Essex Police has dropped its investigation into Allison Pearson. Chief Constable Mark Hobrough, the National Police Chiefs’ Council hate crime lead, will now conduct an independent review of the force’s handling of the case. Here, ex-copper Dominic Adler gives an insider’s view of what has likely been going on behind the scenes, where, as he explains, the process is the punishment.
Hello. I’m here, as promised. I’m like the baddie in an 80s straight-to-video horror movie who just won’t die.
I was summoned back to Substack by the drama surrounding the journalist Allison Pearson (disclaimer: I’m a fully paid-up member of the FSU). Yet again, the police are clumsily tying themselves in knots around ‘hate speech’ and freedom of expression. This time they’ve wandered into battle, like a Hi-Viz Don Quixote, against (as Mark Twain put it) “people who buy ink by the gallon”.
As Homer Simpson might say, D’oh!
This stuff falls broadly into my old policing grid square. I’ve also, er, investigated journalists (you can read about it here). If you aren’t familiar with Allison Pearson’s story, it goes something like this.
Ms. Pearson is a Right-of-centre journalist (so Right-wing that I remember her endorsing that populist hardliner Penny Mordaunt as leader of the Conservative party). A year ago, during the tumultuous period of online sparring over Gaza, she re-posted a tweet. The tweet was inaccurate and, an hour or so later, Ms. Pearson deleted it. I’ve seen the alleged post. In my humble experience, it isn’t actionable and unlikely to pass the CPS charging threshold.
I would also mention the many social media posts I saw supporting Hamas (a proscribed terrorist organisation) at the time. This is the stuff allegations of ‘two-tier’ policing are made of. Read my take on that here.
Then, on Remembrance Sunday, two coppers appeared at Ms. Pearson’s door to inform her she was under investigation for either (a) a notorious Non-Crime Hate Incident (NCHI) or (b) an offence under s.17 of the Public Order Act (i.e., publishing or distributing material encouraging or likely to encourage racial hatred; actually s.19, but we’ll let that slide). This is disputed, but Essex police assure us they’ve body-worn camera footage proving they never mentioned an NCHI. To be fair, I suspect Essex police are correct – an NCHI wouldn’t require a police interview. On the other hand, given the infamy of NCHIs, I wouldn’t blame Ms. Pearson for the mix-up either.
The officers asked if Ms. Pearson would confirm a date to attend a police station for said interview. They failed to inform her precisely what the tweet was, or the identity of the complainant (although they used the term “victim”). There are legal reasons for this, but police officers not explaining procedure is pretty par for the course nowadays.
I suspect the ignominy of two coppers turning up in person at a journalist’s door, on a Sunday, to enquire about a year-old tweet is a significant part of the story. People don’t see coppers from one year to the next, especially out in rural Essex where Allison Pearson lives – notably if they report a burglary or a car break-in. But an ancient tweet that might have offended someone? Form a squad.
Although, in fact, it was probably an appointment car using a quiet Sunday morning shift to offload someone else’s admin. But as I said before the police tend not to shine when it comes to explaining themselves. Someone with their head screwed on, a moderately intelligent supervisor, should’ve looked at the crime report (in my opinion, he or she should have hit the No Further Action/LOB button) and thought, “Hmm a respectable journalist with no previous convictions. Someone should ring her on Monday morning, explain the situation and ask her in for interview.”
Would that have killed the story? No, of course it wouldn’t. Would it have taken some of the heat out of it? I suspect it might have. Something I learned working on the telephone-hacking saga? The process is the punishment. It’s occasionally difficult to see that as a police officer. It’s just procedure, right?
Anyway, even Keir Starmer (I suspect through gritted teeth – he’s a career human rights aficionado) commented on the story, suggesting the police should get a sense of proportion. So this isn’t an issue where only one side of our dull-as-ditchwater culture war is upset. Julie Bindel, a lifelong Left-of-centre radical feminist, had a police visit for her views on trans issues. In that case, the complainant was from Holland. I wonder if the Dutch police forwarded the allegation? I doubt it. This is bullshit. I’m Generation X, so I’m probably showing my age here.
