What is the charging infrastructure like in other parts of the UK outside of London? I don't see any on-street charge points, the multi-story car parks here have about 6 charge points combined, and I think Tesco's has 3. Other supermarkets appear to have none.
Like a very large section of the UK, I don't have a driveway. If these car manufacturers were actually wanting to shift EVs they would be investing in the charging networks but it appears that like most things "that's someone else's job", so no-one does it.
I don't even reach the point of caring about price, or range, when I'm more concerned about charging the thing in the first place.
What is the charging infrastructure like in other parts of the UK outside of London?
I don't have an EV, so I am probably not keeping as close an eye on it as I would be, but it isn't great. And the price can be off-putting - they discussed this story on the radio yesterday an expert said you could pay 7p/kWh at home but ten times that amount elsewhere.
Used electrics are good value now. I have an electric car which I lease, and so far the depreciation on the car has outstripped the cost of the lease by a factor of 2, meaning I will definitely be "up" vs having bought it outright. I'll definitely buy a used electric once the lease expires.
There's no way the cost of new electrics won't come down, economic gravity will force it.
People are beginning to realise that battery power isn't all it's cracked up to be when it comes to the mining of the materials and then subsequently the recycling of those batteries.
Double the mpg for a decent diesel gives about 11p/mile, which is what I get most of the time.
Driving 8k miles per year that nets a £680 saving per year. That does not justify changing vehicles. Even a 5 grand difference in price would not be acceptable to most people imo. Even dropping road and luxury taxed barely change it.
If you double the mpg, you should double the miles per kWh, as 3 isn't very good either. I choose those numbers because that is my old diesel van vs my new EV van. 30mpg is generous and 3mpkwh is conservative. But the EV is a bit smaller, so that's about right.
I do about a thousand miles a month. I save about 20.23p per mile. So I save about £202 a month just on fuel.
The numbers of pence per kilowatt hour for an EV does not change dependent on the comparison to a petrol or diesel car. If we are talking about the efficiency savings, we would expect greater savings for the EV compared to a petrol car doing 30 mpg versus the comparison to a diesel car. And 3 miles per kilowatt hour isn't that unreasonable, you are not going to get 4 except in specific circumstances.
I think it's obvious that the more miles per unit time, the quicker an EV will pay off. But then, one does need to charge at home so the other challenges (off road parking, long enough between use periods) makes a large difference. It does not surprise me that it works better for you with a works van and high mileage, where it can be classed as a business expense with BiK bonuses. But it doesn't help Joe bloggs who does 6k/year at a push.
I'd like to buy an EV. I expect my next car to be one, whether I like it or not, and I've set everything up including solar panels to wring out every efficiency I can. But with this tax system and fuel cost differences the sums don't add up for me, and most other people.
You have to compare like for like. A 60mpg is not equivalent to 3mpkwh. 60mpg is top end efficiency and 3mpkwh is bottom end.
If you can't charge at home, right now, I'm not sure I'd advice an EV yet. Public chargers are normally a rip off. It's pretty much the same kind of costs as fossil fuels. It needs tackling frankly.
If you got solar and a home charger , then yes, you can drive around even cheaper than my numbers. I know people whose mile cost is basically zero over summer and only the same as me in winter.
The upfront costs are coming down as the ranges go up. Long run, economics alone will kill ICE. Even without the negative feedback loops it will get in as there is less ICE so less economics of scale.
This is essentially it. The surge in demand probably came from company cars and those who can afford to buy expensive cars, but now that demand has been met then sales have dropped off. We're not yet in the market to replace our car but I do keep an eye on things, and every time I look at a new EV, they're like 30 or 40k over what I'd be willing to pay.
I imagine it's an issue of economies of scale, they're more expensive because they're producing less than ICE vehicles; the only way to get them cheaper would be for some heavy government subsidies.
Manufacturers are alarmed by slowing sales growth in battery electric vehicles, which in the first four months of 2024 have only increased market share by 0.3% from the same period in 2023, to 15.7%, despite the rapid take-up in previous years.
