You might see people arguing that an EV offering only 150 miles range is ‘just not enough’. But this ignores the fact that the average car journey is just 8.4 miles (according to government statistics) and the average family car covers only 130 miles per week. So going by these figures the EV offering 150 miles range only has to be plugged in once per week.

When travelling on longer journeys – the Luddites seem to be obsessed with driving non-stop from London to Cornwall – it is now very easy to plan recharging stops along the way. Everyone on a long journey will need to stop for a toilet break or cup of tea at some point, so just get used to the idea that these pit-stops could take a bit longer. Stopping for an hour to recharge is not that much different to stopping for lunch.

If you imagine a journey of 300 miles, an EV might take 7 hours (5hrs driving time at an average 60mph plus two one-hour recharging stops) whereas a petrol car might complete it in 6 hours (the same 5hrs driving time plus two 30 minute toilet and tea breaks).

That extra one hour travelling time is more than made up for by the fact that it probably cost you £20 in electricity as opposed to £70 in petrol. Even allowing for buying coffees and lunch you’re still in profit.

Another factor is the proliferation of public chargepoints in places such as supermarket car parks, high street locations and other public car parks. If you spot these it is always worth plugging in even if its for a quick top-up. If the car is going to be parked up anyway you might as well charge it.

As mentioned earlier, what is required is a change in driving habits. Before you know it, making allowances for these additional recharging stops will become second nature.

The post What is Range Anxiety and why do potential EV buyers worry about it? appeared first on Hydra EVC.

Calculating the running cost of a petrol or diesel car is fairly easy and predictable. You probably know what your average fuel consumption is and you know how much your fuel costs as you fill up at the forecourt. You’ll know roughly what your mileage is over any given period and how long that tank fill-up will last.

This is something most drivers have been doing for years and is second nature.

But with electric vehicles the parameters have changed so we need to change the way we look at running costs. Working out how much it costs to fully charge your vehicle’s battery is easy enough, just multiply the battery capacity in kW by the cost of the electric in kWh.

So if your vehicle battery has a total capacity of 50kW and your energy supplier charges 30p per kWh then it is 50 x 30 = 1,500 or £15. If that gives you a range of 180miles, for instance, the cost per mile is £15/180 = 8p per mile.

That is a very simplistic but easy way to calculate costs. The cost per kWh is the largest varying cost. You may pay your domestic energy supplier 30p but plugging into a public charger in a shopping centre car park could cost anywhere between 40p-80p per kWh. This doesn’t necessarily mean your running costs are doubled, though, as you might only plug in for an hour while you’re out shopping then plug in again when you get home so paying 50p or so isn’t going to break the bank, but it is worth bearing in mind.

Obviously there are other factors which can affect running costs. Just like weather, local traffic conditions and driving style will affect petrol consumption, the same applies to electric. Driving in winter at night with the heater on will shorten the range compared to driving in daylight in summer simply because everything is powered from the battery.

Comparing electric vs petrol, even in broadly average terms, show that there is a huge advantage with electric. If we go back to that example above the 180 miles range cost £15 on electric but with Petrol costing £1.70 per litre (at the time of writing) a Ford Focus returning 50mpg would use £27.80 in petrol, and that is being optimistic, frequently driving in traffic or around town is likely to increase the fuel consumption to around 35mpg which pushes costs up to £39.70.

Other factors to bear in mind when considering electric are things like road tax, insurance, parking, congestion charges etc. All of these can be lower for electric cars than similar petrol or diesel models.

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What this means, in stark volume terms, is that the current sales of 150,000 EV cars per year will need to rise to 2.5million annual sales just to meet the normal, existing demand for new cars. Not only will the vehicles and manufacturing facilities need to be ramped up but so will the EV charging infrastructure.

This transition is the biggest policy change to affect the UK population since decimalisation in 1971. Renaming the Marathon chocolate bar to Snickers just pales in comparison. Can we cope with such a swift transition?