Personally, I find the social media landscape full of foaming-at-the-mouth bloviators of every political persuasion. (1) I generally defend their right to free speech and (2) neither Allison Pearson nor Julie Bindel even begin to feature on my list of foaming-at-the-mouth bloviators. They’re both legitimate journalists and commentators.
And here we are. If the police aren’t trigger-happy, extra-judicial killers, they’re woke snowflakes or sinister Stasi wannabes. How did they get so hung up on NCHIs rather than NHCIs (Non-Hate Crime Incidents, my new term for non-subjective offences like burglaries, assaults and robberies)?
I find myself spirited back to 1999, shortly after the publication of the Macpherson Report. Macpherson had just concluded the Met suffered from Institutional Racism; the service was in a flat spin. We all knew something had to change. It really was a watershed moment.
I also remember the atmosphere among senior officers at the Yard, the palpable sense of ‘Do Something, Now!’ The panicky, ‘form a squad mentality’ that often bedevils policing. A magic solution, one allowing the Met to go to the Home Office and deliver repentance on a silken cushion.
At the time, I was serving in Special Branch. We’d been given the job of collating stats, 24/7, for a newly-formulated racial incident response. Our Scotland Yard Reserve Room’s old MSS printer (oldies – remember those?) churned out reams of paper as police officers dutifully reported incidents meeting the nebulous Macpherson criteria: “A racist incident is any incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.”
Perceived. Any other person.
Some complained this was a charter, albeit well-intentioned, for those seeking to score points for political or personal reasons (although to suggest such heresy was frowned upon). We knew this would happen. And it did.
The printer whirred. The latest report arrived, from a suburban police division: a member of the public complained she’d overheard one child calling another a “poppadom” in a school playground. Yes, something you’d expect a teacher to deal with was now reported to Special Branch. It was duly logged, added to the statistics one side or another would use to justify strategy ‘a’ or policy ‘b’. And, most importantly, for the Met to prove the police were doing something about an seemingly intractable societal problem.
That was in 1999. Millions of words have been written about racism and policing since. We’re now at a point where the ratchet only moves one way: campaign groups such as BLM have made millions arguing for the police to be disbanded. Marxists, uninterested in property rights? Never.
English and Welsh law concerning ‘hate speech’ is covered by a number of overlapping pieces of legislation. There’s a textbook to be written about this, but not by me – my posts tend to be long enough already. What I will say is the Public Order Act 1986, especially s.4 and s.5 (concerning threats and insulting words and behaviour) needs rethinking, along with s.19. Indeed the entire body of law probably requires codifying.
Or perhaps not.
Can you imagine the result? An orgy of human rights lawyers, like sharks in a tank full of offal? We’d end up like North Korea, but run by David Brent.
Then there’s the corpus of self-serving academic work concerning hate speech, which isn’t at all biased, honest guv’nor. To deliberately misquote Brendan Behan: “I’ve never seen a problem an academic couldn’t make worse.” The more I read this stuff, the more I detect the heady aroma of problem-creation-to-justify-my-next-research-grant. More hate = more conferences, books and warm fuzzies. If the 20th Century was all about the ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ then the 21st surely belongs to the ‘Academic -Grievance Culture Complex’.
I remember a decade-old police NCALT distance-learning module on Sexism. Distance-learning is totalitarianism on the cheap – you’re required to indoctrinate yourself. Apparently, one minute you’re calling a female colleague ‘love’. Then, soon afterwards? The world’s gone all The Handmaid’s Tale. As the old meme goes: “‘That escalated quickly!“
As someone who worked as a domestic extremism investigator for nearly eight years, I found it risible. You know, the kind of extremism involving rioting, arson, intimidation, the vilest sort of racism, Blood and Honour music, violence, vandalism and (yes) terrorism.
And so, behold Allport’s infamous “pyramid of hate“, the 1950s survey of refugees from the Second World War that forms the basis of police NCHI policy. It’s the pyramid I saw in that distance-learning package all those years ago. Critics argue it’s evidence-light in a modern law enforcement context (ex-cop Harry Miller certainly persuaded a court that was the case), but think about The Vibes.