While the industry expects the figure to improve this year, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said that BEV sales would be below government targets of 22% of all new cars, and called for steps to “re-enthuse” buyers, including tax cuts, incentives and more chargers.
The SMMT said incentives had increased take-up of battery electric vehicles in the fleet market, and similar moves for private buyers would hasten the transition.
Temporarily cutting VAT, treating EVs as fiscally mainstream not luxury vehicles, and taking steps to instil consumer confidence in the charge point network will drive the market growth on which Britain’s net zero ambition depends.”
Ian Plummer, commercial director of Auto Trader, said EVs were typically 35% dearer than traditionally fuelled petrol and diesel models, adding: “The discounts we’ve seen manufacturers offer to incentivise consumers into new electric cars seems to be working … That said, we’ll need to see even more price action to achieve mass electric adoption.”
Lisa Watson, director of sales at Close Bros Motor Finance said: “Manufacturers may have cause for concern that the number of new petrol vehicles registered continues to outdo the sales of battery electric vehicle registrations, bringing into sharp focus the work the UK government needs to do to improve inadequate infrastructure such as charging points, and allay motorist concerns to encourage adoption.”
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Thinktank Green Alliance gave its views on the main obstacles the government faces in its bid to phase out petrol and diesel cars before 2035, and said a comment piece by the Johnny English star published in June 2023 was damaging to the cause.
The pressure group told peers in a letter that was shared: "One of the most damaging articles was a comment piece written by Rowan Atkinson in The Guardian which has been roundly debunked.
"Unfortunately, fact checks never reach the same breadth of audience as the original false claim, emphasising the need to ensure high editorial standards around the net zero transition."
The actor, who described himself as a "car person" having got a degree in electrical and electronic engineering, said he advised friends to "hold fire for now" on EVs unless they have an old diesel vehicle.
Mr Evans wrote: "Atkinson's biggest mistake is his failure to recognise that electric vehicles already offer significant global environmental benefits, compared with combustion-engine cars."
Other challenges highlighted during the committee meeting included insufficient numbers of charging points, higher prices on EVs and "a lack of clear and consistent messaging from the government".
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People really buy the propaganda around EVs and so many other things that it is a little depressing. You cannot even argue with most as they are so firmly entrenched in their beliefs that have been carefully fed to them.
EVs solve very little problems related to cars. Replacing every car with an EV but doing nothing to address the impacts of car dependancy and car centric urban planning changes very little in the grand sense of economic and environmental sustainability.
Particulate pollution and NOx/CO/CO² emissions for starters.
No, heavier electric cars don't mean more brake wear and particulates, because regen braking means brakes last longer. A lot longer.
No, you're not just moving emissions to a power plant, because the UK grid is only 35% powered by fossil fuels (natural gas). Even if it was, not polluting outside someone's home or a school is a good thing.
No, emissions aren't worse building new EVs than keeping the old cars because in less than 4 years the EV is in credit Vs just the fuel burnt in a petrol car. They last a lot longer than that.
Replacing every car with an EV but doing nothing to address the impacts of car dependancy and car centric urban planning changes very little in the grand sense of economic and environmental sustainability.
Urban planning is what happens when you avoid car dependency. People need to move to work, and unless your plan is that we regress to a largely agrarian culture, that means public or personal transport. Public transport only works with a high enough density of people to make it worthwhile. i.e. urban centres. Outside of urban centres people need personal transport, so let's have a cleaner form than most of us currently do.
The Lords Climate Change Committee urged the government to build consumer confidence and push back against what it called mistruths on range and cost.
Baroness Parminter, chair of the committee, told the BBC that both government officials and other witnesses to the enquiry had reported reading disinformation on the subject in national newspapers.
The Lords heard how local authorities had to wait eight months to have their applications processed for the On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS).
A Department for Transport spokesperson told the BBC that this week: "The first councils are starting to receive part of the £381m local electric vehicle infrastructure fund alongside new grants to install charge points in state schools and nurseries."
The Lords did recognise the challenges that the government faced with falling tax revenues as the number of EVs grow and said road taxation will need to be "fundamentally redesigned".
