On the 20th of January, a month ago, we notched up 4 years in our Hyundai Ioniq plug-in electric hybrid car.

In the past 4 years, we have driven 37,763 kms. That’s a little under 10,000 kms per year.  9,440 to be exact.

During that time we have spent exactly $771.05 on petrol.

That means that we are getting about 50 km to the dollar, or 75 km to the litre, or 1.33 litres to 100 kms.

This is very fuel efficient for a car that weighs almost 2 tonnes. (because of the battery)

We go to the petrol station about every 3 months and put in $30, plus when we go on a long trip, say down the coast, we put $50 in there.

Needless to say that we are very happy with these results, because I actually spend more money putting petrol in the lawn mowers each year!

We have had 2 very minor issues with the plug. Once it wouldn’t dis-connect, I had to do it manually rather than electronically.

Then another time it wouldn’t engage with the plug electronically, so I had to do it with the manual switch.

Very minor issues. I don’t know why and it never happened again. 

However it is disconcerting when something that is a standard everyday event suddenly doesn’t happen as usual. The first time that it happened, I had to read the manual!  

If in doubt, read the instructions!

We do all our local driving on our own solar PV from the roof, we don’t need to use any petrol. Hence the name ‘Plug-in hybrid’.

We can go to town in the morning, come home and plug it in, 2 hours later, after lunch, we can go out again. It’s so simple. 

If we come home at night and need to use the car first thing the next day. I can still plug it in and charge it up in the dark from our own stored sunshine in our battery.

However, when we go on long trips. Then we need to come home on petrol. But that isn’t very often.

This style of electric car suits us perfectly. As yet, we haven’t ever used a charging station. On 2 occasions we have plugged in at a friends house to allow us to drive home on electricity.

We paid just over $40,000 for this car. The most expensive car we have ever bought, and the second most expensive thing after our house at the time.

If I’d known that we were about to be burnt out. I wouldn’t have dared to spend so much money on a car. But as I can’t foretell the future. I’m now very glad that I did. Because we now own it and enjoy the benefits.

The current version of the ioniq, due to be released tomorrow, is priced at $80,000! Unbelievably expensive. I’m so glad that we bought this ‘cheap’ one when we did.

I’m also very proud to be able to drive nearly all of the time on our own sunshine.