Electric car hire

The arithmetic

You will probably charge once all week

Malta is about 27 km from end to end and 14 km across. Gozo is smaller. A determined day of touring — airport, Valletta, Mdina, the Blue Grotto, back to Sliema — is well under 100 km, and most days are far less than that.

The Hyundai Inster holds roughly 360 km. So a week of ordinary holiday driving fits comfortably inside one or two charges, and for many people it is genuinely one. That is the whole calculation, and it is why electric makes more sense here than in most places people are nervous about trying it.

The awkwardness on an island this size is not range. It is that public charging is still a developing network, so you want to know where you are plugging in rather than assuming a charger appears when you need one.

The Valletta bonus

Electric cars pay nothing to enter Valletta

The Controlled Vehicular Access scheme charges €0.82 an hour to drive into the walled city on weekday mornings, capped at €6.52 a day. Electric vehicles are exempt. So are motorcycles, public transport, emergency services and blue badge holders — but among hire cars, only the electric ones.

That is not a large sum, but it is the charge whose invoice arrives months later through the rental company and catches people out. In an electric car the question never arises. How the Valletta charge works, and why the bill is late.

Charging, in practice

Public charging across Malta and Gozo runs through Charge My Ride. You register in their app and charge as you go; the chargers use Type 2 connectors, which is what both our cars take.

Their published tariffs are per unit of electricity:

Off-peak runs midnight to 05:59, midday to 15:59, and all day Sunday. Put plainly: a full charge on these rates costs a few euro, against roughly €50 to fill a small petrol tank. Over a week that difference more or less pays the gap between the Inster and a mid-size petrol car.

When not to book electric

We would rather you had the right car than the interesting one:

• If your accommodation has no charging and you are here four nights or fewer, the logistics outweigh the saving. Take the Corsa Hybrid at €34 — automatic, frugal, nothing to plan.
• If you want the cheapest car, full stop. The Inster is €47. The manual Toyota Aygo is €22. Electric wins on running cost, not on headline rate.
• If you are four people with four cases. The Inster takes two cases. Look at the Frontera or the C3 Aircross MPV instead — both hybrid, both automatic.

And the case for booking one: you are two people, you are here a week or more, your hotel or apartment has a charger or there is one nearby, and you would like Valletta to cost nothing. That is a good week in an Inster.