RailWonderer
Established Member
Electric car UK market share shrinks, figures suggest
Industry bodies have renewed calls for the government to do more to encourage drivers to buy the vehicles amid a "tough economic backdrop".
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UK switching to electric vehicles discussion
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It's stagnant in the UK and demand is falling due to high interest rates and a tough economy. The same goes for car sales in general, IC included. Lack of public charging and expense of public charging plus insurance costs added to purchase prices make EVs still not a mass market solution yet.Electric car UK market share shrinks, figures suggest
Industry bodies have renewed calls for the government to do more to encourage drivers to buy the vehicles amid a "tough economic backdrop".news.sky.com
Insurance costs aren't purely on EVs, they are on all cars, because most insurance cost is about paying for the car you hit, not paying for your own.
From this website aimed ar the car retailer, BEVs are being bought by business and not by private buyers.
BEV car sales
Honda are struggling to sell the BEV e:Nvy SUV, a £45000 vehicle, dealers have low-mileage examples for sale at £29000 to £35000 as per the weblink
Honda e:nvy BEV cars for sale
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Manufacturers are always going to struggle to shift EVs at ten grand over the ICE price other than to very, very high mileage drivers with a driveway who could save significantly. The price needs to come down to parity - but even new ICEs are about a third overpriced at the moment.
Enthusiast
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Here's one:
I sold my electric car and went back to a diesel - I'd had enough
Drivers are finding there are plenty of reasons for stalling on electric cars, from broken chargers and rising insurance costs to battery degradation and reduced range in cold weather
inews.co.uk
And another:
TV star bins electric car blasting 'lies' about range and finding chargers
Rant comes as government pledges plan to regulate electric car charging points so they actually work
One more:
Experienced Auto-Journalist Gives Up On EVs And Hybrids And Goes Back To Diesel Power - AutoSpies Auto News
Experienced Auto-Journalist Gives Up On EVs And Hybrids And Goes Back To Diesel Power
One who is none too keen:
IAIN DALE: My hell journey proves UK is unprepared for electric cars
IAIN DALE: Towards the end of last year, I acquired an electric car, an Audi e-tron GT. While some of my social media followers claimed I was 'virtue signalling', it was actually a very rational decision.
Of course these people are paid to write about their everyday experiences. But I'm sure for each one of them there are plenty more with similar tales or opinions who are not paid to tell us all about it.
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Too many bells and whistles to go wrong on cars these days. I coped with windey windows, slidey things for the heating/ventilation. I can close a tailgate with my hands.
Parking sensors are awesome, though.
Maybe an EV thats cheap and doesn't have all these unwanted 'extras'
Deafdoggie
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I've never understood this argument. How many chargers is enough? Half as many as there are petrol stations? As many as there are petrol stations? More than there are petrol stations?
Gosh, journalists writing articles in the Daily Mail that stay with the starus quo and challenge progress, whatever next? But, basically, yes, five people have been paid to say they didn't like electric cars. It's almost like they want to sell newspapers. No one is writing an article that tens of thousands of people are switching to EVs and much prefer them because that won't sell papers.Here's one:
I sold my electric car and went back to a diesel - I'd had enough
Drivers are finding there are plenty of reasons for stalling on electric cars, from broken chargers and rising insurance costs to battery degradation and reduced range in cold weather
And another:
Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car
As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make ourwww.thetimes.co.uk
One more:
Experienced Auto-Journalist Gives Up On EVs And Hybrids And Goes Back To Diesel Power - AutoSpies Auto News
Experienced Auto-Journalist Gives Up On EVs And Hybrids And Goes Back To Diesel Powerwww.autospies.com
One who is none too keen:
IAIN DALE: My hell journey proves UK is unprepared for electric cars
IAIN DALE: Towards the end of last year, I acquired an electric car, an Audi e-tron GT. While some of my social media followers claimed I was 'virtue signalling', it was actually a very rational decision.www.dailymail.co.uk
Of course these people are paid to write about their everyday experiences. But I'm sure for each one of them there are plenty more with similar tales or opinions who are not paid to tell us all about it.
No one has come up with a valid argument for not getting an EV, everyone's arguments are based on fear and propaganda. People are still claiming to get range anxiety! Where have you been where there is no electric at all?
