23 January (Part 3) - Choose with care
As I write my radio is telling me what a bad idea electric cars are and if
you do long journeys every day that is pretty much the case. The charging
infrastructure is just not up to the job and most EVs take far too long to fill
up. An EV evangelist who I met up with several years ago recently checked out
the ten charging sites nearest to his house and found seven of them to be out of service.
Thanks to idiotic government policy EVs are no longer always very cheap to run
although the figures bandied around in the press are very much worst case
scenarios. Another EV evangelist with whom I once shared a coffee (when EVs were a novelty
and owners would arrange to meet and compare notes)
put out a video this morning which took all the official statistics and
showed that electric vehicles were still cheaper to run than both petrol and
diesel equivalents by several pence per mile - which is not enough to recoup the higher purchase price.
But his worst case scenario was that all charging was done at the super expensive chargers found at
some motorway service stations and increasingly elsewhere. Regular long distance
driving is not something for which an EV is a suitable vehicle, maybe it never
has been although I do know someone who does 50,000 miles a year in his and buys
a new one every year.
I can get to Bristol and back without charging away from home if the conditions are OK by
which I mean a dry day without serious traffic congestion. A steady moderate
speed is an advantage but constant stop and start would not be helpful.
For run of the mill driving EVs can still be really cheap to run. Despite the
silly prices currently charged for electricity mine is working out at less than
three pence a mile (off peak rate) and if the sun shines pretty much nothing.
EVs should not be ruled out despite what the press articles may say but the
choice between them and petrol must be made with care. With no possibility of
home charging EVs are almost certainly the wrong choice and it’s probably always been that way.
As I have always said
here, the plan to stop selling new petrol cars in 2030 is the
sort of total lunacy I have come to expect from this government. And the
alternative loons are worse.
In December 2022 EVs were 39·4% of new car sales, a figure which has been used to
demonstrate their popularity. I’m not sure it does any such thing. Most of those cars
will have been ordered a year ago when the economics of EV driving were very different.
There are three Scrutiny meeting to be held in Bexley before the end of January. Looks
like I will have proper work to do soon.