industry trying to persuade you that burning dead dinosaur juice is somehow better than renewable, never-ending power - they desperately need to sell you this lie to keep you filling their pockets with petro - dollars.

Electric vehicles are now cheap to buy and maintain and do not rely on fossil fuels from dubious and expensive sources.

How can we afford not to be driving EV's?

Stephen Tindall, Bude

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