Kieran Bicknell posted in DriveTribe
Range anxiety is a topic that often crops up when talking about EVs of any nature, with a plethora of reasons ranging from charging infrastructure to battery life, but it seems that these fears are not deterring Tesla owners from racking up the miles.
Prior to the nationwide lockdown here in the UK, RAC carried out an analysis of MOT data for 516,936. According to the data presented, the average British driver covers just over 10,000 miles per year in their first three years of owning a brand new car.
Digging down into the data, we can ascertain that Diesel drivers clocked up the highest annual mileage with a figure of 12,496 miles per year in their first three years of ownership, which is a stark contrast to the figure of 7,490 per year for petrol drivers.
EV driver data is the most interesting however, scoring an average across all brands and marques of 9,435 miles per year in their first three years – notably higher than the average for petrol car owners. It is important to note though that this could also be due to having a higher number of petrol owners in the survey, therefore the data is more spread out across a larger average than EV owners, as there is no detail on the number of owners in each category (diesel/petrol/EV) so this may not represent a true average, rather an average of this small data set.
Contrary to the above figures however, once you dig down into individual manufacturers the data is turned on its head, with Tesla coming out on top for the most miles covered with 12,459 per year in the first three years of ownership – perhaps signalling a shift away from EVs being used purely as local runabouts
Steve Gooding, Director of the RAC foundation perhaps summed it up best: “Unsurprisingly people with diesels have been doing most mileage, probably seeking better long-distance fuel economy, but this study is also evidence that battery-electric powered cars are not just trophy vehicles signalling their owners’ green credentials but prior to the lockdown were racking up the miles as everyday transport. Tens of millions of people still drive petrol and diesel-powered cars, but this data suggests that owners of electric cars have found them to be a practical proposition, running up the sort of big annual mileages that many of us need to do, challenging preconceptions about their range and the ease of recharging.”
No doubt these figures will come as a surprise to some, and with the shift towards EVs and electrification gaining pace as the years go on, it may only be a few years until we see EV owners as a whole sitting atop such charts.
