My #EV journey has begun

Never thought I’d have another Vauxhall Corsa but here I am joining the electric car world with a Corsa-E Griffin.

After one spontaneous test drive on a random Saturday afternoon, I signed on the dotted line and brought myself a Vauxhall Corsa-E Griffin. Not only was the car within my budget, after being reduced by £5,000, I was incredibly impressed by the car.

Handover day was set for Tuesday 22nd March and the process went pretty smoothly. The only hiccup was the change in reg mark due to an admin error. Give Vauxhall Lincoln their due, they paid the insurance admin fee to have the reg mark changed as well as knocking an extra £15 off the deposit for the inconvenience. Andy, who was my sales guy, was amazing throughout the whole process.

Speaking of insurance, I found that some insurers wouldn’t even give me quote — even the company I was already insured with. Annoyingly, they weren’t able to give me a reason why so I’m unsure of whether it was because it was an electric car or something with my self or a bit of both. After doing a quick Compare the Market search, my insurance increased by £100 with the excess being £200 more. For a brand new electric car and still being classed as a young driver, I didn’t think this was too bad.

Keys were handed over and I was sat in the driving seat waving goodbye to my Seat Mii.

As my other half already has the electric Hyundai Kona, I didn’t need to worry about having a home charger installed or switching to an EV tariff as we’d already done all that when he got his back in September. For those interested, we have the Ohme Pro home charger and are with Octopus on their Octopus Go tariff.

One week into EV ownership and it’s been quite blissful. The car itself is very easy to drive, super comfortable and spacious. The cabin feels huge! I absolutely love the look and presence of the car and the fact people don’t believe it’s actually a Corsa.

The car has an advertised range of 209 miles. Due to the amount of motorway driving I’ve done and the temperature still being around 10 degrees, I believe I’ve been averaging around 3.2 miles/kW which gives me 160 mile range. I did have a taste of what it’s like driving an EV in the warmer weather when we had temperatures of 17 degrees. I was able to average 4.5 and 5 miles/kW which would give around 225 and 250 mile range. As with any car, the range does depend on how you drive it. The only difference is, with EV’s, temperature and using climate control also has an affect. With the Corsa-E having a heat pump, climate control being on doesn’t massively impact the range.

Getting the MyVauxhall app set up took some doing - cars and apps from my experience don’t seem like taking to each other. Annoyingly, the range shows in km not miles. I’m hoping Vauxhall will sort this with an update soon. I really like the journey tracker, although I do wish it would record your average mile/kW for each journey.

My main annoyance at the moment is the driving mode always defaulting to normal. I always drive in eco mode (unless I need the extra power) so having to remember to change it when I start the car is a pain. I do wish the car would remember the last driving mode you were in or allow you to set your preference rather than defaulting to normal.

Throughout the week I’ve driven 279 miles and charged the car 4 times and each time has been super easy and without any issues. There was only one instance where there were no free EV spaces. Thankfully I only had to wait 5 minutes for a space to become free. I certainly don’t expect to be this lucky all the time. However, with us having a home charger I am not reliant on public chargers.

With the Corsa-E supporting the standard Type2 chargers as well as CCS which is the standard for DC charging (rapid chargers) there is never a time I’d find myself unable to plug-in. There is the exception of where there are only Tesla chargers which at present won’t work with non-Tesla cars — hopefully this will change very soon which will help when doing long distance journeys. Even with this, having free apps like Zap-Map you’re always able to see where compatible chargers are. There are also apps such as A Better Route Planner which will tell you where you should stop when doing long distance journeys.

My first charge was after picking the car up from Vauxhall Lincoln and driving home to Leeds. The car went from 39% to 81% in 28 minutes on a 50kW rapid charger. I did two top-ups on a 7.5kW charger whilst I was at the gym. These top-ups weren’t necessarily needed but they meant I didn’t need to spend longer on a rapid at a later date. That being said, with them being 7.5kW chargers it makes sense to jump on one if you can. It’s nice to get a free top-up when at the gym. I only recorded the data from the 2nd time where it went from 61% to 82% in 1 hour and 15 minutes. After a weekend of driving to and from work on motorways, I jumped on a 50kW rapid charger and went from 28% to 84% in 36 minutes.

I do keep hearing weird sounds every now and again but I don’t know if I should be concerned about them or whether you just hear more because the car is generally a lot quieter…

Update, October 2022: Car has been at the Vauxhall garage 4 times and they’ve heard the sound which they deemed as a fault. They’ve been unsuccessful in fixing the issue so far. I am currently waiting for a new part for them to replace and see if that fixes the issue.

I did notice some damage in the driver’s side footwell which someone has tried to cover up. Thankfully I noticed and reported it within 48 hours of getting the car. Vauxhall Lincoln have said they’d repair the damage. I’m still waiting to hear whether someone can come to me to do it or whether it needs to be brought back down to their Lincoln dealership. My fingers are crossed that they fix it and quite promptly.

Update, April 2022: Vauxhall sent out a company to re-spray the area. It isn’t perfect but it’s no longer an eyesore.

I’m still very much getting used to having less range and having to charge the car up more often but so far charging hasn’t been a pain. Plus I’ve yet to pay a penny on charging as I’ve only used free public chargers!

The transition to an EV has been painless. This has been helped by already having one in the household. It’s definitely going to take some time to get over the whole “range anxiety" and get into the habit of using the different apps when it comes to journey planning and charging.

I am currently looking into service plans and what options there are out there for servicing an electric vehicle. Both Vauxhall and Pentagon offer service plans where you pay monthly over the set term. I’ve also contacted a local garage who have said they can service electric cars without any issues. I’ve yet to decide which route I’ll take but there seems to be plenty of options.

I’m really enjoying the Vauxhall Corsa-E so far and I’m hoping for some fun adventures in it over the next few years.

I am sharing my EV journey on Instagram. If you’re interested in following along, head over and give me a follow: fromsophiecars on Instagram.