But what would I know? Well, as someone with relatives who perished in concentration camps, I consider the College of Policing definition of what constitutes ‘hate’ insulting and increasingly one-sided. However, let’s hear the argument, because I’m a grown-up. Nobody has the right not to be offended.
With this in mind, are Non-Crime Hate Incidents really nothing more than an oppressive construct, invented by our new Establishment overlords to make themselves feel virtuous? Perhaps, although I’m sure they believe they’re on the side of the angels. I also think NCHIs are part of Macpherson’s legacy and the long march of critical theory in academia and, from there, into our institutions.
Contemporary hate crime allegations are also potentially oppressive because ‘the process is the punishment’ (i.e., being investigated and the administrative grind that entails, not to mention the cost of legal representation). Your name is also added, in the case of NCHIs, to a state-sanctioned shit-list.
Conveniently, though, the modern iteration of hate crime happens to dovetail nicely with other theories fashionable in modern policing; for example Performance Management and ‘Harm Reduction’. Let’s not even start on the shadow puppetry I witnessed being used by the police side of Prevent (interventions, anybody?) If you know, you know.
Solving crime is tough, often unrewarding and occasionally risk-laden. Not to mention expensive and resource intensive. On the other hand, escaping operational policing to invent a ‘toolkit’ to prevent fashionable new offences (for which you’ve created an entire performance empire)? Genius.
Feed the monster. Populate the spreadsheet. Ace the promotion board. Senior coppers are like mice – they simply follow the cheese, however ridiculous the maze.
NCHIs and the like are a symptom of the virus infecting our public services (quite a few of my posts are read by people working in the NHS, who tell me their experience is similar to mine). It’s one of overt politicisation, groupthink and grinding, process-obsessed managerialism. The death of discretion. The fact this is, ostensibly, designed to make people ‘nice’ to each other is neither here nor there.
Why?
In case you haven’t noticed, the more hate speech laws we create, the more resentment seems to fester. People don’t like being bullied or told what to think. Especially not by the Old Bill.
At the Essex police Gold Group, the Chief Constable and his team might find themselves hiding behind a shield wall of policy, best practice, College of Policing diktat and virtue-signalling. I wonder if they ever ask themselves a simple question: why are we even bothering with this bullshit? Do the taxpayers of Essex want us to spend our time on this stuff? Why don’t we just concentrate on, you know, policing?
It’s because, whatever Keir Starmer might warble about proportionality or commonsense, the ghost in the machine is whispering something else in senior officers’ ears. And until that ghost is exorcised, nothing will really change.
Dominic Adler is a writer who was a police officer for 25 years. This post first appeared on his Substack page. Subscribe here.
Stop Press: Toby tweets:
I’ve just learnt that Essex Police have decided to take no further action against Allison Pearson, following the intervention of Luke Gittos, a top criminal lawyer paid for by the Free Speech Union.
As widely reported, two police officers turned up on the Telegraph columnist’s doorstep on Remembrance Sunday to question her about a tweet, although they wouldn’t say which one or who had complained. It later emerged it was more than a year old and had been deleted by her the next day.
In the offending tweet, Allison accused the Metropolitan Police of having double standards because they’d refused to pose with her holding up a British Friends of Israel flag, but had posed with a couple of South Asian men holding up a green and red flag whom she described as “Jew haters” – and she attached a picture. When she learned it was taken a year earlier in Manchester, not London, and the flag holders were in fact delegates of Imran Khan’s political party, not Hamas-supporting pro-Palestinian protesters, she deleted it. Nevertheless, she was told on her doorstep that she’d need to make an appointment to go to the local police station, where she would be interviewed “under caution”.
Allison is a member of the FSU and we immediately got Luke on the case. Thanks to his intervention, Essex Police have decided to drop the whole thing. Essex Police should never have investigated this tweet in the first place. It didn’t come close to being a criminal offence, which they’ve now effectively acknowledged. I hope the public outcry over this huge waste of time and resources means Essex Police will go back to policing our streets, not our tweets. It’s not their job to investigate newspaper columnists for wrongthink.
If you think there’s a risk the police will turn up on your doorstep about a social media post, join the Free Speech Union. We’ll have your back.
