The UK has more charging points than EVs
Yes, we have little time for electric cars as anything more than urban runarounds for those with enough spare cash to pay through the nose for inferior technology. And it’s becoming clear that the great British car buying public feel much the same.
Department for Transport figures have revealed that there are now fewer electric cars on the roads in the UK than there are charging points. According to government figures, there are around 2,500 electric car recharging points in the UK, but just 2,149 electric cars have been sold since 2006. And it’s reckoned around 75 per cent of those have been bought by businesses, who get big tax breaks on EVs.
Even the taxpayer bribe of £5,000 for electric cars seems to have had little impact on sales. So far, just £3.9 million has been paid out to buyers of electric cars, little more than 1 per cent of the funding available. But are we surprised?
Electric cars probably have a usable range of around 30 miles – taking in to account real-world factors like temperature and night driving – before you have to either find somewhere to stop and recharge – which could take up to eight hours – or turn round and go home.
And even with the £5k bribe, electric cars are just stupidly expensive – as much as twice a comparable ICE car. It’s a bit like paying twice as much for a cathode tube B&W TV as a new OLED screen TV. Why would you?
Frankly, until car makers have battery technology which can not only offer comparable range and comparable refuelling times to an ICE car – and comparable pricing – the electric car is nothing more than a Dodo.
Mercifully, the British car buyer hasn’t been taken in by all the EV hype.
Adrian Robinson says
Crikey, what poor reporting. I agree they’re too much, but just to make a couple of points to bring back a bit more informed balance to the report. The Nissan Leaf has a realistic range of 80-odd miles (and more than the stated 100 miles if you drive carefully) – how often do you drive further than that? Also, the next wave of vehicles coming on sale this year are plug-in hybrids, which have no range problems at all – the Vauxhall Ampera will go around 40 miles on pure electric (more than most people’s commute) and has a regular engine to extend range. Finally, surely isn’t it sensible to have more chargepoints than cars to start off with as it will give people confidence that they can charge up in public?
Cars UK says
Strictly speaking, we agree with you. There is little ‘balance’ to the story, but that’s intentional. We’ve made it clear in numerous articles that we find the range-extender the only truly viable use of batteries and an electric motor in passenger cars. But the price for that is an unacceptable one in anything you could reasonably call an ‘average’ car.
Car makers accept that in the real sense EVs and Hybrids are unlikely to have a future, but they are both hedging their bets for the future and gaming the CO2 targets imposed on them at the same time. That will only work if the car buying public are persuaded that old technology packaged in a shiny new car is viable – which it is not, certainly not on any sort of cost-benefit analysis.
Hence our ‘Poor Reporting’ – to make a point.