We can and, quite frankly, we must. The law is in place. Those die-hards can harrumph all they like but the EV sector is here to stay. Other countries have shown willing, in Norway no less than 70% of all new cars sold are already electric. In Germany the increase in EV sales has been almost four-fold.

New Models.

Many manufacturers have progressed from replacing the petrol engine with a battery pack and motor and gone straight to developing new electric only models. While electrifying familiar and existing models certainly helps those too nervous to embrace completely new technology it also, arguably, held back development by allowing people to look at a direct comparison between a petrol powered car and the electric equivalent. The higher price and perceived shorter range just highlighted negatives while promoting few of the positives.

Developing completely new models with no direct petrol/diesel equivalent both helps potential buyers focus on the beneficial aspects and help manufacturers remove the limitations imposed by trying to fit a form of propulsion into a vehicle not originally designed to use it.

New EV models and improved versions are now coming to the market in a steady stream from almost all manufacturers. The current choice of pure EV models range from the smallest city runabout right up to sportscars with a seven-figure price tag and everything in between. There’s no doubt you should be able to find a car that fits your needs and budget.

From a charging infrastructure standpoint the current estimate is that there are approximately 500 EV chargepoints per 100km of public road. Informed estimates suggest that this will need to rise to over 1,000 chargepoints per 100km to support the increased use of Electric Vehicles.

While it might look like the UK is quite a way off that target you could also look at it and say we’re already half way there with another eight years to go before the switch to pure EV sales comes into effect.

Replacing the fuel tax

The conundrum for central government is how to balance the target of Net Zero emissions by 2050 (a big part of which is forcing the switch to EV transport) and the loss in revenue gained from fuel duties.

The UK government currently receives £28billion in fuel duty per year, the equivalent of roughly £1,000 per household. While this will not instantly disappear in 2030 – petrol and diesel cars will still exist – the total tax take will reduce year on year.

Making up for this shortfall has not been openly discussed by those in Westminster – MPs are very cautious of discussing rises in tax! – but other local and regional governments have raised the issue of road pricing using ANPR technology (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) similar to that used for the Congestion Charge and Low Emission Zones in London and the Dartford Crossing tolls.

Although the technology does not yet exist to charge a vehicle owner for every mile they drive instead of relying on them driving past a roadside camera, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that it could be deployed in the near future.

Black-box systems are already in-place for young drivers and corporate fleets which log vehicle usage as well as driving charateristics. However this is usually private monitoring where there is a direct benefit to the young driver (reduced insurance premiums) or the company (better fleet management). Attaching a ‘black box’ that feeds data directly to central or local government is an entirely different prospect which opens up concerns about privacy and potential misuse.

There are currently many incentives in place to make it easier and financially beneficial to switch to EVs. Drivers are firmly used to the perception of the ‘low tax’ environment for Electric Vehicles as well as the much lower running costs. Applying new taxes too early could stifle the uptake of EVs, applying it too late risks losing revenue for government.

The conundrum remains unresolved . . .

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It may be interesting to note that the Electric Vehicle is not a new thing at all. In fact the first battery powered vehicles appeared in the early 1800s. At a time when most large transport was steam powered and the general public were limited to horsepower – quite literally – a few ingenious individuals explored the opportunity of powering personal transport with electricity.

It is hard to pinpoint the exact birth of the industry as several innovators across the world were working on their own inventions. The UK, Hungary, Netherlands and USA all claim to have nurtured early adopters.

In 1898 Ferdinand Porsche , yes THAT Ferdinand Porsche, designed his first car, The P1 or ‘Porsche No.1’, also known as the Egger-Lohner electric vehicle C.2 Phaeton model, in Austria. The P1 promised amazing performance at the time and a quite respectable range, even by today’s standards. The 2.2kW motor propelled the vehicle up to 22mph and offered a drive time of four-to-five hours or 50miles.