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Great concise article. I would’ve snorted audibly.. This guy is good to follow on the EV BS…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqVFTEFvSBA&ab_channel=GeoffBuysCars
A lifelong pal of 60 plus years informed me this week that his son-in-law and daughter have ordered a VW ID Buzz. (No change out of 60k sterling). In addition, an elecric charging point is being fitted to their detached house.Before I could voice an opinion, I was informed that the son-in-law “had done his homework and was pretty clued up on the topic.” Carrying three children and three dogs for limited mileage, local journeys obviously necessitates forking out 60k then, as only the VW is up to the task.
Seldom has my ‘flabber’ been so ‘ghasted’. In the interests of harmony, I remained schtumm.
For the same reason, I’ll resist the temptation to forward this article to them.
More money than sense – springs to mind.
My little Skoda failed its MOT a while back – due to ’emissions’. The garage ran a fuel system cleaner through it and it passed the retest. It was 19 years/125,000 miles old at the time – and has passed 2 tests since with no problems.
Does anyone know what sort of things BEVs fail for? Or are they still too new for many to be failing? What do people need to look out for – apart from dents?
It seems it is mostly battery problems. The batteries being underneath are prone to damage, if for example, the car bumps up onto a curb and hits the bottom on the curb stones.
Another problem is electronic problems.
They are heavy on brake pads and tyres because of the extra weight and high torque motors.
They are heavy on brake pads and tyres because of the extra weight and high torque motors.
Most (possibly all) of them use regenerative braking.
I live in the West Country in an area which tends to flood quite regularly when we get prolonged periods of rain. If I had an EV my ability to drive anywhere would be severely restricted due to the risk of driving through any depth of floodwater.
I’m a firm believer in old diesel bangers. They do get expensive as they get older but a diesel VW Passat estate like mine which is 17 years old still rolls along very nicely. I don’t tend to do many long distance trips but it is certainly up to it. The problems ahead, apart from the obvious wear and tear on an old car, lie in the ever narrowing goal posts of the MOT. What was acceptable last year has or is changed: ‘cos climate, innit? Against such odds we can’t win. They want to get rid of the old car stock and in the same breath make EVs so expensive that ordinary people can’t afford them and the outcome of that is we don’t have cars: job done.
“the outcome of that is we don’t have cars: job done.”
That’s it in a nutshell Aethelred.
They will incur the people’s anger in due course. If they take away our freedom, hard won over the past 150 odd years, they who do this will be punished
Let’s hope so, Grim.
The British people’s anger! They are as sheep based on the majority of the public’s gushing servitude to COVID’s freedom sapping rules.
Correct. And Khan (or whoever) will steadily tighten the ULEZ restrictions, so that once the “low hanging fruit” has been forced off the road, they will start charging the next tier of emissions.
The slow-boiling frog strategy: so all those people not resisting the tyranny because they think their cars are OK will soon find out that Pastor Niemoller was right…..there’ll be no-one left to fight for them.
And you Vill be happy!
Electric cars are the greatest example of Hutber’s law, deterioration marketed as progress.
And that’s what I love about the commenters here…you get to learn something new every day. Never heard of Hutber’s law. Thanks Wokeman.
A bit off topic, I see the Grauniad have been having a go at Heat Pumps and how they are a magnificent success in Norway. I’m currently in Norway at my mother’s modern house. She has a heat pump and it works ok with underfloor heating. That makes a LOT of difference. I can really see underfloor heating being put into UK housing stock with ease NOT!!! Not to mention the issue of cheap electricity here, largely modern housing stock and plenty of space so no grumbles about noisy heat exchange unit fans outside. But, heh, what do i know?
My next door neighbour had to replace their underfloor heating system after 10 years due to leaks. The heating pipes are embedded in concrete so replacement meant the use of pneumatic drills. They went away for a week, it was their poor s*d of a neighbour who had to put up with it one hot summer.
They sold the house a few years later and another poor s*d bought it. When winter came and he turned the heating on water poured through the ceiling and we both realised why the original owners were so keen to move.
He had it repaired and when the pressure was turned up leaks appeared downstairs.
He had radiators and a conventional CH system installed as the far cheaper option.
