Letter from the founder: The reason I’m going electric

There are certain moments where the numbers just become too difficult to ignore. This week was one of them.

From 1 April, road tax is going up again. If you drive a petrol or diesel car, the standard rate is rising to £200 a year for most vehicles registered after 2017. That in itself is not insignificant. But when you start looking at higher-emission cars, the costs become much harder to justify, with some drivers facing increases on top of already very large annual bills.

It was one of those updates that made me stop and properly look at what we are spending as a household.
Because when you add it all together, it is not just the tax. It is the fuel. It is the unpredictability of prices. It is the steady creep of costs that never seem to reverse, only rise.

And that is what has pushed me to start seriously thinking about going electric.

Not because it is fashionable or because it feels like the “right” thing to do, but because the financial case is becoming increasingly compelling.

If you are driving around 10,000 miles a year, the estimates suggest you could save around £1,000 annually on fuel alone compared to a petrol or diesel car. If you are able to charge at home on an off-peak tariff, that saving could be closer to £1,400 a year.

That is meaningful. That is the sort of number that starts to change decisions.

There are also some quieter changes happening in the background that make the timing more interesting than it might first appear. From April, the threshold for the Expensive Car Supplement on electric vehicles is rising to £50,000. In simple terms, more electric cars will avoid that additional annual charge, which currently adds another £440 on top of the standard rate.

Again, it is another small shift, but they are all moving in the same direction.

When I look at this through the same lens I use for everything else in our finances, it comes down to one question. Where is money quietly leaking out, and what can we do about it?

For a long time, cars have simply been a cost we accept. Necessary, but expensive. Something we budget for, rather than optimise.

But this feels like one of those moments where doing nothing could end up being the more expensive decision.

I am not rushing into anything. There are still practical considerations. Upfront costs, charging access, and whether it works for our lifestyle. But for the first time, I feel like the balance is shifting.
The gap between running a petrol car and an electric one is widening. Not dramatically overnight, but steadily and consistently.

And those are usually the changes that matter most.
The ones that do not feel urgent in the moment, but quietly cost you more if you ignore them.