With many of the large car manufacturers now having an in-house development program dedicated to Electric Vehicles (EVs) and with some now doing away with their diesel range altogether, it’s probably inevitable that many of you reading this will, one day, own an EV yourself. The U.K government too have committed, that by 2040 in this country, Petrol and Diesel new car sales will not be allowed any longer (new cars).
So, one would think that making the jump now (no pun intended) to EV, or at least hybrid (a mix of self charging electric and traditional combustion engine powered by petrol) is a wise one? But is it?
Currently, there are over 10,000 UK charging points according to zap-map.com, the directory for charging points and all things EV. But, is this enough? If every driver currently owning a petrol or diesel powered car suddenly swapped to EV overnight, it would place severe load on to the National grid, and, we’d all be fighting over those 10,000 charging points (though in fairness, one would assume more of us would then also have charging facilities at home also). That said, many of these EV charging points afford the best parking spaces in various city centre and motorway service car parks…
Some critics also lament the fact that the battery technologies are still awaiting that ‘silver bullet’ moment when more powerful batteries giving a far greater range than those currenty fitted to EVs are available in a much smaller size. And with smaller sized batteries (giving greater efficiency if nothing else because of the weight loss of the vehicle they will be powered) one would also hope for faster charging times. Can an owner of an EV really be expected to wait 30 minutes to 12 hours to charge their car up in order to commute to work first thing in the morning because they forgot to do so overnight?
Of course, EVs bring MANY benefits, not least less pollution from exhausts in our major towns and cities. With a larger migration of the population to EV, we should as a nation start to see some health improvements as a nation with a reduction in asthma related illnesses.
Finally, this article wouldn’t be complete without mentioning economics. Not only would electric charging produce a cleaner and cheaper form of power, but the vehicle duty within the U.K also massively favours those driving EV or hybrids since higher emissions vehicles currently pay more in that regard, though of course, as more of us make the migration, we would expect to see a change in government policy in this respect.
And the question on everybodies lips….do Autonational support and recover EVs? Yes we do!