Money Box Live: Do Electric Cars Add Up?
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Buying a new car last year increasingly meant going electric. Around one in four new car buyers made that choice with almost half a million electric cars registered over the year, according to industry figures. That means there are more than 1.8 million fully electric cars driving around the UK, which is still only just over 5 per cent of cars on the road. But in the next few years, more motorists will start navigating the change because by 2030 the UK government is banning the sale of new petrol and diesel, with hybrids allowed until 2035. So how much do electric cars to buy and run, and how easy is it to travel long distances in them?
Joining Felicity Hannah are Stuart Masson from the website The Car Expert and Melanie Shufflebotham from Zap Map, which is an app and website showing where public charging points are.
Presenter: Felicity Hannah Producer: Sarah Rogers Editor: Jess Quayle Senior Editor: Sara Wadeson
(This episode was first broadcast on Wednesday the 21st of January 2026)
Transcript
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| 0:41.1 | Hello, lots of you drive electric cars. In fact, |
| 0:46.8 | almost one in four new car buyers made the switch last year. They've been growing in popularity since around 2010, but many people still hesitate. They wonder if they're too expensive, if the battery |
| 0:52.7 | will get you from A to B, and how much it actually costs to charge them. |
| 0:56.8 | So that's what we're going to get into on today's podcast. |
| 0:59.7 | And let's start by hearing from some drivers who've already made the change. |
| 1:03.3 | It'd be quite awkward at times, especially if you're getting down to hardly any charge. |
| 1:07.1 | When you see you go down, your batteries, yeah, getting on sparks, yeah, you start to panic a little bit. |
| 1:12.6 | When you have to charge at a station, it costs a lot of money, the power is not cheap to buy. |
| 1:18.6 | It's a doddle. As long as you plan it? I've come from Oxford, so I've had a dinner in Manchester today. |
| 1:23.6 | I'm having a half hour charge it when I get home again. |
| 1:25.6 | Yes, we like it. |
| 1:29.3 | What was your reason for the change? |
| 1:31.4 | I got a good deal. |
... |
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