Electric Cars Still Struggling

According to this story in the Daily Mail, electric cars offer motoring at less than 2p per mile.

Likewise, if I win the Lottery I won’t have to work any more. But we have to be realistic.

You see, the problem is that there is nowhere to charge them. The government published the results of a 12 month trial involving 40 electric Minis covering a total of just over a quarter of a million miles. The average daily travel distance was 30 miles.

Almost all charging was done at home. Most of those involved in the trial said that a network of charging points was essential. Or in other words, those involved in the trial HAD to charge at home because there was nowhere else to do it (except for those in London, of course).

Nissan announced at the same time that it was installing a charging point (Wow! One whole charging point) in Lincoln after Top Gear showed that there isn’t one there when they ran out of juice on their TV show.

The experimental results confirm that 72 percent of participants said they’d only managed (the story misses out the word “only”) because they could charge at home. And that’s something everyone seems to be missing – or concealing.

Look at the table below. On the left is the typical procedure for filling a petrol or diesel car. On the right are the various options for charging en electric vehicle. The realistic options involve waiting for a long time – either by going to sleep, or by queuing. A quick fast charge is highly unlikely.

There’s no two ways about it: electric cars are being talked up (especially at All Cars Electric and also at Business Green), but the reality is completely different. Even if there were charging points everywhere, waiting even for 20 minutes to get 80 miles range is too much.

And while we’re on the subject of talking electric cars up, 2p a mile might sound fantastic compared to £1.33 a litre – but that fuel price works out at 10-15p a mile on a typical petrol car. Electric cars might be cheaper to run, but not that much.