Paris residents just voted to introduce higher parking charges for large SUV petrol and diesel vehicles as part of efforts to recuperate public costs from more polluting modes of transport.
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Only buses that are zero-emission will be allowed within the city when the entire fleet is operational, with more restrictions on other types of traffic to cut congestion as well as improve air quality.
Just over half the money for the £82.5m scheme has come from the Oxford Bus Group, co-owned by Go-Ahead and Stagecoach, who put in £43.7m to buy the vehicles, with the rest from the council and government.
Oxfordshire county council received a £32.8m grant from the Department for Transport’s £500m Zebra scheme to fund zero-emission buses.
The partnership, in which both Go-Ahead and Stagecoach electric buses will be rebranded in the same livery, will be underpinned by further traffic measures in the city to reduce bus journey times by at least 10% compared with 2019 speeds – a contractual commitment from the council to ensure the investment is viable for the private companies.
The city already has a number of “bus gates”, which prohibit most other vehicles, and more traffic filters will be introduced by the end of 2024 to push people towards public transport or active travel where possible.
The Oxford launch comes just as Go-Ahead has been forced to temporarily withdraw a small fleet of electric buses in south London after one caught fire on Thursday.
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This pilot project by BT will explore how this solution could be scaled up to address the lack of chargers on UK roads, something that motoring groups have said is holding back Britain's electric car revolution.
Tom Guy, CEO of Etc., the start-up and digital incubation arm at BT Group, said that this solution was a "huge step" in addressing the barriers customers face.
"Working closely with local councils in Scotland and more widely across the UK, we are at a critical stage of our journey in tackling a very real customer problem that sits at the heart of our wider purpose to connect for good," he said.
"Harnessing existing street furniture is a great way to increase the number of public EV charging points without further adding to clutter along our footpaths," he said.
"Making this even more valuable, many of these green street cabinets are located in residential areas across the UK, including smaller villages and towns, where charging infrastructure is most severely lacking."
The Department for Transport told the BBC that they have committed "hundreds of millions of pounds to expand local charging across England."
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Going full EV will never happen with today's tech. They just don't meet the need of too many drivers outside the middle class. Unless you don't need to take longer trips often and you can change at home, EVs suck.
PHEVs with 80 miles of range will be the sweet spot IMO.
I commute in a EV. About a 1000 miles a week, for about £23. It was about x10 that with the old diesel.
On average, once a month, there is a trip long enough to need a public charger. To be honest, maybe less than that. The EV we use for long customer trips give you easy 80 each way while still home charging.
Love my EV for my 90 mile rt daily commute. Home charging is cheap and easy. But taking it on long trips is stressful. Fast chargers are expensive, price varies wildly, and too often chargers are broken or theres a wait, and they are often in inconvenient places. The problem isnt the EV, its the shitty charging networks that will kill adoption.
I don't think it will/can kill adoption, but it is slowing it. I'm pretty sure they have done the maths and set the kWh price to match fossil fuel costs as a "this is the most the market will pay". Your a captive market as there isn't near by competition and it's like they have colluded to set the price high.
You save so much on normal running costs, the cost of the odd long trips are easily swallowed. But it is blatantly profiteering and is slowing adaptation as people think that is how they will refuel.
The number of new cars registered in the UK has jumped by nearly 18% but electric vehicle demand is flatlining, prompting the industry to call for a VAT cut to stimulate sales.
The increase is a boost for the automotive industry after the pandemic led to supply chain problems and a shortage of vital computer chips that slowed production.
After the latest figures showing the sector is still well short of that target and that the switchover is stalling, the SMMT is calling for the government to halve VAT on all new ZEV purchases across the next three years.
It has estimated the plan, which equates to an average of £4,000 per purchase, would save consumers a total of £7.7bn over the period and would put 250,000 extra ZEVs on the road by 2026.
Mike Hawes, the SMMT chief executive, said: “Government has challenged the UK automotive sector with the world’s boldest transition timeline and is investing to ensure we are a major maker of electric vehicles.
Superminis – small hatchbacks such as the Ford Fiesta and Vauxhall Corsa – continued to be the country’s most popular category of car, making up nearly 30% of all new vehicles.
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