Isn't one of the more modern PHEV's a good fit for you then, or do you not do many trips under 60 miles?
I've always wanted an EV because I really like the tech, there's just something cool to me about electric vehicles. PHEVs don't really have that and most of them have pretty poor performance.
Genuine question, why 600 miles of range? That’s London to Inverness in a single charge or 10 hours driving.
I'll try and explain, firstly 600 miles of range claimed by a manufacturer is realistically only going to be around 450-500 real world, so it's only really about 7 hours. But secondly, that's not all you can do with that range. As an example I drive to see relatives 300 miles away every 3-4 weeks, that's a 600 mile round trip but completed either side of a weekend so it's not 10 hours straight it's two 4.5 hour trips and I obviously stop to pop to the loo part way.
Now I did lease a Tesla Long Range years ago but had to return it as the claimed range wasn't remotely realistic and it just wasn't viable for doing these kind of journeys. Obviously with the Tesla or with an upcoming BYD the car would leave my house on full power but that's where the differences become really apparent.
In the Tesla I had to stop on the way and wait for what felt like five days for the car to charge enough to complete the journey, then while I was there I had to take time out to drive to a nearby charging point and then sit around waiting for the car to charge up enough that starting the return trip would be viable (without making two stops on the way back). The real kick in the teeth was that having to charge at public charging points three times on the journey actually made the miles per £ figure much worse than doing the journey in the ICE car I was hoping to replace (and that had a V8 engine) which meant that by using the Tesla I was just paying more money to use a car with a worse interior and loads of drawbacks.
Hopefully with the upcoming BYD models I should be able to either drive there without recharging, charge it there while grabbing a burger or something, and drive back without charging. Or charge it on the outbound/return journeys when I stop to pee. The longer range means that less charging should be require and the faster charging means less time should be required, it's like a win win.
It is kind of funny that I have waited for years for manufacturers to either build cars with long range in order to negate the charging speed issues, or build cars with rapid charging in order to negate the range issues, and now BYD claim to have solved both at once. But then that's good as it means even if they are only telling half truths the two should combine into a usable experience for myself and many others in similar situations.
But yeah, I hope that answers the question
