Re: A pragmatic view?
I'm a current EV owner (only had one for 5 months) and a massive petrol head, I always said I'd never buy an EV or hybrid. I drove 3, one was overpriced and uninspiring, another was plain awful, the final one was simply one of the finest handling and performing cars I've ever driven in 30 years of having a driving licence. Needless to say which one I went for!
30 mins to get 70% charge in at Sainsbury's is rather optimistic unless your local Sainsbury's has a much better charge rate than the two near me which can only put in 3.5Kw/h (around 10 miles of range / hr) or unless you have a very small battery. The motorway fast chargers can do that, and are superb. Basically I can half 'fill' my car in less time than it takes for me to have a large coffee & a pastry.
I hear a lot of complaints about not being able to charge at home, and I'm afraid that for many current apartment dwellers and terrace house owners with no off road parking at the back, this is an issue which I hope will be addressed in the future with charging at employers and at shopping centers. What we need to do is get planners to ensure that homes being built today have off road parking, there is precious little reason to give planning permission to a house builder who does not have off road parking for at least 1 if not 2 cars. All apartment developments should also have similar provision. If the Government is serious about trying to get people into EV's in the future, they have to start thinking about this now.
As for range anxiety, it's not on my radar. I can comfortably drive 200 miles on a single charge. I've known high performance cars that can't do that on a tank of fuel. I can commute for almost a full week on a single charge, and most places I go to have accessible charging facilities.
The infrastructure is still not perfect, but remember we're trying to make a fundamental change to a fuel station infrastructure that's built up over a century, and we've only been installing these charge points for a handful of years. We're doing pretty well. Ask yourself this, how many petrol stations were in the UK in 1911? That's ten years after the first Wolseley rolled out of the factory. EV's have only been widely available for 5 years in the UK, so we're doing pretty well. I agree that EV's aren't the answer for everyone, but they are an increasingly valid option and will only improve (at a far faster rate than petrol or diesel cars) over the next few years.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
