British Tories are attempting to force consumers to buy electric vehicles.
I wrote the other day about the way that Britain’s command-and-control Tories are attempting to force consumers to buy electric vehicles even before the prohibition on the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) from 2030. That’s five years before the EU’s somewhat shaky 2035 deadline, for reasons basically attributable to the unlamented Boris Johnson’s vainglory. He thought it was going to set an example to the world and give the British EV market a flying start . . . or something. The chaos this accelerated version of an ill-planned and reckless transition will cause is just another part of the wreckage that Johnson has left behind him.
As I explained, the way the system will be phased in is by “rationing” the amount of new ICEVs manufacturers can sell in the next few years. The size of that ration will shrink as 2030 draws closer.
In free markets, manufacturers have to work hard to attract customers. That “dialog” between consumer and manufacturer helps spur innovation. With a captive, coerced market, manufacturers do not have to try so hard. West Germany’s auto manufacturers produced world-beating car after world-beating car. East Germany had a captive market place, and so came up with the Wartburg and, of course, the Trabant, an unreliable vehicle so diminutive that it was known as a ‘spark plug with a roof’.
And so to the U.K.’s EVs.
Electric car makers are advertising exaggerated vehicle ranges because the official testing regime does not accurately reflect real-world use, a large-scale study has found.
Independent testing of more than 70 electric vehicles shows that their actual range is nearly 20 per cent less on average than the figures put in manufacturers’ websites. That means an electric car claiming that it can go 240 miles is likely to achieve less than 200 miles before running out of power.
The testing, by the consumer group Which?, also found that the average electric car battery needs 15 per cent more power than advertised to become fully charged, meaning vehicles will cost more to run than expected.
The consumer group urged anyone thinking of buying a new electric car to be “sceptical” of the official range and conduct “rigorous” research before purchasing.
And then there’s this (via the Daily Telegraph):
Electric cars are being written off after minor damage to batteries, casting renewed doubt on their environmental credentials.
Roughly half of low-mileage EVs being salvaged have suffered minor battery damage — which can be caused by something as innocuous as mounting a kerb — according to Copart, an auction platform.
A senior source in the insurance industry said car manufacturers were not sharing diagnostic data because they were wary of third parties botching repairs. As a result, insurance companies are reluctant to attempt repairs and assume responsibility should anything go wrong.
“A lot of people are quite scared of what to do with them,” he said. “If a car is not powered down correctly you could get electrocuted.” . . .
The source said EVs could be sent to the scrapheap for minor bumps, such as mounting a kerb.
“In rare instances, the damage could even lead to a volatile situation,” he said. “The battery could catch on fire.”
Batteries are the most expensive part of an electric car, accounting for around 50pc of its value, and there are “only a few qualified technicians in the UK able to remove a battery, let alone repair it”, said Chris Payne, head of engineering at motor insurer LV.
The placement of the battery within an EV can make it more likely that it will be damaged in a minor accident, according to experts.
This includes EVs with the common “skateboard design”, which places the battery underneath the car.
Edmund King, AA president, said: “On EVs the battery can, in effect, form part of the chassis, so if there is serious structural damage it might mean the car is written off. . . .