Photo of electric vehicles charging by Rob Cooling

Learning to Drive in an Electric Car

With each day the idealistic future of everyone driving electric cars takes a step closer to becoming a reality. Someday driving electric cars will be the norm. So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of learning to drive in an automatic car?

The Bigger Picture

Gas cars are damaging to our environment, they produce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Cars are currently the UK’s biggest cause of greenhouse gases, contributing 26% of the UK’s emissions. Everyone owning electric cars would be a huge step forward in reducing these damaging gases and slowing down climate change. If more learners demanded electric cars, this could have an impact, even if it is just a small one.

Automatic

Electric cars are all automatic, so if you were wanting to get a manual licence then an electric car isn’t for you. Learning in an electric car will mean that you will only be able to drive automatic cars as you won’t be granted a licence to drive manual, conversely you won’t have to worry about learning to change gears at least.

Read more about Automatic vs Manual Cars.

Safety

Just as with every other type of car, electric cars are held to very strict health and safety standards. When an accident occurs, the power supplied to the battery is stopped immediately to reduce risk to the passengers in the car as well as airbags being deployed.

Finding instructors with electric cars

Electric cars are still somewhat of an uncommon occurrence and finding a driving instructor to teach in an electric car could present a challenge. However, with GoRoadie this process has been simplified. GoRoadie makes it easy to discover which car each instructor teaches in, thus enabling you to narrow down which of your local instructors have an electric car.

Find instructors that teach in electric vehicles on GoRoadie.

Getting a Booking

It’s worth noting that even after finding the instructor, there still might be a waiting time before you can start your lessons. Due to the previously mentioned rarity in driving instructors with electric cars, you might find that many other students like yourself have booked out the instructor.

While there are both advantages and disadvantages to learning to drive in an electric car, one day it might be the only way to learn. So, if it is something you're passionate about then it is absolutely worth it and GoRoadie is here to help you find your ideal instructor.

Want to know more? Read our interview with Rob Cooling about being an instructor with an electric car.