Should you learn to drive in an electric car?

Electric cars are becoming an increasingly familiar sight on British roads, and particularly here in Sevenoaks. For someone about to start driving lessons, it therefore raises an obvious question: should you learn to drive in one?

The short answer is that an electric car can make some aspects of learning considerably easier, but that does not necessarily make it the right choice for everyone.

There are some genuine advantages, particularly for nervous drivers or people who find the coordination required in a manual car difficult. There are also disadvantages that are easily overlooked, including insurance costs, the size of some electric cars and, most importantly, the fact that passing your test in one will give you an automatic-only licence.

I teach both manual and automatic driving lessons in Sevenoaks. My manual tuition takes place in Penny, my Volkswagen Polo, while for automatic lessons I use Rene, my Renault 5 E-Tech electric car. Teaching in both lets me see what genuinely becomes easier when the clutch and gears disappear — and, perhaps more importantly, what does not.

An electric car is an automatic

For driving-licence purposes, a fully electric car is classed as an automatic. If you pass your practical test in an electric car, you will receive an automatic-only licence. You will be able to drive electric cars and other automatics, but not a manual.

That restriction will matter considerably to some people and hardly at all to others. If the family car you expect to borrow after passing is a manual, or you want the greatest possible choice when buying an inexpensive first car, there is still a strong argument for learning in a manual.

Equally, if your household already drives exclusively automatic or electric cars and you cannot imagine wanting to drive a manual, you may decide that the restriction is largely irrelevant.

It is also not an irreversible decision. If you pass in an automatic and later decide that you need a manual licence, you can learn the additional skills and take another practical test in a manual car without having to retake your theory test.

For that reason, I think there is a better question than simply asking whether an electric car is easier to learn in:

What are you actually likely to drive once you have passed?

What makes learning in an electric car easier?

An electric car is mechanically much simpler for a novice to operate. There is no clutch to master, no biting point to find, no possibility of stalling and no need to decide which gear you should be in.

The significance of that becomes particularly apparent at somewhere such as a busy roundabout. A new driver in a manual car may be trying to brake, operate the clutch, select a gear, steer, observe several streams of traffic, identify a safe gap and decide whether to proceed, all at roughly the same time.

An experienced driver barely notices many of those mechanical actions because they have become automatic. For a novice, they can consume a surprisingly large amount of mental capacity.

Remove the clutch and gears and some of that workload disappears. The learner can devote more attention to observing the road, planning ahead and making good decisions. For nervous learners, or those who find coordinating several physical actions difficult, that can make an enormous difference.

Easier to operate does not mean easier to drive

This is probably the most important distinction in the whole discussion. An electric car is easier to operate, but learning how to operate a car is only one part of learning how to drive.

An electric car cannot decide whether the gap at a roundabout is large enough. It cannot anticipate that the pedestrian approaching a crossing may suddenly step into the road, or recognise that a situation is beginning to become dangerous.

Those skills come from experience. A learner needs time to develop observation, anticipation, judgement and the ability to negotiate safely with other road users.

This is also why I am cautious about the suggestion that learning in an automatic or electric car means somebody will need dramatically fewer hours of tuition. You can learn to operate the vehicle more quickly, but there is no shortcut to gaining road experience. Much of learning to drive is simply time in the seat.

Who is particularly suited to learning in an EV?

Nervous or anxious learners. Electric tuition removes one potential source of stress. Someone who is already apprehensive about driving doesn't benefit from repeatedly stalling at junctions or worrying about whether they've selected the correct gear. Removing those concerns lets us concentrate on building confidence.

Learners who struggle with coordination. Some people simply find clutch control and changing gear considerably more difficult than others. There is no particular virtue in spending months mastering a clutch if that person knows they are only ever likely to drive automatic cars afterwards.

Families who already own an automatic or electric car. Private practice is enormously valuable, and if the car available for that practice is electric, learning in an EV makes the move between professional lessons and practice at home particularly straightforward.

Two things that feel different in an electric car

An electric car removes the clutch and gearbox, but it introduces a couple of characteristics of its own.

Regenerative braking. In many EVs, lifting your foot from the accelerator slows the car much more noticeably than in a petrol automatic. Good electric driving means easing the accelerator progressively, rather than treating it as an on/off switch. In Rene, I start with strong regenerative braking, because it shows you exactly what your right foot is doing, then move to a more conventional mode. Not every EV is the same, which is why I want learners to understand what the car is doing, so their skills transfer to whatever they drive next.

Instant acceleration. An electric motor responds immediately, so for a learner with an enthusiastic right foot, speed can build surprisingly quickly. Easier to operate doesn't mean the car deserves less respect.

I've written more about both, and about the driver aids in modern EVs, in What is it like to learn to drive in an electric car?

