Electric cars can be washed, you know – VW e-Golf long term review five

I WAS helping present at a business briefing recently.

Organised by Concept Vehicle Leasing – winner of the Leasing Broker Federation’s Best Small Leasing Broker Customer Service Award – it was a relaxed evening in central London with 20 businesses present.

Some had fleets of one car; others a fleet of 30 vans. So a varied audience.

But the point of the evening was to encourage discussion around motoring issues that were affecting them. Naturally being London, the forthcoming April start of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) was a key talking point.

But so was choice of fuel – was diesel still dirty? (Answer, no.) What about going electric? Was this a strategy to be followed? (Answer, possibly.)

And the reason for ‘possibly’ is this: it depends, really, on the requirements of the driver and the infrastructure available – both at home (is a home charger feasible?) – and at work (can you provide charging facilities and how many?). An electric vehicle (EV) can work in many situations, but not all. Sometimes a diesel is the answer.

There were also some interesting observations such as: is it safe to wash an electric car?

Well, the answer to this is definitely yes. I’m still standing after turning the e-Golf from its grime grey exterior to sparkling white the other weekend with bucket and sponge.