That is what you get with retrofitted underfloor heating, even in a house that was designed for it at the outset.
That absolutely nails it! Take an inferior product, wrap it up in a shiny new box and a slick advertising campaign and sell it as being better than you’ve already got! Ev scam perfection!
You can’t polish a turd!
I’ve not much idea about what components are required in an EV, but I’d suspect it can’t be much more than a battery, a control module, and a motor (or motors). So that’s far less to repair, replace and service. The engine on a diesel/petrol vehicle has hundreds of parts that could fail, and that’s ignoring all other parts like radiator, alternator, fuel pump etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the whole EV thing is a joke atm, but I don’t think this article is an accurate comparison of total costs over time at all. I certainly wouldn’t use this overly simplistic analysis to argue against EV – I’d be setting myself up for a fall.
“The engine on a diesel/petrol vehicle has hundreds of parts that could fail, and that’s ignoring all other parts like radiator, alternator, fuel pump etc.”
Except that nowadays these parts don’t fail with any regulatory.
True. But they fail less frequently, that’s not the same as never failing. A service still requires the replacement of oil, oil & air filters, water, engine coolant, fuel filter etc. That’s a service alone, not considering the failure of one of the many other mechanical parts that an EV doesn’t have. I’m merely saying that there are other considerations that this article doesn’t account for and I wouldn’t use the simple calculation of battery costs vs fuel costs.
So you replace the part, not the whole essence of the vehicle, the battery!
Let’s not forget an ev is a battery with a car wrapped round it!
Insight: Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have to junk the whole car https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/scratched-ev-battery-your-insurer-may-have-junk-whole-car-2023-03-20/
The batteries can fail, Geoff buys cars was talking about this the other day;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaRlAV18iaI&t=16s
In theory you should be able to repair failed batteries, in practice all too often all people are simply offered a replacement at £15,000 or more. Also, the electronics are quite complex and people have had EVs where the computer says NO and nobody can get it to change its mind.
The electronics shouldn’t be much more complex than what’s in a standard car these days, it’ll be the software that’s more advanced. Anyway, I’m not professing to know exactly what the 10-15 year difference in running costs for an EV vs petrol/diesel car is, but it’s more complex than the article suggests. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not trying to promote EV’s; personally, I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.
“more advanced” = more failure prone
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-wind-farmers-wring-yet-more-cash-out-of-the-taxpayer/
Paul Homewood over at TCW with his weekly round-up of eco nuttery.
Electrickery prices are only going one way.
Well, knock me down with a feather! More anti-EV propaganda.
And quite right too.
Can you be surprised that here on a site for ‘sceptics’ we are sceptical of what is being promoted and thrown at us all due to the biggest lie of all, the lie of global boiling/warming/whatever? If you have a point in favour of EV, maybe now’s your chance to engage in some robust discussion.
Did you ever consider being sceptical about the anti-EV PoV? If you are only sceptical of opinions you don’t like then that amounts to “I only want to hear/read stuff that supports my PoV.”
If you have a point in favour of EV, maybe now’s your chance to engage in some robust discussion.
I have tried that from time to time and mostly I just get personal insults (but not this time I admit)
Did you ever consider being sceptical about the anti-EV PoV? If you are only sceptical of opinions you don’t like then that amounts to “I only want to hear/read stuff that supports my PoV.”
The trouble is that the use of narratives to push “liberal democracies” where the people don’t necessarily want to go is not a symmetrical question. The scepticism almost necessarily comes from one direction. That is because TPTB need to be devious or underhand, whereas (most of the time) those arguing against the view being pushed don’t have anything to gain by lying.
What was the motivation of those arguing against the vaccines or against lockdowns? The question of whether you believe Chris Whitty or Dr Peter McCullough revolves to some extent around your view of their respective motivations.
That is because TPTB need to be devious or underhand,
You are assuming your point of view is correct to justify biased scepticism. TPTB don’t need to be devious or underhand if they telling the truth, if vaccines really are effective and safe then that is their motivation right there. No doubt many of those opposed to vaccines sincerely believe they are ineffective/unsafe but that doesn’t mean they are invulnerable to scepticism. We all have to struggle to base our beliefs on the evidence not evidence not beliefs.
