Is an EV Right for You? A 10-Question Decision Framework

Most "should I buy an EV" advice answers a question nobody asked, which is whether electric cars are good. The question that actually decides it is whether one fits your parking, your mileage, your winter and how long you keep cars. Those four things vary more between two households on the same street than they do between two models. So here are ten questions with a score attached, built on the figures we have already checked across the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Ukraine. Answer them and you get a number out of 20 that tells you what to do next.

Table of contents

• How to use this
• The quick version
• Questions 1 to 3: the ones that decide it
• Questions 4 to 7: the money
• Questions 8 to 10: the specific car
• What your score means
• FAQ
• References

How to use this

Score each question 0, 1 or 2. Add them up. Maximum is 20.

One thing to say plainly before you start: the weights are our editorial judgement, not a validated model. We put charging, mileage and holding period first because our own cost work keeps landing on them, and you are free to disagree with the ranking. Every figure underneath the questions is sourced and dated. The scoring on top of the figures is a tool for thinking, not arithmetic truth.

The quick version

Questions 1 to 3: the ones that decide it

1. Can you charge where you sleep?

2 points for a driveway, garage or private space where a socket already works. 1 point for shared parking where a charger could be installed, or reliable street charging within a short walk. 0 if there is no overnight option at all.

This is the single most decisive question in the list, and it is not close. Our home versus motorway charging costs work found the gap between a home rate and a motorway rate is 2.1x in Germany, 3.9x in France, 8.6x in Spain, 10x in the UK and 13.9x in Ukraine. Germany's gap is smallest only because German household electricity is the dearest of the five, not because German rapid charging is cheap.

Run an 80% home and 20% rapid split at 15,000 km a year and that one fifth of the energy becomes 34% of the annual bill in Germany, 49% in France, 68% in Spain, 71% in the UK and 78% in Ukraine.

Whether you can answer yes is largely a housing question. Field Dynamics put 67.2% of UK households within reach of a driveway or dedicated parking space at the end of 2023, leaving roughly 9 million without. In Spain, Eurostat's 2024 data has 65.3% of residents living in flats, the highest share in the EU.

A zero here is not a veto. An MG4 owner in a London flat posted a three-year review on 18 May 2026 of running entirely on Hackney's lamppost chargers at 54p/kWh, covering 6,000 to 7,000 miles a year, and reckoned about 7.5p a mile against roughly 18p for the diesel van it replaced: "I'm really happy with the choice and genuinely wouldn't go back." Note the low mileage and the van comparison before you borrow the conclusion.

2. How far do you drive in a year?

2 points over 15,000 km. 1 point for 8,000 to 15,000 km. 0 under 8,000 km.

An EV usually costs more to buy and less to run, so the saving is per kilometre and the premium is fixed. Low mileage never pays it back, however cheap your electricity is.

For a sense of scale, ODYSSEE-MURE puts the EU average at 10,800 km per car in 2023. In England the National Travel Survey average was 7,100 miles in 2024. But electric cars get driven harder than the fleet they sit in: the RAC Foundation's analysis of MOT data put battery-electric cars under three years old at 10,054 miles in 2024. If you are actually at the England average, be sceptical of any payback claim built on 15,000 km.

3. How cold does your winter get?

2 points for a mild winter, seasonal mean above 5°C. 1 point for a typical Central European winter. 0 if you regularly see below −10°C and need full range in it.

The loss tracks the actual temperature, not the calendar, and NAF proved it by running the same Norwegian route two years in a row. At −6°C to +8°C the fleet came in 18% below WLTP. At −7°C to −32°C it came in 38% below, with 9 of 24 cars losing 40% or more. Same test, same road.

Petrol is not immune, just less exposed. Green NCAP's control car in the same round, a petrol SEAT Ibiza, went from 6.0 to 6.4 l/100 km at −7°C, up 6.7%. Most of the EV penalty is the missing waste heat.

Winter 2025/26 national means: Germany 1.8°C, with −21.7°C at Oberstdorf on 6 January. Spain 7.6°C on the mainland. The UK 4.94°C. Météo-France published an anomaly of +1.7°C but no absolute national mean, so we are not inventing one. For Ukraine no citable retrospective seasonal summary was reachable, so we have no figure at all rather than a borrowed one. Full detail in our winter range loss by model piece, including the single most useful trick we found: preconditioning on the plug gave a VW ID.4 Pure 46 km of extra mixed range at −7°C.

Questions 4 to 7: the money

4. How long will you keep the car?

2 points for six years or more. 1 point for three to six. 0 if you plan to sell inside three.

Depreciation is the biggest single line in EV ownership and the answer flips with holding period. DAT figures via AutoScout24 in October 2025 had battery-electric cars at 52% of list after three years against 58% for petrol and 56% for diesel. Buy at three years old and the first owner already absorbed that.

