Blighty’s barmy for e-cars, poll discovers
6.7m planning to buy within five years
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Leccy Tech British folks are plain crazy about leccy cars, according to an RAC poll.
The survey – based on 1000 motorists’ answers – summarised that roughly 6.7m of Britain’s drivers are considering buying a vehicle powered solely by batteries at some point during the next five years.
And the figure doesn't sound unreasonable, because a quick straw poll here at Register Hardware discovered two employees who would definitely buy a Chevy Volt, another who wants an iMiEV Sport Air and one who’s after a Tesla S.
Leccy buyers will, presumably, only be swayed if the price of such cars is more or less in line with conventional petrol burners, though.
The RAC’s survey also revealed that Blighty’s drivers want their e-cars sooner rather than later, and that could be a problem.
The Volt isn't due to land here until 2011 and the Tesla S’ arrival is ever further away. More to the point, the government’s £5000 ($8196/€5759) e-car rebate doesn't kick in until 2011.
Still, maintaining a latent demand is easier than creating one. So it’s reasonable to assume that unless the cost of a gallon of unleaded plummets to 50p, we’ll still want our leccy cars come 2015 or 2017, the latter date being the time when the government reckons e-cars will become a true mass-market offering. ®
COMMENTS
Luddites
There has got to be change - the petrolheads of course will have none of it. But they're barking at the moon. The change is coming, like it or not. It has to.
The logistics of delivering suitable power distribution points into the street are enormous, but not insurmountable. The current technology is still at a very early stage, but advancing rapidly to the point where in a few years it would be reasonable to anticipate EVs able to take on their petrol/diesel counterparts head to head. Necessity being the mother of invention and all that.
Today's tech for EVs is advanced enough to make sense in a journey radius of around 50 miles, which seems ridiculous by comparison with petrol vehicles. But that radius is suitable for a significant amount of road miles such as the school run, local distribution and commuting.
The efficiencies of EV over petrol/diesel are well known and provable, but distorted by the "No" lobby. The economics do a lot better than balance out - my own EV has a financial break-even of 1.2 years against the vehicle it replaced, which I am about to realise in the next 3 months. Provable, no statistics, no supposition, no guesswork. It copes with my 26-mile each way commute, it makes progress with traffic on urban and suburban roads including dual carriageways. In practical terms there are no sustainable arguments against the use of the EV for the commute.
I applaud the official rhetoric in favour of EV - but I also despair at our ability to deliver to it. This nation seems to have lost the ability to actually deliver. But one lives in hope.
Not a reactionary
I'm not sure about this electric car business as a green idea - the only way I know of reliably cutting my transport emissions is by sharing the driving with two colleagues. It's not glamorous, it has no IT angle, but it works.
And when I'm rich maybe I'll get a Tesla for playing on B roads at the weekend.
@Martin 12:57
I hope to see you over at focusstoc.com then? I'm already there ... (;
I don't think I'd buy a leccy ST unless it was just so much cheaper I'd be silly not to, but if the costs are comparable then I'll stick to burning petrol. There's plenty of petrol stations to keep me going but no charge points where a leccy car would be charged in 5 minutes (to name but one issue).
I don't expect it to get any better in 5 years time. In fact, I expect leccy tech to fail miserably and that hydrogen will be the tech to take us forward.
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