Vocal Voices

I drive a Hyundai ix20. It's a modest little car but it does everything I need it to do.
It has a real world 300 miles plus range. I know I can get it refueled in five minutes at thousands of available sites and I know that the equipment at the petrol station won't be broken, nor will I have to queue up for an hour to use a petrol pump.
Most importantly, it cost me £7,200 four years since when it was four years old.

Now, where is the electric car that can do all that for £7,200?
It doesn't exist, and there's the rub.

For most people and for most journeys an electric car is fine. I think the average journey in this country is about ten miles?
But sometimes you do need to travel further.

The main problem for the electric car though - £7,200. At them moment there is a large second hand market for ICE cars. Not so for EV's. There are a few Nissan Leafs knocking around, say 2014 models with a range of 60-100 miles. The cheapest BMW I3 I could find was circa £10,000.

I know people lease cars now. But until there are more second hand EV's around which can match the ICE for affordability and range, the market won't really take off. And there won't be a bigger second hand EV market until very many more new EV's are sold, which at the moment they aren't being.

Chicken and egg.

cromwell wrote:I know people lease cars now. But until there are more second hand EV's around which can match the ICE for affordability and range, the market won't really take off. And there won't be a bigger second hand EV market until very many more new EV's are sold, which at the moment they aren't being.

And there's the rub. If the price of second-hand electric toys drops (and it is) it will hurt finance for new(ish) s-h ones (and it has) so the market will stall and that is a worry for new BEV sales.

Cap HPI data. January 2023 prices compared to December 2022.
1. Mini Cooper Electric – down 11.5%, -£2,917
2. Tesla Model Y – down 11.1%, -£5,500
3. Hyundai Ioniq – down 10.6%, -£2,375
4. Nissan Leaf – down 10.6%, -£2,407
5. Tesla Model 3 – down 10.5%, -£3,825
6. Jaguar I-Pace – down 10.3%, -£5,020
7. BMW i3 – down 9.3%, -£2,489
8. Renault Zoe – down 8.7%, -£1,640
9. Polestar 2 – down 8.7%, -£3,595
10. Audi e-tron – down 8.4%, -£4,060

As one trade expert put it: ‘If used EVs sneeze, new EVs could catch a cold.’

Some other poll headlines:
AA survey of 15k drivers found that 18% plan to buy an EV next, down from 25% in 2022
DfT poll of 2,171 people also found just 57% are considering an EV in the future.

Not brilliant considering that sales of new ICE vehicles will be banned in seven years.

Another headache for BEV owners - along with range and charging - is parking. Structural engineers are worried that many multi-storey car parks are not strong enough to accept the same number of BEVs as they can ICE vehicles due to their extra weight. Oh dear!

50% of the UK vehicle market is fleet. Whilst EV costs more for the up front purchase, the lifetime running costs with maintenance is lower and the residual value of the vehicle at 3 years is higher. So, for a business, the initial outlay decision is not the same as for an individual.

This means that fully half the second hand car market comprises fleet vehicles. Fleet is moving rapidly and dramatically to EV.

The average daily UK mileage is 19 miles. If you take a 60 mile vehicle, you are charging it up every 3 days. If, however, you take a 300 mile vehicle, then you are charging it every two weeks. When you go on a longer trip, 240 miles with an 80% top up in 30 minutes means you can go 480 miles with one 30 minute stop. How many actually want to drive that far?

Old Nissan Leaf? Avoid like the plague, no active battery cooling and the Battery Management System (BMS), is crap. Also the charge rates are crap too so you wait forever for a small uplift in range.

Yes Tesla has the best charging network with the best uptime (98%) and realtime notification of charger congestion or broken chargers. Others will need to come to this in time, sadly OEM vehicle manufacturers software sucks and EV Charge points from companies other than Tesla are a shitshow.

The chicken is there laying the eggs. Now we just need to grow the chicken farm. Cockerel anyone? Just like Norway the legislation of 2030 and 2035 will force the market to get on with the transition. Then it will all be history.