More expensive to buy, due to the massively increased requirements for expensive raw materials, more expensive to insure due to the costs of repair, the likelihood of fatal damage to the battery pack (up to 50% of the total cost of the vehicle), the increased likelihood of being written off as uneconomic to repair, the low value of used EVs, and longer time to repair, and more expensive to own due to low residuals in used EVs.
Then you should discount current subsidies, including discounted purchasing price, low road tax, no fuel duty - all of which will be withdrawn when EVs reach sufficient market penetration as to impact government revenues or to impact government costs if too widely distributed.
What we are left with, Matthew, aside from the environmental and social costs of sourcing the raw materials, the unfunded, unplanned and ruinously expensive upgrades required to our electricity generation and distribution capacity, the cost of changing vehicle service stations from their current 10 vehicles per hour per pump to one vehicle per hour per charger, and the hidden costs of obliging all drivers covering more than a medium length trip to spend significant amounts of time recharging their EV, is clearly a world where it is not expected that independent transport will be available to the masses.
There's some smart tech that manages the power available on lampposts so doesn't need supply changes. Works well with long period - i.e. mostly residents but also tradespeople- parking. (It's not unusual to have to park a distance from ones front door, so cruising to find a vacant charger on arrival is not too much of a thing) .
Sadly, Sam, your piece reads like love poem to EVs. You choose to use only the very favourable EV financial break even calculations suggested by one company and ignore others quoted in the same article, which would give a very different outcome.
You completely fail to mention the UK's electricity generation and tranmission capacity, and what might need to change to support a wide-spread switch to EVs, how much that might cost, how long it might take, and how that should be prioritised in view of other spending commitments (NHS, social care, defence, pensions, public sector wages, national debt reduction, housing), instead focussing on procedures around sub-station capacity, and what improvements might be made to information flows, which you appear to claim impact where charging point operators choose to locate their investments and what vehicles consumers choose to buy. Blithely, you suggest that EV prices will soon fall to parity with petrol and diesel vehicles, so that's an issue scratched off the list? No recognition of the spending squeeze UK consumers are experiencing, making any new vehicle purchase unlikely for the vast majority of drivers?
Beyond the UK, you do not assess the global availability of the materials required for EVs as many countries try to reduce their environmental and climate impacts, how that differs from internal combustion engine powered vehicles, where those materials are sourced (a current war zone, Russia and Ukraine, and a threatened war zone, China) or the morality of child slave labour currently used to acquire those materials.
No-one pays me for this, it's a labour of despair, as governments and corporations spend the trillions we will undoubtedly need to mitigate climate change chasing unachievable and largely irrelevant goals designed only to make those leading the charge look good.
I'd suggest Bjorn Lomborg, Matt Ridley and Peter Zeihan if you would like the facts, figures and prognoses, but this article certainly does not warrant your praise, and personally I don't have the inclination to educate the wilfully naive.
No, Matthew.
More expensive to buy, due to the massively increased requirements for expensive raw materials, more expensive to insure due to the costs of repair, the likelihood of fatal damage to the battery pack (up to 50% of the total cost of the vehicle), the increased likelihood of being written off as uneconomic to repair, the low value of used EVs, and longer time to repair, and more expensive to own due to low residuals in used EVs.
Then you should discount current subsidies, including discounted purchasing price, low road tax, no fuel duty - all of which will be withdrawn when EVs reach sufficient market penetration as to impact government revenues or to impact government costs if too widely distributed.
What we are left with, Matthew, aside from the environmental and social costs of sourcing the raw materials, the unfunded, unplanned and ruinously expensive upgrades required to our electricity generation and distribution capacity, the cost of changing vehicle service stations from their current 10 vehicles per hour per pump to one vehicle per hour per charger, and the hidden costs of obliging all drivers covering more than a medium length trip to spend significant amounts of time recharging their EV, is clearly a world where it is not expected that independent transport will be available to the masses.
Good luck selling that to consumers.
My council LBHF has achieved a lot https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/electric-vehicles . So other councils could do as much.
There's some smart tech that manages the power available on lampposts so doesn't need supply changes. Works well with long period - i.e. mostly residents but also tradespeople- parking. (It's not unusual to have to park a distance from ones front door, so cruising to find a vacant charger on arrival is not too much of a thing) .
Sadly, Sam, your piece reads like love poem to EVs. You choose to use only the very favourable EV financial break even calculations suggested by one company and ignore others quoted in the same article, which would give a very different outcome.
You completely fail to mention the UK's electricity generation and tranmission capacity, and what might need to change to support a wide-spread switch to EVs, how much that might cost, how long it might take, and how that should be prioritised in view of other spending commitments (NHS, social care, defence, pensions, public sector wages, national debt reduction, housing), instead focussing on procedures around sub-station capacity, and what improvements might be made to information flows, which you appear to claim impact where charging point operators choose to locate their investments and what vehicles consumers choose to buy. Blithely, you suggest that EV prices will soon fall to parity with petrol and diesel vehicles, so that's an issue scratched off the list? No recognition of the spending squeeze UK consumers are experiencing, making any new vehicle purchase unlikely for the vast majority of drivers?
Beyond the UK, you do not assess the global availability of the materials required for EVs as many countries try to reduce their environmental and climate impacts, how that differs from internal combustion engine powered vehicles, where those materials are sourced (a current war zone, Russia and Ukraine, and a threatened war zone, China) or the morality of child slave labour currently used to acquire those materials.
What was the purpose of this article?
Well, so do you, raising dubious objections without a single figure.
Who pays you?
Good article, actually.
No-one pays me for this, it's a labour of despair, as governments and corporations spend the trillions we will undoubtedly need to mitigate climate change chasing unachievable and largely irrelevant goals designed only to make those leading the charge look good.
I'd suggest Bjorn Lomborg, Matt Ridley and Peter Zeihan if you would like the facts, figures and prognoses, but this article certainly does not warrant your praise, and personally I don't have the inclination to educate the wilfully naive.
EVs are already cheaper than petrol cars over the life of the vehicle.
Sure, that's why the government has to offer subsidies to those who buy them...
No-one ever offered subsidies to create a market it ICE vehicles, none was ever necessary.
Because they are more expensive to buy right but cheaper to run and it helps get over the initial up front investment.
Apologies Matthew, my response appears as a new comment.