I don’t think Harry Metcalfe is in the category of someone who is going to be paid a few bob to say they don’t like electric cars. He actually says the opposite, but cites many of the issues you casually dismiss above…
Deafdoggie
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So famous petrol head doesn't like EVs shock horror
The problem with public chargers is, unlike a petrol pump where you are on it for maybe 5 minutes, then the next person gets a go, is that you need them for some time. So you need a lot more than you do petrol pumps. Then coping with peaks and troughs in demand becomes expensive, as many of them are sat unused for much of the day, or worse, are only used on weekends in the summer.
You’ve obviously never actually watched any of his videos where he talks about EVs then…
Deafdoggie
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And you've clearly not read the comments about them!
What comments?
Metcalfe is an independently wealthy motoring journalist, who is not vulnerable to being paid a few quid to say he hates EVs. He has tested and reviewed various EVs, and owned a few of his own, but has concluded the issues discussed in this thread above mean they don’t yet work for him.
You can dismiss that all you like but the evidence has been linked to upthread, and the views of one of the UK’s best respected motoring journalists count for a fair bit.
(The link below is to YouTube channel Harry’s Garage, where Harry Metcalfe presents a video entitled “I’m back in a diesel after 4ys running both EV & PHEV. What needs to change to get me to go back?”.)
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pdq
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This thread really is going round in circles...
cactustwirly
Established Member
It's not fear and propaganda.
I feel like the pro EV debate has more propaganda and glosses over genuine issues
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I have a feeling those who get range anxiety are those who, like me, only let their ICE get down to 1/4 tank before starting to plan refuelling, whereas those who don't trust the gauge and will happily run down to the light. I don't think the light has ever been on in my present car!
Give me an EV with a 300 mile real world range (which is starting to be a thing) and I will be fine with it. 200 is a bit low. You don't need that for a runaround, but most of my car journeys are not local ones.
Why on earth would you spend £45k on a mediocre car (6/10 review from Carwow, 3/5 from Autocar, Autoexpress and WhatCar)? There are much better cars around at that price (or for less). If you can get it for 30k it makes it much more competitive/better value, hence why it is selling at that price. It’s simply found it’s natural position in the market, nothing to do with it being an EV or not.
If you watch YouTubers, it seems everyone buying an EV is going back to ICE vehicles. There are a couple of petrolhead channels where they appear to have bought/rented/borrowed EVs to dump on them, produce content showing them all running out of charge, and then interviewing 'owners' on how they wish they'd kept their petrol car. I watch a lot of EV content, usually reviews of new cars, and the YouTube algorithm is always pushing the anti EV stuff to me - and that suggests these videos are very popular (read: generate the publisher good revenues).
Also, this idea that EVs are now plummeting in value is written as a bad thing, by the very people who have said for ages how they're overpriced. Fact is, batteries are now a lot cheaper (and about to get cheaper still) so unsurprisingly, car makers are cutting prices to boost sales - and, yes, this will have an impact on residual values... but Auto Trader now has plenty of amazing deals on EVs that are often just 6-18 months old, with mileages that probably see the battery at still around 95+ % health and good for another 200-300k.
This year sees many cheaper EVs going on sale, like the Dacia Spring and the Citroen e-c3. There may not be a BYD Seagull (no RHD version) although there are some rumours that they might produce a RHD version of the next model. There are other new entrants and in some EU countries that still have incentives, there will be more cars costing around £12,000-14,000 equivalent. Good luck getting a decent petrol car for that money (or one with any of the features you'll get on the EV).
In 18-24 months, those £15k cars will be selling for under £10k, and in 5+ years you'll be getting EVs for £1,000 that are still very decent..
Deafdoggie
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Each to their own, but I'd never drive 300 miles without stopping anyway. These days rapid chargers can charge my car faster than the time it takes me to go to the toilet! So there's no added journey time.
If I'm going to a new place I'll stop just before arrival and charge if I'm not totally sure there are chargers at the destination. But there are few places with no electric at all. And if you're going to one, you'd just stop at the last charger before you're there.
But there aren't genuine issues, other than people who can charge at neither home nor work and need to charge more than once a week. Everything else is just not a problem. Even those people exist now and don't find it too problematic.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I never drive 300 miles without stopping either, but the problem at present is that charger availability and functionality at those stop points is far, far from guaranteed and often expensive.
I am absolutely unwilling to do that.
Totally unwilling to make unnecessary stops really near where I'm going (which is very often campsites and the likes with no facilities). I typically arrive very late on a Friday evening and don't want it to be later.
There are. Zealotry really does not help the cause. Some things raised as problems are easily mitigated, but there are genuine issues.
