Latest Telegraph Puff For Electric Cars

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
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By Paul Homewood

h/t Patsy Lacey

The Telegraph seem to be running puff pieces for electric cars nearly everyday now:

The cost of owning an electric car will fall to the same level as petrol-powered vehicles next year, according to bold new analysis from UBS which will send shockwaves through the automobile industry.

Experts from the investment bank’s “evidence lab” made the prediction after tearing apart one of the current generation of electric cars to examine the economics of electric vehicles (EVs).

They found that costs of producing EVs were far lower than previously thought but there is still great potential to make further savings, driving down the price of electric cars.

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Needless to say, these conclusions arise from a theoretical study by UBS, who probably have a vested interest somewhere along the line in all of this.

On the ground there is no evidence of the price gap closing. The basic price of the Nissan Leaf is £26180, before the govt rebate of £4500. The Ford Focus is an equivalent model, and the price of this is £19695.

Sales of pure electric cars are still struggling to get off the ground, accounting for just 0.4% of overall car sales last year in the UK.

Even including plug in hybrids, the figure still only rises to 1.4%.

There are a number of reasons why drivers are discouraged from buying electric, and cost is only one.

Yahoo report that the charging network is rapidly becoming overburdened, despite the still tiny number of cars. Apparently this is leading to drivers facing queues and quarrels!

There is believed to be 97000 plug in cars on Britain’s roads now, along with 12500 charging points. According to the Car Keys website:

Sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles are rising rapidly, but with limited access to charging points, increasing numbers of drivers are falling victim to what’s becoming known as ‘charge rage’.

There’s been an increase in reports of drivers squabbling or scuffling over access to charging points, often when people take too long charging their car and prevent others from doing the same.

Many electric vehicle internet forums also feature dozens of threads about ‘ICE-ing’, the term used for when the driver of an internal combustion engine car parks in a designated electric car zone.

More than 17,000 hybrid and electric cars were sold this March alone, while there’s estimated to be more than 70,000 pure electric vehicles alone on British roads now.

Given that there are only around 10,000 public charging points across the country that works out at roughly seven cars to every charger, and that’s before plug-in hybrids are taken into consideration.

Worse, around a quarter of charging points in the UK are ‘slow’ chargers, which need between six and eight hours on average to fully charge the battery pack of an electric vehicle.

For motorists on the move this is an unacceptable amount of time, which increases pressure to find a ‘fast’ or ‘rapid’ charger, both of which can charge the cars at a much faster rate.

Compared to slow chargers, a fast charger can charge an electric car up in around four hours, while rapid chargers take just half an hour to charge the batteries from flat to full.

Charging points are also expensive to install, with a basic slow charging costing approximately £1,400 to set up while a rapid charger can cost as much as £22,000.

As a result, companies are reluctant to fork out that much money for fast and rapid chargers, meaning that the number of electrified vehicles is quickly outstripping charger access.

Philip Gomm from the RAC Foundation told the Guardian: “To roll out a network of charging points is an immense task and there will be practical problems if the rate of EV take-up continues.

“Two charging points at a motorway services are fine – unless you have four cars wanting to use them. There are only so many cups of coffee you can drink.”

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As ever, the question of cost is crucial. Clearly the slow and “fast” chargers are a waste of space, but the rapid ones cost £22000. And as the article says, companies are reluctant to shell out this much money for no good reason.

The UBS study believes that electric cars will account for 14% of new car sales by 2025. That’s 300,000 plus in the UK. Instead of having 97000 electric cars on the road, we could soon be talking of a million, based on those figures.

That would imply upwards of 100,000 charging points. At £22000 a time, the cost would be £2.2bn. Who’s going to pay?