EVs are great if you're wealthy and have the prerequisite 'EV-compatible home' (with garage/driveway for charging)
But a lot of UK housing relies on on-street parking, and there's flats with car parks where charging isn't currently practical. So far there's very little attempt to solve this, leaving green tech mostly as 'expensive toys for the rich'. Roll-out of public chargers is slow, and they're always going to be vastly more expensive to use compared to home charging.
Similarly, many people are locked out of heat pumps and home solar due to 'incompatible homes'. Most problems the UK faces come down to the excessive cost of housing.
(And meanwhile, the government are quite determined to keep the majority of PLEVs - e-scooters and >250W ebikes, entirely illegal, while illegal use grows rapidly and is policed very inconsistently)
> But a lot of UK housing relies on on-street parking, and there's flats with car parks where charging isn't currently practical.
You forget the larger problem less wealthy individuals face: They typically already own a ICE-car and can‘t afford to purchase a new car multiple times in their lives.
The "or with the potential to have" is hiding away a lot, to the point of being misleading. Most homes, especially in flats and terraced housing, which are the majority, won't have the infrastructure support for charging point conversion.
My terraced house has off-street parking, as do most of them in my area.
Houses with separate garages are also fairly easy to upgrade - we had an armoured cable buried in a new trench to connect our old property.
Similarly, most flats with car-parks are especially easy to add chargers to. They can either be 7kW points or just regular plugs. We had slow chargers installed in our old flat.
Yes, there are many properties with no easy way to add charging. But none of those places have a petrol pump attached either.
Petrol is just too cheap to justify the cost unless you drive massive amounts. I do 3,000 miles a year, that costs £400 a year
The cheapest electric car I can see is £2500. It would take me 6 years to get the money back even if the electric was free
Average car does twice that mileage but that’s still a small part of the total cost of ownership.
I got petrol Friday for £1.45 a litre. In July 2022 it was £1.90 a litre, or £2.20 inflation adjusted. In 2012 it was £1.40 or £2.05 a litre inflation adjusted.
Maybe if petrol was in the £2-2.50 a litre it would make sense
3,000 miles a year is very low, I think the average in the UK is 7,200. Interestingly that has declined since the nineties (presumably because we have more two car households).
I think the real way I've lost money is on depreciation - that's more severe than anything else that happened - even though I always buy second hand.
If you're buying second hand, like it would appear from the price you quoted, then reliability could be the thing that makes the price worthwhile.
I also don't do high mileage but as our petrol car gets older, it's starting to be less reliable. I've had brake issues - EV regenerative braking should ease that problem - and the engine is starting to use more oil. My car has a reputation for gearbox issues from the Uber drivers that I know.
Every time there is some problem my wife gets more freaked out. To avoid total disaster I'm going to have to get something and if it's an EV I just hope that it will give us some years of plain sailing.
I bought my car 4 years ago with 12 months MOT. It’s just passed again, with two new tyres and some suspension work. And a new bulb. It’s only needed tyres, wipers, and a new wing mirror in previous years.
Not bad for £1200.
The killer cost is the massive VED, way more than petrol
Tax. I’d far rather VED were removed and the revenue reclaimed by taxing per mile. Seems crazy to have high fixed costs and low marginal, that just encourages driving.
VED is coming in on electric cars, and so is per mile charging. Meanwhile politics won’t allow fuel to return to 2012 levels in real terms let alone expanding beyond.
Far better ways to invest cash - home battery for example - than in an electric car. Maybe in 5 years there will be reasonable specced second hand ones.
A car's assumed lifecycle is around 15-20 years. Practical suburban EVs have been around for around half that, practical ICE-replacement EVs for about a third. Consequentially, EVs have not yet arrived in the econo-shitbox segment of the used car market, and it will still take some time for them to get there - this is simply a lifecycle question and not a "new product introduction question" (which most of the press gets wrong for obvious incentives).
That being said, there's an argument that even basic EVs are often much more pleasant to drive and less hassle overall, which could be a reason for them to command a sustained premium on the used market.
How are EV's going to get to econobox/shitbox levels when the batteries go bad in less than half the time you mentioned and it costs ~£5000 for a new one?
But a lot of UK housing relies on on-street parking, and there's flats with car parks where charging isn't currently practical. So far there's very little attempt to solve this, leaving green tech mostly as 'expensive toys for the rich'. Roll-out of public chargers is slow, and they're always going to be vastly more expensive to use compared to home charging.
Similarly, many people are locked out of heat pumps and home solar due to 'incompatible homes'. Most problems the UK faces come down to the excessive cost of housing.
(And meanwhile, the government are quite determined to keep the majority of PLEVs - e-scooters and >250W ebikes, entirely illegal, while illegal use grows rapidly and is policed very inconsistently)
You forget the larger problem less wealthy individuals face: They typically already own a ICE-car and can‘t afford to purchase a new car multiple times in their lives.
Flats and terraced homes aren't the majority - about 55% of people live in detached or semi-detached houses. See the ONS Census data at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/...
My terraced house has off-street parking, as do most of them in my area.
Houses with separate garages are also fairly easy to upgrade - we had an armoured cable buried in a new trench to connect our old property.
Similarly, most flats with car-parks are especially easy to add chargers to. They can either be 7kW points or just regular plugs. We had slow chargers installed in our old flat.
Yes, there are many properties with no easy way to add charging. But none of those places have a petrol pump attached either.
https://www.racfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/spa...
SMMT publish monthly data too
And which ever way we look at it electric cars are becoming more popular
The cheapest electric car I can see is £2500. It would take me 6 years to get the money back even if the electric was free
Average car does twice that mileage but that’s still a small part of the total cost of ownership.
I got petrol Friday for £1.45 a litre. In July 2022 it was £1.90 a litre, or £2.20 inflation adjusted. In 2012 it was £1.40 or £2.05 a litre inflation adjusted.
Maybe if petrol was in the £2-2.50 a litre it would make sense
If you're buying second hand, like it would appear from the price you quoted, then reliability could be the thing that makes the price worthwhile.
I also don't do high mileage but as our petrol car gets older, it's starting to be less reliable. I've had brake issues - EV regenerative braking should ease that problem - and the engine is starting to use more oil. My car has a reputation for gearbox issues from the Uber drivers that I know.
Every time there is some problem my wife gets more freaked out. To avoid total disaster I'm going to have to get something and if it's an EV I just hope that it will give us some years of plain sailing.
Not bad for £1200.
The killer cost is the massive VED, way more than petrol Tax. I’d far rather VED were removed and the revenue reclaimed by taxing per mile. Seems crazy to have high fixed costs and low marginal, that just encourages driving.
VED is coming in on electric cars, and so is per mile charging. Meanwhile politics won’t allow fuel to return to 2012 levels in real terms let alone expanding beyond.
Far better ways to invest cash - home battery for example - than in an electric car. Maybe in 5 years there will be reasonable specced second hand ones.
https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time
That being said, there's an argument that even basic EVs are often much more pleasant to drive and less hassle overall, which could be a reason for them to command a sustained premium on the used market.