The used market is currently moving the other way. Auto Trader's 7 August 2026 index put the average used EV at £24,946, up 3.3% year on year, with the three to five year cohort up 10.2%, their strongest annual growth for that segment. cap hpi's April 2026 view had used BEV trade values still around £4,019 or 15% below equivalent combustion cars at three years and 60,000 miles. Both things are true at once: EVs sit below petrol in absolute terms and are closing the gap. Our EV depreciation breakdown has the per-market numbers.

5. How many motorway trips do you really do?

2 points for a handful a year. 1 point for roughly monthly. 0 for weekly motorway running.

Rapid charging is where the running-cost advantage goes to die, and the price depends on which country you stop in. From 1 July 2026 IONITY's direct-payment rate was €0.62 in France, €0.69 in Spain and €0.76 in Germany, with subscription rates of €0.31, €0.37 and €0.41. In the UK, Zapmap's July 2026 index put rapid and ultra-rapid at 80p/kWh against a standard charger's 54p.

Count the trips you actually did last year, not the ones you imagine. Two long drives a year is a rental question, not a car-choice question.

6. New or used, and what is your ceiling?

2 points for used at €10,000 to €20,000 with an open mind on model. 1 point if you are fixed on one model. 0 if you need a large family car under €15,000, because outside the UK it mostly does not exist.

From our market pull on 22 August 2026: cinch had a 64 kWh Kona Electric at £10,849 with 78,704 miles, which only fits the budget because of the mileage. In Germany AutoScout24 listed the Corsa-e from €12,150 across 59 cars. In France the Zoe ran €6,990 to €18,810 with a median of €13,990 across 1,526 cars. In Ukraine AUTO.RIA had Leafs from $4,700 to $18,750. Prices at this end drift, so re-check rather than quoting us a month from now. The full list is in best used EVs under €15,000.

7. Is there money on the table where you live?

2 points if a scheme clearly applies to you. 1 point for something local or partial. 0 for nothing, or for a market where you pay extra.

Five markets, five different answers. Germany's Kfz-Steuer exemption transfers to a used buyer automatically on change of keeper, for cars first registered by 31 December 2030, with relief ending no later than 31 December 2035, and the THG-Quote pays any registered keeper, on AUTO BILD's rolling comparison read on 22 August 2026 somewhere between €295 and €415 for quota year 2026. France has had no national used-EV aid since December 2024, but eight metropolitan schemes cover used cars, and a new CEE-funded aid from 1 September 2026 requires a battery state of health of at least 80%. Spain's Programa Auto+ only reaches cars under twelve months old from a dealer, so the municipal IVTM reduction of up to 75% is the real used-buyer benefit. In the UK the Expensive Car Supplement threshold rose to £50,000 on 1 April 2026 at £440 for 2026/27, and domestic electricity VAT drops from 5% to 0% on 1 October 2026 through to 31 March 2027, with Northern Ireland excluded. Ukraine went the other way: 20% VAT plus an excise of roughly €1/kWh applies from 1 January 2026. Details per country in our used EV incentives guide.

Questions 8 to 10: the specific car

8. Do you know this model's known faults?

2 points if you checked the recall register and owner forums before viewing. 1 point for a known issue that has a fix. 0 if you have not looked.

The spread between models is far wider than the spread between drivetrains. ADAC's 2026 breakdown data has five-year-old EVs at 10.3 callouts per 1,000 against 17.4 for combustion, but the only EV in their sixteen worst models is the Hyundai Ioniq 5 at 28.2 per 1,000 for model year 2022, cause traced to the ICCU. Which? surveyed 63,334 owners and found 27.3% of Ioniq 5 owners reporting a 12V failure, against 3.8% for battery-electric cars generally and 1.4% for petrol. Two organisations, two methods, same car. Our used EVs to avoid post lists the live recall numbers.

9. Can you see the battery health and the warranty left?

2 points for a state-of-health certificate plus three or more years of battery cover. 1 point for one of the two. 0 for neither.

ADAC's April 2026 guidance is at least 92% at 50,000 km, 88% at 100,000, 84% at 150,000 and 80% at 200,000. Geotab's dataset of more than 22,700 vehicles averages 2.3% loss a year, rising towards 3.0% on cars mostly rapid-charged and falling to around 1.5% on mostly AC. Arval's 24,000 measured certificates came in at 93% at 70,000 km.

You can buy the answer rather than guess it. Aviloo Premium runs about €99 over a week of normal driving, its Flash test about €35 in three minutes at a dealer, and ClearWatt is £39.99 in the UK. Check the warranty clock too, because it is not always eight years: a Kia registered before 1 January 2024 carries 7 years or 100,000 miles, and an MG ZS EV from that period 7 years or 80,000 miles, where the mileage usually bites first. The reason this matters is the replacement cost behind it. AUTO BILD quoted €22,000 for a full Hyundai Kona Elektro pack on 17 July 2026.

