One of the many benefits of Tesla vaunted vertical integration is well illustrated by the announcement that off-peak charging will be free at Tesla Superchargers in the California over the Thanksgiving holiday period.

Because Tesla owns all its own charging infrastructure it has a comprehensive view of charging patterns and spikes across its network. This allows it to react to congestion which can be a major problem where there is a large concentration of Tesla EVs.

The company has already tried variable pricing during the day to even out spikes and it has even developed its own mobile Superchargers to boost capacity at high pressure sites. It is able to do this because it makes not only its own chargers but also Megapacks – very large lithium storage batteries which is sells through its power business.

Another reason why Tesla is going to be so hard for automakers to beat.

No, I’m not talking about range – the perpetual first question in any discussion with non-ev-drivers. I talking about a survey by the RAC, a motoring organisation in the UK, which found that Tesla drivers drive more miles on average than drivers of any other car.

In the first three years of owning a new car, Tesla drivers cover an average of 12,459 miles a year. Meanwhile, Mercedes owners clocked 12,100 miles each year, and Volvo owners averaged 11,578 miles.

This compares to an average of 10,377 miles per year for the average of all cars in their first three years of ownership, according to the Department of Transport.

I can corroborate. I drove an average of 10,000 miles a year in the 10 years I owned a Mercedes E Class. Since I have owned a Tesla Model X I have driven 15,000 in nine months and it would have been more if the Coronavirus hadn’t pretty much put paid to driving.

Electrek, who reported on the RAC survey, concludes: “Electric cars with bigger batteries and faster charging get driven and charged more.”

That is true – but the main thing is they are just so much more fun to drive!

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.

The great thing about electric vehicles is that they can be charged at home overnight. Just as we all do with our mobile phones you get used to the routine of charging and that way the car, and the phone, are always ready. For most people, most of the time this is going to be all the charging you need. It’s cheap and even cheaper if you have a tariff offering cut-price overnight electricity.

If you are out and about locally, say in a local shopping centre for instance, there are often charging points available, which are often free, which can be used to top up.

However, sometimes you are going to travel further and that will often mean charge en route. How frequently, and indeed if, you need to charge will depend on things like how long the journey is and what the range of your car is.

Older and smaller EVs may have a range of 100 miles or so; bigger and more modern cars may have ranges of up to 300 miles.

And it also matters what the weather is like. EVs are more efficient in the warm and dry and less so in the cold and wet, though the effect is nothing like as dramatic as myths would have you believe.

Needless to say, once you get used to it, charging on the road is not much of an issue. The GOMs (“guess-o-meters”) on EVs do a good job of predicting what the range of the current journey is likely to be and to provide map directions to the nearest charger as part of the in-car navigation. Rapid chargers then can recharge a car in typically 20-40 minutes, time for the loo and something to eat and drink.

And then there is the overnight stay where sometimes it is possible to get access to overnight charging – either through a standard plug which provides a charge, though a slow one, or at a “destination charger” (similar to the system most of us have at home) but provided by a hotel, pub, restaurant or whatever.

The number one issue for most people thinking about switching to electric cars is charging. Once you have an EV you realise things are much simpler than you thought.

I bought my Model X on March 28th and it was scheduled for production on April 5th.

I had been warned by the Tesla owners I follow on YouTube and Twitter to expect a frustrating wait and I wasn’t disappointed. The Tesla app which you download when you buy your car provides the updates on the status of the car, and the wait for changes in status is agonising.

The next update was a few days later on April 9th when I was given my VIN number (that happens when the car is scheduled for production and is the thing that ties all your future dealings with Tesla together).

April 12th and my app notifies me that my Tesla is now in production. Now for the long wait.

April 18th and my car is apparently built and in the delivery system en route to the port. Teslas are built in Freemont, California and travel by train to the port at Houston, Texas.

On April 30th I thought I ought to get ready so I drove to the service centre at Dartford to buy a Tesla Wall Connector (they are not chargers and technically the charging is done in the car) and a thing called a Chademo adapter which is needed to connect to Chademo rapid chargers (the only thing available near where I needed it in North Norfolk).

On May 7th I got the notification that my car was on the ship bound for Tilburg and after what seemed an age, on May 25th the app informed me the car was finally at Tilburg in the Netherlands ready for reassembly and then transport by car transporter to Dartford.

On Monday June 10th I finally got the word that the car could be picked up the following Friday.

All did not go to plan on Friday….

I arrived as agreed at 11.30am for my pick-up and hand-over only to find that they weren’t expecting me until the following week. There had apparently been a mix up in communications but the staff were excellent and located the car (stored at Blue Water) and said they could get it ready by 4pm if I was happy to come back, which I was.

I intended to leave just after 3pm to make sure I was in plenty of time, but I had a call about 2.45pm saying there was a large diesel spillage on the M25 and the Dartford tunnel was closed as a result and that traffic would be worse than usual so I should leave now.

It took me over three hours to go 20 miles, the last hour within a mile of the service centre. But the hand-over staff stayed behind in an otherwise deserted building and I finally picked up my car at about 6.30pm.

I should have had a leisurely hand-over and had everything explained to me but with no time it was just a question of getting in and driving off. Lucky I’d watched all those YouTube videos!

All’s well that ends well.

Why did I decide to buy a Tesla Model X? Well, I definitely decided that I wanted an electric car in January 2019 and there were relatively few cars available at that time. Mercedes had announced that they would be launching the EQC at some stage, and as a current (happy) Mercedes owner that would seem an obvious choice.

However, there were two big constraints: I travel to Norfolk at least every month which is 150 miles away. As charging options are extremely limited there I needed a car with a big range; I travel with two dogs, two parolets, five tortoises and up to five adults(!), so I need a lot of cargo space.

When the details of the EQC emerged it was obvious that it was a mid-sized SUV and, while it was likely to have the range I needed, it was short of space.

That left Tesla as the only manufacturer who had cars big enough and with enough range to fit the bill. On closer inspection, the Model S, the family saloon, didn’t have a big enough cargo space, so the Model X was the only choice.

There were some positives and negatives to weigh up:

On the positive sides, I loved the fact that Tesla was building electric cars from the ground up and their integrated approach to hardware and software seemed to me the future.

On the negative side, the nearest service centre was in Dartford, 30 minutes drive away on a good day, compared to a Mercedes service centre a short walk from my house (which meant I could drop my Merc in for a service and walk home).

It turns out, though, that the negatives are not nearly as significant as you might think. Electric cars need next to no servicing – Tesla used to suggest an annual service but now just relies on the cars to report when they need work. Because they have many fewer moving parts, there is much less to go wrong, and things like regenerative braking means brake disks and pads are unlikely to need changing for years. The only things you regularly need to worry about are windscreen washer fluid and wiper blades, and tyres.

So, that was it – after a trip to the Tesla showroom in Canary Wharf and a short test drive, I took the plunge and ordered my car.