Which electric car to buy?

[Wildcamper]

The EU, UK and the USA are losing interest in battery EVs. Governments will eventually see the move to EVs as being another poorly considered decision. One thought the "millennium bug" debacle was bad enough but will pail into insignificance compared to the growing EV debacle.

EU news: Electric car disaster as ports fill up with 100,000s of Chinese EVs no one wants | World | News | Express.co.uk

Chinese EV companies have aggressively targeted European markets as they look to take advantage of the EU's green agenda.

www.express.co.uk

Maybe the realisation of the economic dangers of buying from China is also starting to kick in.

 

[vmaxkiddy]

But not all houses have driveways

I delivered a Hyundai Tuscon PHEV to a customer in SW 14 yesterday. He lives in a one way street without allocated parking, some lampposts had a charge capability, but no marked bay. Unfortunately the charge point on the car was on the offside, too far away from the lamppost for the cable to reach, and as it’s a one way street no chance of parking the opposite way round. He wasn’t a happy bunny. Not that it matters as most PHEVs aren’t plugged in anyway, just bought for the tax break.

 

[Boomer]

My opinion, and it is just my opinion, is that EVs will continue to grow market share. It is still relatively new tech, but look at the progress made over the last 10 years from cars that struggled to do 100 miles on a charge to those that can comfortably do 200 - 300+. The next ten years could see similar advances (but what if I want to do 1000 miles without stopping etc etc....)

Anyway.

I think one of the issues currently is that legacy car makers jumped in to the market and turned out poor products based on ICE platforms rather than bespoke vehicles that took advantage of the removal of the engine. They also charged too much for these poor products. That's catching them out now with the likes of BYD and other Chinese manufacturers offering good products at more reasonable prices - sounds very similar to what happened with Japan starting to offer better cheaper products in the 60s and 70s.

But this should just spur western manufacturers to try harder and not take customers for granted. So it could be seen as a threat, or the kick some needed to make cheaper, better, more efficient products. That's how the market works.

Out of interest, I recognise that the EV market currently is driven by company car buyers given the tax breaks. But this seems to be having a knock on effect in the second hand markets with the percentage share of EV second hand sales growing rapidly (albeit from a low point) https://www.smmt.co.uk/2024/05/used-car-market-hits-five-year-high-as-evs-reach-record-share/

I believe this shows that quite a few people (not all) will buy EVs at the right price.

 

[Boomer]

And one other thing, then I will shut up! From an infrastructure perspective, this is a snapshot of current Tesla charger availability. Loads basically, and a significant proportion are 250kwh chargers. But add to that gridserve, ionity, BP pulse etc etc.