James Titcomb, writing in the Telegraph, has spotted a hugely regressive factor involving electric cars. And the faster the Government pushes us towards EVs, the more drastic the consequences. The problem is the driveway divide which he discovered after buying his own EV:
I have an advantage in the electric transition: the humble driveway. Unlike almost half of the country who live in terraced housing or flats, my dwelling has a dedicated parking spot where I have been able to install a wall-mounted charger.
In a petrol-powered world, the driveway divide did not matter. Whatever one’s domestic circumstances, we all had to queue up at the forecourt and pump fuel into our vehicle every few hundred miles. In the electric age, meanwhile, driveway ownership divides motorists into haves and have-nots.
There are obvious convenience benefits to being able to charge up domestically. Leaving the house with the equivalent of a full tank every day and never having to visit a petrol station easily outweighs the moderate inconvenience of charging on the occasional longer journeys.
But the main advantage of charging from one’s own house is financial. On today’s smart overnight tariff, charging a battery from empty to full costs less than a fiver. In comparison, filling up an average family petrol car costs £75, according to the RAC Foundation. A full tank will go further than a charged battery, but the difference is still huge on a per-mile basis: around £2 to drive 100 miles in the EV, compared to £14 for petrol.
This has always been the promise of electric cars, even for those unconvinced by the environmental factor: while the car’s sticker price may be higher, you will save on running costs in the long-run.
That calculation, however, has completely broken down for those who are unable to plug in at home. While the rise of smart meters and EV-only energy tariffs mean charging at home costs almost nothing, soaring electricity prices have led the price of public charging to hit an all-time high.
Powering up at an ultra-rapid station costs the equivalent of £28 for 100 miles – almost double that of a petrol car – and this has risen significantly in the last two years. Slower chargers, such as those placed in lampposts by councils, are slightly cheaper, but not by enough to make EVs financially viable. Supermarkets and other shops that once offered free charging as a way to get people in the door have stopped doing so.
When electric cars are both more expensive to buy and more expensive to run, owning them makes little sense. No wonder, then, that the EV-owning class is disproportionately those with dedicated parking – 93% of people who have given up their petrol-powered vehicle have a home charger.
When those without a driveway – estimated at up to 40% of the population – have no financial incentive to own an electric car, it should not be a surprise that ownership is so far behind official targets.
Something Titcomb doesn’t mention is the prospect of a whole new type of protocol also. EV owners who’ve driven a long way will turn at up relatives’ or friends’ houses expecting to plug in on arrival, rather than filling up at a local petrol station, won’t they? Adult children rolling up for the weekend will do the same. It’d be as if in the old days the host was expected to have half a dozen cans of petrol waiting in the porch.
This means well-heeled homeowners with offroad parking and plug-in facilities, despite being rinsed for free volts by their guests, can offer electrical hospitality. After all, you could hardly send your guests off to pay vastly more at a commercial charger, could you? Meanwhile, those without drives will have no choice but to send Uncle Jack and Auntie Nancy off to some rip-off plug-in facility at a nearby shopping centre. Unless of course they’ve had the good sense to hang on to their petrol car.
It’s another way EV cars and the mandates could divide Britain even more than it already is. And, big surprise, now it’s a Labour Government doing everything it can to accelerate the imbalance.
Titcomb concludes:
One way or another, the pavement tax will need addressing before the majority of the population is forced on to EVs. If not, electric car mandates will become even more unpopular than they are now.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Britain will become a “laughing stock” unless hybrid cars are banned from 2030, Net Zero lobbyists have said. According to Electric Vehicles U.K. (EVUK), allowing some hybrid cars to remain on sale after 2030 would be a “catastrophic misstep” and hold back the rise of EVs. It comes after the Government pledged to bring forward the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 to 2030 but made an exception for certain hybrid vehicles to remain on sale.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.