In September 1899 Porsche entered the car into a race in Berlin and crossed the line a full 18 minutes before the car which came 2nd. He went on to develop this vehicle further to create the world’s first hybrid car using an electric motor and battery in conjunction with a combustion engine which powered the generator.

By 1900 Electric vehicles were enjoying their best ever sales, accounting for roughly one third of all vehicles sold worldwide. Even New York City, USA, had a fleet of more than 60 electric taxis.

The same considerations and benefits of electric vehicles were recognised over 100 years ago as they are today. Ease of use and clean to use with no emissions at the point of driving. Petrol combustion engines, on the other hand, were very hard to start, notoriously difficult to drive with their complex gear changes and foul exhaust emissions.

The death knell for further development of the EV was pronounced with the discovery of more oil reserves and Henry Ford. In 1900 an EV would cost around $1800 and was heavily dependent on battery charging facilities, much as modern EVs depend on the charging infrastructure today.

Henry Ford’s Model T gave buyers the option of personal mobility, without the horse, for under $700. The rest is history. Petrol and diesel powered transport pretty much took over until the turn of the 21st century.

However EVs didn’t go away, they have been used almost continuously in certain specialist industries ever since.

Those of a certain age will all remember the electric milk floats which delivered milk to our doorstops every day. These were perfectly suited to electric power: Silent in use, very short range required and able to carry very heavy loads.

In underground mining operations, too, the electric motor was much preferred to the combustion engine where safety and fire prevention measures are paramount.

Fritchle Electric

In 1905 one of the best selling cars, of any type, was the Fritchle Electric. Costing more than 6-times the price of a ‘normal’ Ford Model-T the Fritchle appealed to the well-heeled and those who wanted to stand out.

Offering to propel six people at heady speeds of 14mph for a total range of 100 miles a Fritchle costing $2000 could be delivered within 10 days of ordering.

Oliver Fritchle set up a publicity stunt in 1908 driving 1,800 miles from Nebraska to New York City in one of his cars. It took him 20 days and he charged the battery along the way at whatever charge points he could find.

21st Century EVs

The Toyota Prius was launched in Japan in 1997 but not exported worldwide until 2000. This petrol/electric hybrid offered the best compromise at the time of emission free driving in town with a petrol engine backup. Adopted by celebrities and other influencers (this was before ‘influencer’ was even a thing) The Prius became the go-to option for ‘green’ transport.

Six years later a small startup named ‘Tesla’ announced it had built an electric-only sports car which offered a 200 mile range (shown below). Tesla used lithium battery technology – similar to laptop batteries – which turned out to be far superior to the nickel-hydride used in the Prius. The leap in technology was momentous and cemented Tesla as the world-leading EV manufacturer which other car manufacturers used as a benchmark.

Interestingly Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, offered the EV technology and developments patent free to any vehicle manufacturer which wanted to use it. His only stipulation was that those manufacturers could not, in turn, register patents of their own which could limit the development of EV technology. Few manufacturers took him up on his offer but most do now offer similar tech to power their own EV fleet.

Reva-G-Wiz

Billed as the worst car ever made the G-Wiz was an ill-fated attempt to develop an electric solution to urban transport. 

Built in India it promised transport for two adults and two children with a range of 50 miles at speeds of up to 50mph. In reality you’d be hard pressed to fit one large sized adult in the car and the paltry 13kW motor would struggle to get you to much over 30mph never mind 50!

The real concern – performance and range aside – was safety. It had all the structural integrity of a discarded fast food carton and the shoddy build meant you’d get wet whenever it rained.

Reva continued to update the car with better AC motor, batteries and brakes but it just never delivered anything that it promised. It briefly achieved the honour of being the best selling electric car in the world. But back in 2008 there was very little competition. 

Legally classed as a quadricycle it could be driven on the roads by a 16 year old but no self-respecting teenager would be seen dead in it.

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