Some electric cars are simply too big

There is another disadvantage that receives surprisingly little attention: some modern electric cars are enormous.

This matters in Sevenoaks. Driving a large car along an open dual carriageway is one thing; judging its width while negotiating parked cars and oncoming traffic on a narrow local road is quite another. Row Dow towards St Michael's School is a good example, as are parts of Pilgrims Way. These are roads where a learner needs to develop an accurate understanding of the width of the vehicle, recognise when there is sufficient room to proceed and, just as importantly, know when to wait.

Parking presents a similar problem. The bays at the Stag Theatre car park in Sevenoaks were designed when cars were generally smaller than many of today's. Manoeuvring a large modern car into one of those spaces can require considerable precision, even for an experienced driver.

This was one of the reasons I deliberately chose a Renault 5 E-Tech for my automatic lessons. I wanted the simplicity of an electric car without putting a novice driver into something unnecessarily large.

Of course, size isn't exclusively an electric-car problem. There are enormous petrol cars and very small EVs. The point is simply that a car isn't automatically suitable for a learner because it happens to be electric or automatic. The physical dimensions matter.

Why electric cars make particular sense in Sevenoaks

From spending most of my working day driving around Sevenoaks, electric cars seem to make up a particularly noticeable proportion of the cars on our roads.

The nature of the housing helps. Many homes in and around Sevenoaks have driveways, which means owners can install a home charger. Being able to plug the car in when you arrive home makes owning an electric car a very different proposition from relying entirely on public charging.

Public charging is becoming increasingly visible too, with new charging points appearing around the area, including at Lidl in Sevenoaks, and Tesla Superchargers at the Donnington Manor Hotel in Dunton Green.

For a 17-year-old learning to drive in Sevenoaks today, an electric car isn't futuristic technology. There is a reasonable chance their parents already own one, that they will practise in one between lessons, or that an electric car will be among the cars available to them after they pass.

Check the insurance before you decide

There is one potentially significant disadvantage for young drivers: insurance. Some electric cars can be surprisingly expensive to insure for a newly qualified driver, so investigate this before assuming which car your son or daughter will use after passing.

I encountered a particularly striking example with one of my own customers. The family already owned an electric MINI, so it seemed logical that their daughter would simply drive that once she had passed. When they looked into the insurance, they discovered that it was cheaper to buy her a Volkswagen Polo automatic and insure that than to add her to the electric MINI they already owned.

That doesn't mean every electric car is expensive to insure, nor that a Polo will always be cheaper. Premiums depend on the vehicle, driver, location and insurer. But it shows why families should get genuine insurance quotes before deciding, rather than assuming the car already on the driveway will be the cheapest option.

The cheapest car to fuel is not necessarily the cheapest car to own.

Is it easier to pass your test in an electric car?

You can't stall an electric car or select the wrong gear, so a few possible faults disappear. What doesn't change is the standard of driving required: safe observations, appropriate speed, good positioning, sound judgement and the ability to drive independently.

An electric car may remove some potential driving faults, but it doesn't pass the test for you.

Should you choose electric, automatic or manual?

Rather than starting with the type of car, I would work backwards from what is likely to happen after the test:

• What car will the learner actually drive?
• What car is available for private practice?
• Can they afford to insure themselves on it?
• Are they likely to need to drive a manual for work or university?
• Would an automatic-only licence impose any meaningful restriction on their life?

If the family owns a manual car that the learner expects to use regularly, there is a strong argument for a manual licence. If the household already drives only automatic and electric cars, the extra flexibility of a manual licence may matter much less. And if there's an EV available for regular private practice, electric lessons can be a very logical choice, provided the family has checked the learner can afford the insurance once they've passed.

The car itself matters too. A compact electric hatchback can make an excellent learner car. A very large, powerful electric SUV may be much less suitable simply because it happens to have two pedals.

So, should you learn to drive in an electric car?

For many people, the answer will be yes. Electric cars remove much of the mechanical complexity that can make the early stages of learning frustrating. For nervous learners and those who struggle with coordination, this can be particularly helpful, and it frees up more of each lesson for the skills that matter most: observation, anticipation, planning and judgement.

There are nevertheless genuine disadvantages. Passing in an electric car means accepting an automatic-only licence. Some EVs are very large and surprisingly powerful, regenerative braking takes a little getting used to, and insurance for a young driver can sometimes be prohibitively expensive.

So I don't believe there is one universally correct way to learn. A manual licence gives you the most flexibility, while an electric car makes the car itself much simpler to operate. Neither option, on its own, provides the experience and judgement required to become a good driver.

Ultimately, my job is not simply to teach someone how to make a car move. It is to teach them how to read the road, understand what is developing around them, make good decisions and eventually drive safely and confidently without me sitting beside them.

Choose the car, and the licence, that suit the driver you're going to become.