Guilty as charged. I guess it depends on how you view the world. I (naively, it turns out) viewed “western liberal democracy” as a force for good, and the media as a vital cog in the machine, holding power to account (Watergate, for example).
Sadly, once trust or integrity is lost, it can never be regained. Such is my attitude now (post the covid years) to Government, media, public health – and even my GP.
To be frank, no, but come on, if you have an argument for them, go ahead, I’m happy to engage.
Just to be clear, I am not sceptical of the anti-EV position because I can see the lie of global warming and the whole march towards Agenda 21 of which it is a part. EVs are being promoted as something to ‘help fight climate change’ and personally I think it’s a load of b*llox.
Also, I have never said “I only want to hear/read stuff that supports my PoV.” – you did by putting words in my mouth. The whole concept of being sceptical is about having doubts and questioning things, it is not about ‘things I do not like’ it is about ‘things I don’t believe’. Two very different statements.
Just to be clear, I am not sceptical of the anti-EV position because I can see the lie of global warming and the whole march towards Agenda 21 of which it is a part.
Don’t you see that is my point – you are not being sceptical about position X because you “know” X is right. But how would you ever know if X is wrong if you not sceptical about it?
Also, I have never said “I only want to hear/read stuff that supports my PoV.” I never said you did. I said that being sceptical about one side only of a debate amounts to that position.
The whole concept of being sceptical is about having doubts and questioning things, it is not about ‘things I do not like’ it is about ‘things I don’t believe’.
Of course – I couldn’t agree more. But refusing to be sceptical about one side of a debate is rejecting scepticism in favour of things you like.
But it is only one side of the debate that is being forced down my throat. There is only one side of the debate that tries to coerce me into changing my car, changing my central heating, changing what I eat, changing if I can fly and how often, what fuels I can use, and almost every other aspect of my life. ————-I don’t feel I need to be much in the way of sceptical about the side of the argument that doesn’t insist on changing everything I do –and leaving me poorer and colder.
Jim, can you state what’s factually incorrect about the article which you’re describing as ‘propaganda’?
You could start with the cost of batteries (see my earlier comment )
It gives you a good opportunity to share with us your pro-EV propaganda, so what stopped you?
Maybe there is no ’pro’?
Any good that requires taxpayer subsidies and legislation to force people to buy it, has no ‘pro’.
16p per kWh.
It is foolish to imagine that cost will not increase, not least as the grid becomes overstretched with demand as (if) the number of BEVs increases.
Lost excise duty, VAT, green taxes from motor fuels will be transferred to electricity for battery chargers. And commercial charging points will become even more expensive.
It is an example of the topsy-turvy World of the Net Zero fantasy. Normally as a market develops, end-user prices fall as demand increases due to economy of scale and profit motive of suppliers to supply more, and more suppliers enter the market.
But in our screwed-up electricity sector, suppliers cannot supply more because they cannot manufacture more wind or sunshine. Infrastructure costs increase without sufficient revenue to cover cost and return in capital. New suppliers wont enter the market as there is insufficient return on investment. See lack of enthusiasm for off-shore wind licences and demand for higher subsidies to take up licences.
The market goes into reverse. The higher the demand, the more supply decreases, the higher go end-user prices in order to ration by price and lower the demand.
Then Govt will step in because ration by price ‘unfair’ to the ubiquitous ‘poor’. So ration books. More Govt intervention with subsidies and taxes to give to the energy providers to stop them going out of business.
The good news is, BEV owners won’t have to worry about replacement costs of batteries, because even after 5 or 10 years, their batteries will be so little used they will be as new.
Great piece, Mark – thank you.
A follow up article elaborating on the numbers behind the last paragraph would be genius if you had time and appetite.
Once the commissioning and decommissioning of so-called “renewable energy” generators is taken into account (children mining cobalt, effluent offrun, cost of transport, burial of defunct wind turbines, leaching of their toxic concrete bases into land and sea for decades to come, etc, etc) we are looking at the anatomy of a social and environmental catastrophe.
And all for a small number of people to make a very great deal of money.
