I've written an essay's worth on the pointlessness of EVs elsewhere on here.
Simple economics. Electricity WILL have fuel duty added, it can't continue to be untaxed, (and the charging software I see has this built into it so the hardware providers are expecting it...).
The idea of GPS infrastructure working for road toll charges when the gov can't manage a simple COVID app that undergrad level coders could have built for £100k for less than £37BN is a joke. It's not going to happen anytime soon is it? And who is going to pay for it.
Once you add up the current cost of electricity, over 25p per kWh on the trading floor before transmission costs of at least 12p and rising, plus the fuel duty you'll find an EV is double the cost of petrol. I posted the calcs some time ago. I've seen spikes of £40 per kWh on the spot market for margin calls when supply is tight... And it's getting worse....
The price cap is now some 70% below the cost of actual production, so you can kiss that goodbye next year. It will be as high as 60p per kWh to charge your EV, not 7p at night. And time of use rates on smart meters will see that rise to insane levels at time of peak demand because that is the only way the electricity companies can cover this level of volatility and no go bankrupt,
This is because even though the likes of EDF forward bought a certain amount of energy on the futures market for 3 years, fixing the prices, they cant' control cost of transmission which has spiked to levels never seen before and contracts are being broken anyway in the futures market as generators can not supply at those prices with fuel input costs so high.
The only thing saving us from power outages and grid failures at the moment is wind and solar, which is dirt cheap, but variable. When those power purchase agreements are redone, and many are coming to the end of their 5 year tie ins, you will see those at much higher rates than the 7 to 9p they negotiated last time. So higher prices again....
Once the public catch on to this pricing nightmare, you will find they don't buy the cars.
I don't think the average person gives a damn about carbon. And it's a flawed argument anyway if you calculate the impact of trying to build 30 plus million EVs for the UK alone.
Plus, actually, we don't have enough lithium reserves to build them! FFS, a child could work that out. They are relying on new chemistry being found to meet these projected targets. These are 15 plus years away, even if they are possible at all.
EV's can't work where I live in Cornwall and people are missing the most vital issue .
Currently, we import up to 40% of our electricity from the EU, who we have just fallen out with and ended our energy trade agreements, (so we now pay £100 per MW transmission fee to import it instead of £15, one of the many reasons you are seeing such high prices).
We have less than a 4% margin on supply in winter and absolutely no new power plants of any decent size in progress other than one nuclear station which may add a couple of percent to our reserves, but over 8 terrawatts of coal and oil is going offline. Without EV we have a negative supply situation in less than 5 years.
It's a fantasy. What will happen is drop in low carbon fuels into existing cars, especially diesel, and a policy u turn on electrics.
The average new estate has zero margin at the transformer. Connection costs have gone through the roof so developers opt for the lowest possible connection capacity to build the development. I see this every day.
It would take decades to manufacture EV replacements and currently we can't even buy the chips or copper to build them.
Synfuels are vastly more environmentally friendly and socially responsible than cobalt mined by child slaves in China and strip mined lithium.
And policy is shifting to prioritise last mile delivery EVs for amazon, NHS, shopping deliveries, which is growing rapidly and taking the last drops of capacity in the grid network. EV's work for that usecase, it's hopeless in terms of infrastructure for domestic use.
Those 7kW lamp post chargers are actually even more constrained and rarely deliver more than one or two kw which means it might take 2 days to charge your Tesla, it's a joke. They are ornaments.
I tried an experiment 3 years ago. I put 2 girls 7 and 9 in front of a laptop and showed them nostalgia racing, gassers and the like. They were literally jumping up and down watching cars do burnouts and fly down the track with bellowing V8s.
Since then, both of them are totally obsessed with old cars and burn outs and beg me to take them out in my rods. They are helping me restore a mini so they are learning how things work. They are doing better at school than the other kids as it's teaching them to problem solve and practical skills that will stay with them and their social skills are better because other kids want to hear about this stuff and are badgering their parents to get old cars! Older girl next door struck and arc with a MIG last week! This isn't a lost cause.
Kids are still into this stuff, especially as they crave more then ever our time... it's our job to show them the excitement and that rebellious outlaw life that they think is so cool. Long term answer is to get your kids, friends kids or grandkids off the f^cking phones and out into the wider world.
People keep saying it's dying, I remember they said that in street machine in the 90s, yet every generation there is interest and you only have to look at classic fords and VWs to see people in their 30's spending massive money on these cars.
Just my opinion but I work in the energy sector, and I'm bored of the doom mongers. F^ck them. We make our own reality and it's our responsibility to stand up and say no. Worked the last 23 years....
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