10. What happens on your worst day?

2 points if you have a second car or can rent easily. 1 point for one car and a flexible schedule. 0 for one car, no slack, and journeys in deep winter that cannot be late.

This is the question people skip and then regret. On NAF's cold run, nine of twenty-four cars lost 40% or more of rated range. If your life has no room for that, the answer is not a different EV, it is a different plan.

What your score means

Two households, same car, different answer

Take a family outside Lyon with a driveway, 18,000 km a year, planning to keep the car eight years. At the Spritmonitor all-manufacturers average of 18.75 kWh/100 km that is 3,375 kWh, which on EDF's off-peak rate of €0.1589 from 1 August 2026 costs about €536 a year. They score 2, 2, 1, 2 on the first four questions and land near the top of the range.

Now a couple in a Madrid flat, 9,000 km a year, expecting to sell after three years. That is 1,687 kWh. Charged at home off-peak it would be about €169, but they cannot charge at home, so at a typical Spanish 22 to 50 kW price of €0.35/kWh it is around €591, and €759 at the top of that band. Same energy, three and a half times the bill, on a third of the annual distance. They score 0, 1, 2, 0 and the sensible answer is to wait or to solve the parking first.

Neither household is wrong about EVs. They are just answering different questions, which is the whole point.

If you scored low only on question 1, the sensible next step is finding out what your street or building actually allows before you rule anything out. If you scored low on questions 2 and 4 together, the money case is thin no matter which car you pick.

When you have a shortlist, put the cars side by side on real-world range and running cost rather than brochure figures. That is what our EV comparison tool is for.

FAQ

Is an EV cheaper to run if I cannot charge at home?

It can be, but the margin narrows a lot and depends where you live. On our figures the motorway-to-home multiple runs from 2.1x in Germany to 13.9x in Ukraine, so the answer in Spain is different from the answer in Germany. The London owner quoted above still beat his diesel van on public charging alone, at 6,000 to 7,000 miles a year.

How many points do I need before buying?

Sixteen and up means the case is already strong. Between 10 and 15 the decision turns on which car you buy rather than whether you buy. Under 10, something structural is in the way and buying a different model will not fix it.

Does this framework work for a new car as well as a used one?

Yes, though questions 6, 8 and 9 lean used because that is where first-time buyers in our five markets mostly land. On a new car, question 4 gets heavier, since the first owner absorbs the steepest part of the depreciation curve.

Why is winter a separate question from range?

Because the same car loses 18% or 38% depending purely on how cold it gets, and our five markets differ by nearly six degrees in seasonal mean. A range figure without a temperature attached does not tell you much.

Is the scoring validated against real buyers?

No. It is our editorial weighting of sourced figures, and we would rather say so than dress it up. The figures underneath each question are the part to trust.

References

All figures verified 25 August 2026.

Zapmap. Home and community EV charging statistics. https://www.zapmap.com/ev-stats/home-and-community-charging

idealista. Spain has the largest population living in flats in the EU, 24 March 2026, on Eurostat 2024 data. https://www.idealista.com/en/news/property-for-sale-in-spain/2026/03/24/887223-spain-has-the-largest-population-living-in-flats-in-the-eu

ODYSSEE-MURE. Change in distance travelled by car, last updated November 2025. https://www.odyssee-mure.eu/publications/efficiency-by-sector/transport/distance-travelled-by-car.html

RAC Foundation. Mobility: facts and figures, citing National Travel Survey 2024 table NTS0901 and MOT data. https://www.racfoundation.org/motoring-faqs/mobility

MGEVs.com. Behaviour changes and feedback after 3 years of 100% public charging, 18 May 2026. https://www.mgevs.com/threads/behaviour-changes-and-feedback-after-3-years-of-100-public-charging.26309/

NAF. El Prix winter test, 28 January 2026. https://www.naf.no/

Green NCAP. Cold weather test results, 6 November 2025. https://www.greenncap.com/

ADAC. Pannenstatistik 2026, 23 April 2026, and Elektroautos gebraucht kaufen, 8 April 2026. https://www.adac.de/

Which?. Electric car reliability survey, 29 May 2026. https://www.which.co.uk/

Auto Trader. Retail Price Index, 7 August 2026. https://plc.autotrader.co.uk/

Geotab. EV battery degradation study, 13 January 2026. https://www.geotab.com/

Arval Mobility Observatory. State of health certificates, 25 February 2026. https://www.arval.com/

AUTO BILD. Batteriewechsel Kosten, 17 July 2026, and THG-Quote Vergleich, read 22 August 2026. https://www.autobild.de/

Sources for the country-level incentive, tariff and pricing figures are listed in full in the linked posts for each topic.