You already know about the low running costs, the free charging and the performance, but electrics come with a few extra perks.

Air conditioning is way more useful

In a conventional car, the compressor for the air conditioner is powered by the engine. This means firstly that the engine has to be running to get the most out of the air conditioning, and although some cars can run it in a limited capacity without the engine, the relatively small 12v battery means that it’s not going to run for very long before you’re left looking for a jump start. The significantly larger battery of electric vehicles means it can be left running for much longer periods of time, but it also works much more effectively since they’re designed to be purely electric and not rely on a running drive train.

Secondly this means that running the AC full blast doesn’t impact the vehicles performance, since it’s not being driven by the drive motor it’s not sat there putting extra load on the power train while you’re trying to get up to speed.

As an added bonus many EVs allow the air conditioning and climate control to be turned on remotely. Pre-chill the car in hot weather, de-frost the car in the harsh winter from the comfort of your bed before you get up.

Note that while it is possible to run the AC with the car ‘off’ I’d advise against using this as a way to keep children or pets in the car in your absence. While it will usually run for 30 minutes or so at a shot you don’t want to be in a situation where you’re held up unexpectedly and can’t turn it on again (even if you have an app to do so, if your phones battery ran out or there was no signal you’d still be stuck) — never mind the fact that most people probably don’t realise that electrics can do this and you risk returning to a smashed window and the police will probably want to have a word.

Don’t disturb the neighbours!

At one point or another most people will have been woken up or had their sleep disturbed by someone leaving or arriving at unsociable hours of the night, particularly by vehicles with older diesel engines. Especially if you or a neighbour does shift work having you come and go at all hours.

But the silent running of electrics mean you needn’t feel guilty about heading out to your 24h convenience store at 3AM, or worrying about waking up next doors sleeping children when you get home from the graveyard shift or return late from a long trip.

Enjoy your music

Another perk of silent running, not having to drown out the incessant drone of an engine means not having to turn your music up as loud. Not only will you save your hearing but keeping the volume lower avoids the distortion that comes with higher volumes without having to spend extra on a high end sound system. Same applies to having conversations with your passengers.

On a similar note, being able to hear the world around you better helps a lot in certain traffic situations. No noise means you’ll hear that motor cycle coming a lot earlier (unless it’s electric too, there is no substitute for properly looking!).

Less Queuing

Electrics don’t need to be attended while they recharge, so you can just go off and do your thing. So even in the case where all the charging stalls are in use, you don’t sit in a queue as you would in a gas station waiting for your turn, you just park as normal, go about your business (or if you’re on the motorway, go and have a coffee) and try again later. In practice this is fairly unusual as most places have more than sufficient stalls for the level of demand.

What are fuel shortages?

Those in the UK will no doubt remember at least a few major fuel outages due to strikes or blockades, there have been so many in fact that Wikipedia has an entire page dedicated to UK Fuel Protests in addition to the 2012 Fuel Crisis — we’ve all seen huge queues and desperate attempts to fill up followed by minimising travel as the petrol stations run dry. In comparison power cuts lasting multiple days in the UK are comparatively rare (natural disasters aside of course, and petrol stations need power to operate themselves). So in the event of a petrol shortage EV owners can mostly continue to go about their business unabated aside from the odd traffic jam from older vehicles trying desperately to get fuel.