Scraping it at 120,000? You’ve got to kidding! With ordinary maintenance a diesel will be good for 200,000 plus, I know, my last one did and is still on the road now on its way to 300,000. My current diesel is at 130,000 and still going strong, only just had it first cam belt.
Cobblers to scrapping perfectly good cars at that small mileage, that definitely doesn’t save the planet!
For a reality check look at the actual costs of replacement batteries. I have no idea why that couple were screwed by Tesla.
If you buy a new EV now you are not going to have to pay for a new battery for about 8 years (Almost all new EVs come with an 8 year/100,000 mile warranty on the battery and I am sure driving in the rain does not invalidate the warranty.) In the course of 11 years (2010 to 2021) battery costs came down by about 90% – how much less will they cost if you have to replace them in 8 years time?
Also why compare this to the cost of a new fuel tank? I have never had that problem with any car but I have had plenty of far more expensive repairs.
How many evs will most buyers have had within 8 years? 2 or 3 maybe? The reality is evs aren’t bought they are leased on a 3 yearly basis so what happens to all the resources that have gone into building one only for it to be used for 3 years and then no one wants a second hand battery car!
All in all, they cost the earth and the so called owner!
no one wants a second hand battery car!
Used battery electric vehicle (BEVs) sales continued to soar in the second quarter, growing by 81.8% to 30,645 units, representing 1.7% of the market – a new record – up from 1.0% last year.
A small beginning, but then it is new technology, and very fast growth.
In order to shift unsold EVs many dealers are pre-registering new EVs and then selling them as ‘used’ demonstators, It begs the question as to how many secondhand EV sales are real secondhand sales.
When you say “many dealers” how many and how many EVs are they selling this way?
Also, why is it easier to sell a used demonstrator than a new car at a reduced price?
A two year old Taycan is now worth about 50 grand, new was 110 ish, you won’t see any for sale at that price, just look in the adverts and they’ll be many many of these so called second hand taycans for sale at around 90 to 100 grand! It’s just a con to shift them, if so popular, why so many available? Don’t take my word for it check out the auto ads, any you like!
Uhm – I am afraid I don’t move in the world of Porsches. They are hardly representative of the market. Look at adverts for say Nissan Leaf or Kia Soul and second hand prices are very varied and there seems to be a lot of them.
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/cars/uk/nissan/leaf
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?advertising-location=at_cars&aggregatedTrim=&body-type=&colour=&fuel-type=Electric&make=Kia&model=Soul&postcode=SO20%206EU&sort=relevance&transmission=&year-to=2023
But really we need data.
The very fact “there seems to be a lot of them” is the problem, dealers can’t shift them! If ,like any well respected brand, they were that good, you’d have a job getting one!
That doesn’t follow at all. We have concrete evidence the market is growing fast.
Concrete, from whom? Surely not governments and msm?
Please say you don’t believe all their shyte!
See my link above.
Better way of putting it than I did!
That’s just books cooking and you know it mate! Most evs for sale aren’t second hand, they are new ones that haven’t sold ,then discounted usually with just a few 1000km on them run up by the sales staff just to get rid, it’s just a well known con when products won’t shift
Evidence?
I’m not going to search for links but just visit : the mac master : geoff buys cars : Mguy TV and especially: Auto expert, John cadogan to see real life info to back up all I say
John Cadogan is incredibly intelligent and groaning under the weight of degrees in engineering, and very entertaining too!
I am sure he is very intelligent and knowledgeable and fun but some blokes you tube channel is opinion not evidence. Be sceptical and demand to see the evidence.
Oh my, the whole article above is real world evidence and you chose not to see it! A true evangelist! No one will convince you otherwise, I’m done here!
Oh my, the whole article above is real world evidence and you chose not to see it!
We were debating the market for second hand EVs. The article doesn’t mention that at all!
The kind of evidence you seem to pay attention to! Msm evidence
Insight: Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have to junk the whole car https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/scratched-ev-battery-your-insurer-may-have-junk-whole-car-2023-03-20/
What evidence have you that CO2 is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate? You always want everyone else’s “evidence”, so where is yours? And ofcourse without that evidence there might not be any use for electric cars, or at least we would not all soon be coerced into them. —-And remember that computer models are not “evidence” and consensus or opinion is not evidence.
