So, I'm just on my way back from a business trip to Glasgow and Ayrshire. Whilst there I hired a BMW i3 from a car club for the princely sum of £38/day.
This is the first time I've driven an electric vehicle, having been sceptical about them, principally over range and practicality. Yhe i3 has what I have considered to be an impractically short range of about 170 miles. As I wouldn't be doing very long journeys I figured I could live with it and get a useful insight into electric car use. I've already been planning on my next car being electric, but the long range models are very expensive.
I have to say I was absolutely blown away by the car, and the charging experience. When I picked it up, there wasn't a lot of charge in it (the charging post I think was faulty as it wasn't charging when I arrived and I couldn't persuade it to charge when I dropped it off last night). So I drove to charging post en route to Ayr. Faulty. Drove to another one nearby. No longer there. The car said it had enough range to get to Kilmarnock where the ChargePoint Scotland app showed lots of charging points. I arrived at a car park next to an athletics tracks which had a 7 bay EV charging station at one end. Plugged into a type 2 socket, this was going to take some time to charge. I gent charging his Mercedes point out I could remove the lower cover on the car charge port and use the CCS cable, which is about 5 times faster. I did that and had 150 miles of range added whilst I went for a coffee.
The driving experience was very relaxing, excellent acceleration performance so overtaking and pulling way from junctions is so much easier. And with just a little practice I got used to the regenerative braking and found I didn't need to use the friction brakes at all unless I needed to stop in a real hurry. BMW have got the throttle response just right. When the car is at rest the first part of the throttle can be used to move the car very precisely. If someone asked you to move it 1mm and no more, you can do that. Once underway, that part of the pedal travel becomes the regenerative brake again very precise and with a little practice you can draw up precisely at traffic lights and junctions without using the brake pedal.
I found the range was fine for a days business travel to various meetings all over Ayrshire and then driving back to my hotel in Prestwick. There were a couple of rapid chargers a mile in either direction from my hotel, so 40 minutes catching up on email and that was the car ready for the following days business.
In short, having previously dismissed anything with less than 200 miles range (and preferably 250+) as utterly impractical, I think I'd have to think very carefully about whether that extra range is worth the extra cost.
I was also impressed with the ChargePlace Scotland network. Completely free to use (I guess the Scottish taxpayer is paying for the infrastructure and electricity). I did have a couple of issues with chargers that wouldn't switch on from the app, but a quick phonecall and they turned it on remotely for me - and it is literally "I'm at charger <number> and I can't get it to turn on with the app" "OK, it should be on for you now". No going through menus and having to give your name and reams of account details.
I did find that none of the charging posts that we primarily branded with something other than ChargePlace Scotland (eg BP or InstaVolt) would work through the ChargePlace Scotland app. So I stopped cursing the previous user when I too couldn't get it to charge after I'd parked it back up in its bay (but had left over 100 miles of range anyway). But I just avoided those (and they all tend to be quite slow chargers anyway).
So I will absolutely buy an EV as soon as I possibly can. I am no longer at all sceptical.
The car club aspect worked well too. Absurdly cheap really, and all went faultlessly. Even when I got locked out of the car because I foolishly thought I'd booked it to end and hour later than I actually had, they just extended my booking for me there and then.
It's actually inspired me to investigate the possibility of setting up a local car club - EVs are and will continue to be out of the price range of many people (me included at present) and this kind of arrangement could be the solution for many in the future.