There’s a popular trend emerging among car manufacturers, where their best EVs come bundled with discounted or even free access to high-speed public charging networks. This takes the sting off what can be rather pricey battery top-ups, while also making the car feel like better value.
These deals tend to last for a year, or for enough charging to get 1,000 or so free miles out of your shiny new EV. But what about a deal that offers eight years of free access to the high-speed Ionity network? We thought that might get your attention.
Sadly, there’s a catch. You need to buy a Rimac Nevera, the electric hypercar that holds all manner of speed records and starts at around €2m (£1.74m).
Fire up the T3 calculator
There’s another way to look at this though, so let us employ some T3 Maths to make the Ionity offer seem like the EV deal of the century.
With Ionity chargers currently priced at about £0.75 per kWh, the cost of the Nevera is equal to 2,320,000 kWhs of energy. Divide that by the car’s 120 kWh battery pack and you only need to completely fill the car 19,333 times to earn your money back.
Now factor in the claimed 300-mile range of the Nevera (if driven sensibly, we presume), and you’ll only have to cover 5,799,900 miles in those eight years to break even. That’s about 725,000 miles a year, or a paltry 1,900 miles a day.
Become a chauffeur, specialise in long-distance airport runs, and you’ll be there in no time. Although on second thoughts, you might need to become a chauffeur who specialises in routes that exclusively use derestricted sections of German Autobahn. Then employ someone to take over the driving duties at night. Every night.
All that’s left is to drop a few coins (well, 90 quid) into the cupholder each time you charge at a superfast, 350 kW Ionity station, and you’ll earn your £1.74m back in no time.
This might not be the savvy consumer advice you have come to expect from T3. But if you are somehow in the market for a 1,900-horsepower electric hypercar and you want to drive it non-stop for the thick end of a decade, this feels like quite the deal.