Hear hear EVs are a “solution” (not) to a problem that doesn’t exist.
At the dawn of the age of the motor car, I imagine there were many loquacious horse and carriage owners sceptical of the new machines, not believing their horses would be replaced in the years to come. Would one have wasted one’s breath and ink arguing they were wrong, or would one have left them to their delusions and let the market and history judge?
P. S. I’m a climate change sceptic and anti net zero.
That’s the problem! No one forced ,or paid you ,to scrap your horse and cart, neither did they offer hugh incentives/ subsidies to get you to buy a car.
The buyers bought them on merit not subsidies and bans! Simple as this, take away government subsidies/tax breaks and evs sales would fall flat on their arse!
I agree there should be no subsidies or tax breaks, but EVs will still take over as they become cheaper.
With current technology EVs will not take over, it may well be that the technology, especially the battery technology changes and improves beyond all recognition and that may make EVs more usable but we do not have that technology yet.
Also of course, there is the question as to whether we can generate and distribute enough electric to power EVs. We have been told we cannot have an EV charging point in in our village car park because the electric supply into the village will not support it.
And there were no garages in your village when cars first came along.
If evs become more common then more battery materials will have to be mined, that means much much more mining worldwide just to get cobalt,lithium, copper etc that will likely mean more expensive in the fight for raw materials!
And don’t forget, they’ve been promising the latest ready to go new battery tech for 40 years evey since the invention of the lithium iron battery and nothing can yet beat its energy density and efficiency! Don’t hold your breath if your expecting new tech to save the day!
Batteries that are unrecyclable by the way. All that effort, mining, processing, transportation, assembly etc and then landfill. Unless the manufacturing process and battery technology don’t improve significantly and doesn’t require the labour of children, the poisoning of the water and land, EVs should be shelved. It’s all a big green lie anyway.
Yep but no one had to be bribed or coerced into giving up their horse and cart. The advantages of the motor car were perfectly obvious.
Joe: 15p a mile for use of the battery and 4p a mile to fill it up – a total of 18p per mile. That’s more expensive than my petrol car at 14p per mile!
By my reckoning 15p plus 4p equals 19p.
And don’t forget the tyre replacement costs. Bound to be higher given the increased weight,
And the airborne particulates which is higher from a soft compound ev tyre! Zero emissions? My arse
“By my reckoning 15p plus 4p equals 19p”
Nah it’s all changed now!
Greenwash————-The Utopian Green fantasy world has many believers and is probably now the third biggest religion in the world. Like all other religions it is more about faith and emotion and the will to believe rather than any facts and reason. You see the believers insist that renewables are now much cheaper than coal and gas. ——–But they are really only praying that they are. A quick look at their electric bill over the last 10 years will reveal the very opposite, but the Green Lord acts in Mysterious ways.
There was a bloke on GB News with Martin Daubney yesterday representing the EV industry blatantly lying saying EVs are cheaper to run did Daubney question him? Did he heck!
Incredible what these people are getting away with.
EV’s are the Betamax of the automotive industry.
Good analogy!
“Geoff Buys Cars” does some great videos on YouTube. One is a race between a diesel BWW and an EV from John O’groats to Landsend. EV took extra 9 hrs and cost twice as much, spending 6 hrs waiting for charging.
There is so much hype and politics around all electric cars that it is almost impossible to get a true evaluation. More information is finally coming out. Basically they are neither environmentally friendly nor sustainable as being sold. It takes 7 years of use before an all electric vehicle emissions falls below that of an ICE vehicle. This is due to all the emissions involved in manufacturing and mining. Manufacturers continually inflate their range. One car expert who has owned a Tesla 3 for many years & who loves the technology & car, basically states that although the car is rated as 340 mile he has never been able to get anymore than 200 miles. The other limitation is that you must have your own house and private charger. For practical purposes you must also travel less than about 130 miles per day. All of the hype & politics never address the real problems of electric car ownership. They are being hyped as a panacea to reduce emissions, the same as wind turbines.
15 + 4 = 19 not 18.
Just saying!