No.
Just had to get that out of the way 🙂
I probably break about even compared to before. My Focus, doing mostly short journeys, was averaging (I calculated) about 25 MPG. Cost per month in fuel about £50. However, the Zoe has a leased battery. It’s the sensible thing to do at the moment until we know more about degradation, as if capacity falls below 75% they’ll replace the pack. It also has the benefit of breakdown cover (basically if you run out of electrons they’ll flatbed you to the nearest charger), and it’s how I can afford what would’ve been a £10-11k car second hand for £6.5k as a big part of it still belongs to Renault. So that equalises.
Tax on my Focus was £18 a month and is £0 on the Zoe, but the same distance projects a monthly cost of £10/month (when home charger is fitted next week – currently paying twice that in the interim)
Maintenance costs are obviously less as you don’t have oil and filters to change and whatnot but it’s wise to keep and extend the warranty of EVs right now being new tech and that means getting official servicing done at the dealership.
It’s probably a tiny bit less, or even. And I do take the risk that it’s fairly new tech and things could go expensively wrong, hence I’ll look at extending warranty.
I think “cheap motoring” is, whilst often on people’s minds hearing about EVs, not quite with us yet and not at this stage a primary reason to own one. I like it for other reasons 🙂
I predict that over time battery rental will fall or go away, whilst tax will be introduced when they become popular. The tax man needs to be fed!