Electric cars go furthest on a fiver – almost twice the distance of diesel and petrol cars

Charging an electric car with £5 of energy will see it travel almost double the distance of a petrol or diesel motor using a fiver’s worth of fuel.

Electric vehicles carry drivers 40 miles further than the closest competing transport type, according to new research.

Surprisingly, one in five motorists think the low-emission vehicles are pricier to run than other cars.

The study¹ found that a VW e-Golf could be driven for 102 miles on a £5 charge.

A comparable diesel Golf travelled 56.5 miles with £5 of fuel, while a petrol equivalent clocked just 49.6 miles.

Spending £5 on a bus or train ticket would see travellers covering only a fifth of the distance reached by electric cars.

How far will £5 get you in London?

Regional electricity prices were used to work out the price per kilowatt hour to charge a VW e-Golf’s battery before being compared with regional fuel and public transport costs.

Distances travelled using public transport from 10 different major cities were then averaged.

An electric car owner in London can travel as far as Bristol or Worcester on a £5 charge, while a diesel driver would only get as far as Oxford or Winchester.

A petrol car would reach Basingstoke or Milton Keynes, whereas spending a similar amount on a bus or train would barely get you out of the M25.

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The economic running costs come as good news amid lobbying from the Energy and Climate Change Committee to bring a ban on petrol and diesel cars forward to 2030.

Motoring publication Parkers came to a similar conclusion with their miles-per-pound research.

Last month it reported that Britain’s most efficient electric cars can travel up to three times the distance of petrol and diesel alternatives for the same amount of money.

The Kia e-Niro and Renault ZOE travelled 33.1 miles per pound (mpp), while the diesel version of the UK’s best-selling car, the Ford Fiesta, managed just 6.9mpp - 10.1mpp, making it potentially almost four times more expensive to run.