Disagree.
I won't switch until it works for me as well as or better than an ICE, which includes the purchase price being at parity, not typically ten grand premium on a new EV. Why would I? Newish ICEs, particularly petrol, pollute very little.
This will happen. I thought it would be during the typical 3-5 years I will keep my present car (bought it in mid 2020) but I'm sure it will not, I think one more petrol ICE then it might be. In particular there need to be a LOT more public chargers and they need to be a LOT more reliable and available. For universal EV use we will need probably about 20-30% of spaces with fast chargers at places like motorway services, particularly key ones like Norton Canes, not just the typical 10-20 bays or so.
How much money are Honda losing if the car is sold "as new" very few miles, for £30,000?
Noting some of those cars have only 500 to 1000 miles from new and are down £15,000, £15 to £30 per mile in depreciation,
I very much doubt they are loosing money. We see the same pricing strategy from other manufacturers as well: price them high, sell them cheap.
they have to shift them. The fines for not selling 20% EV are crippling
Harpers Tate
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The "zealots" here (or "EVangelists" - call them what you will) are very probably those who have indeed adopted an EV as their main or only vehicle and found all the nay-say to be utter garbage and the ownership experience, including cost, to be way ahead of the alternative. And conversely, the nay-sayers (with a very few exceptions) are, I suspect, those who carry that instinctive refusal to change; to adopt and adapt to anything that needs a slightly (and it is only slightly) different way of thinking; who have not actually therefore experienced it. They start from a negative position (because of that initial denial of change) and then support that by dwelling on the echoes of similar in the popular press and/or others who have come to their decision in exactly the same way.
Yes - many roadside rapid chargers are expensive. At 70p/kWh (a likely middle figure) that is expensive compared to domestic rates. But if your car does 3.5 miles per unit (which is probably typical of many less well designed vehicles) then the fuel cost is 20p/mile. (Mine does well over 5 on average).
Based on today's average regular petrol cost your ICE would have to do 34mpg to come out at 20p/mile fuel cost. That comparison is only valid if you do 100% of your charging at 70p/unit. In an EV many folk can choose much cheaper "fuel" - down to 6.9p /unit for at least some (if not most) of their fuel as far as I can tell right now. Call that 2p/mile (or =340mpg). How much variance downwards is there in the price of petrol? What option does anyone have to get it for 1/10 the average price?
Sure - some chargers cost more. As do some petrol stations. Sure - many ICE cars can do more mpg. As do many EVs do more than 3.5m/kWh.
My point is - using "expensive" as a word to describe roadside rapids is not technically inaccurate - but is it in a different ballpark to the expense of liquid fuel? That sort of comment is precisely what I mean by "nay-sayers" justifying their views on partial and/or false information.
And - using "long delays on long trips" is similarly flawed. You'd likely be stopping anyway. Unlike liquid fuel, you don't stand over it and watch while it charges. You walk away and head for the convenience or coffee or both - as you were going to do anyway - and come back when you're done. And magically, your 250 mile range has become 400 miles. Yes - it's different. And that is, of course, as everyone knows, a bad thing, right?
Yes - many roadside rapid chargers are expensive. At 70p/kWh (a likely middle figure) that is expensive compared to domestic rates. But if your car does 3.5 miles per unit (which is probably typical of many less well designed vehicles) then the fuel cost is 20p/mile. (Mine does well over 5 on average).
Based on today's average regular petrol cost your ICE would have to do 34mpg to come out at 20p/mile fuel cost. That comparison is only valid if you do 100% of your charging at 70p/unit. In an EV many folk can choose much cheaper "fuel" - down to 6.9p /unit for at least some (if not most) of their fuel as far as I can tell right now. Call that 2p/mile (or =340mpg). How much variance downwards is there in the price of petrol? What option does anyone have to get it for 1/10 the average price?
Sure - some chargers cost more. As do some petrol stations. Sure - many ICE cars can do more mpg. As do many EVs do more than 3.5m/kWh.
My point is - using "expensive" as a word to describe roadside rapids is not technically inaccurate - but is it in a different ballpark to the expense of liquid fuel? That sort of comment is precisely what I mean by "nay-sayers" justifying their views on partial and/or false information.
