I owned my Mercedes E Class estate for nine years and drove it 116,067 miles. I put 14,822 litres of diesel into the tank over that time at a total cost to me of £20,470 or thereabouts.

Much worse than that, though, is that over that time I contributed 39.7 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. That is the main reason I wanted to make the switch away from fossil cars.

The Model X was more expensive than the equivalent diesel car (though it’s hard to compare, really, as there is no direct equivalent as any EV driver will tell you once they own one.)

But servicing and running costs will be considerable lower. The Mercedes, which, incidentally, was the most reliable I have ever owned, cost me about £700 a year in servicing costs excluding tyres and extraneous costs such as body repairs etc.

I would expect my Tesla to be a fraction of this as it doesn’t have oil or oil filters to change and has brakes which don’t wear out.

And running costs will be significantly reduced. I estimate it would cost me £6,134 for the electricity I will consume over the next nine years which means I will save over £14,000 on the running costs of the Merc.

Oh, and by the way, my electricity comes from Ecotricity and is entirely green.