And - using "long delays on long trips" is similarly flawed. You'd likely be stopping anyway. Unlike liquid fuel, you don't stand over it and watch while it charges. You walk away and head for the convenience or coffee or both - as you were going to do anyway - and come back when you're done. And magically, your 250 mile range has become 400 miles. Yes - it's different. And that is, of course, as everyone knows, a bad thing, right?
cactustwirly
Established Member
That logic only works if you have access to charge your car at home.
Many people do not, and fitting a car charger is a significant outlay and may need the landlords permission if the house is rented.
You also forget to mention the cost of tyres, they are significantly more expensive than for ICE cars because of the heavy batteries, plus they wear a lot faster.
Servicing is also significantly more expensive than an ICE, despite being simpler mechanically. Most independent garages do not touch EVs because they are not trained to deal with high voltages.
If I was buying a new car today, the figures so not stack up to buy an EV currently, you're paying a lot of money for an inferior car.
You can say that again. One old chestnut we haven't had for a while is the one about the grid not being able to cope...
With that mind, Octopus have recently announced they are now dynamically managing 1GW of battery capacity, which is enough to power Birmingham and Leeds on a typical evening. Imagine what can happen when vehicle to grid comes on line.
It’s been a while since I was pushing buggies and (to a lesser extent) wheelchairs. However crossing cable shields was and is frankly nothing compared to many of the other obstacles and hazards on the pavements today. It is simply not an issue, especially when you consider that most people with on street parking who only charge at home will do so perhaps once a week on average and usually at night, when use of pushchairs / wheelchairs is naturally rather lower than average.
Meanwhile, another three friends have taken delivery of their EVs in the last month or so: 1 x EV6, 1 xEV9, 1 x EX40. My friend with the EX40 is getting 350miles actual range, not just indicated. I still don’t know anyone who has bought a brand new car in over 4 years who has anything other than an EV.
On a related note, so far this year I have seen several EV pick ups, an EV HGV (18 tonner for M&S), an EV Fire Engine (W London), EV Ambulance (S London) and most interestingly an EV Skip lorry (NW London).
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They won’t be paying fines, they’ll just bank their allowances or trade with other manufacturers. As I alluded to in my previous post, the price reductions Honda are having to do for the Eny1 aren’t to do with it being an EV, the are to do with it being completely over priced as a product. According to the list prices for about the same money you could get, for example, a Tesla Model Y or a Hyundai Ioniq 5, both vastly superior cars than the Honda. For 7k less you could get a Skoda Enyaq, again a better car for significantly less money, and if you could stretch your budget for 6k more you could get an Audi Q4. And these are list prices, which have never been a reflection of what you actually pay for any new car.
Honda have to compete with the market-if they’re not making money on the Eny1 it’s their own fault for not getting their supply chain and manufacturing costs in order (or for developing a mediocre product).
EV sales are up 10.6% on last year (year to date numbers for the first quarter), whilst overall car sales numbers are up 8.4%, so EV's are out performing the overall numbers with Petrol at +6.7% and diesel -25.3% so it's unlikely that many are returning to IC cars.
The other thing to note is that the 22,700 new EV's are almost certainly ultimately replacing (by which I mean a new car is being brought to replace a newish car, which is replacing an older car and so on until the last vehicle gets scrapped) an IC car, as the number of EV's being brought (say) 15 years ago was almost zero, so even if the number of new EV's was falling a little the total number on the roads would still be rising by quite a margin.
Having read the article the selected data was quite specific. The key one being only seeing 0.3% increase in market share, which is true for the first quarter. However Hybrids aren't much better at +0.6% and Plug in Hybrids were +1.4%, so there's no big shifts with any one fuel type.
It sounds very much like they want government to give them some money to do what they should be doing anyway (i.e. selling the pre defined percentage of EV's).
If Honda are selling then new they have to charge VAT, so the price of £45,000 could be reduced to £37,500 without any "loss" to the company if the can sell it as used, based on your calculation that means it's £7.50 to £15 per mile.
Likewise, if some are willing to pay £45,000 anyway but you can sell a few more by making it look like the person buying it is getting a significant discount when actually you're seeking the non discounted car at a price point above your break even point they Honda could still be making money - yes not as much per car but maybe more overall.
For example if you can sell 100 at £45,000 and 200 at £30,000 and your brake even point is £28,000 then you'd have to get 54 of those 200 who got the car at the cheaper rate to buy the full priced car - which is unlikely to end up with more money.
Part of the "lackluster" improvement in market share could be car companies underpinning the Diesel and Petrol sales by selling off stock before they have to push EV's (that's speculation, I've got no data for that).