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Letter: Views expressed by New Forest resident were an attack on electric vehicles based on some of the most common, erroneous myths out there.




I AM horrified and disappointed in equal measure that you published the letter last week (A&T 24th Nov) titled ‘Having the electric blues’. This was not a letter based on detailed evidence or expertise, but an attack on electric vehicles based on some of most common, erroneous myths out there.

Let me respond in kind.

Figures are based on years of experience running major fleets, academic research and reliable experts. Personally I rolled out what was the largest electric fleet in the UK, with over 2,500 out of 7,000 vehicles pure electric, was in the top 10 most influential people in Green Fleet in 2022 and led teams which won Fleet of the Year in 2021 and 2022.

EV technology is advancing rapidly. Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto
EV technology is advancing rapidly. Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Purchase price: Pick a price range; but the same is true for ICE (internal combustion engine) Vehicles! A new Vauxhall Astra petrol starts at £25,795 and a Rolls-Royce Phantom starts at £369,020. So this comparison is meaningless. If you look at private lease costs (which give a very accurate comparison due to including purchase price, residual value and service / maintenance) then a recent comparison I did for a colleague showed an MG4 Long Range EV costing £392.18 per month over four years while a Vauxhall Mokka 1.2 Turbo £471 per month over the same period.

Insurance: Again pick a figure. My EV cost £365.89 this year.

Weight: So what if an EV weighs a bit more? The causes of potholes are the heavy vehicles (damage to roads being the 4th power of weight) and water ingress.

Depreciation: All new cars depreciate fast. The amazing things about EVs is that they retain value to end of life. This is because the batteries have second life purpose in building battery storage and then still more value when they’re recycled. My example is always that my EV has a 64kWh battery, a Tesla PowerWall battery costs £7,500 for around 13.5kWh of storage – so basically I’ve bought a battery and got a car for free!

Battery Life: Degradation is much lower than modelled. New batteries are expected to last beyond the life of the car (which is around 13 years in the UK).

Range: The average car in the UK does approx 7,000 miles a year based on government figures, so 135 miles per week. My EV does 290 miles on a charge in the summer and 260 in the winter (mainly due to battery chemistry being affected in cold weather not the heater), so around two weeks average driving per charge.

Servicing: Major fleets see a reduction of between 35-70% on cost depending on their commercial model. This is because there is a much simpler drive train and less wear on brakes etc.

Tyres: In my experience tyres lasted longer across our EV fleet than ICE fleet. I’ve just changed my first set on my EV at 36,000 miles.

Fires: ICE vehicles are 20 times more likely to catch fire (SCCA) and all the major car fire instances recently in the news were due to ICE vehicles.

Range: see mileage point above. EVs charge where they ‘sleep’. The average car in the UK is driven 3% of the time, therefore it can be charged the rest of the time. There are 79,564 public charge connectors in the UK currently and around 920,000 EVs. So one charger per 12 cars (which given they’re driven 3% of the time…).

And, of course, cost and emissions weren’t mentioned! My EV costs me two pence per mile in ‘fuel’, at today’s average unleaded price of £1.49 / litre a car would have to do 338mpg to match that.

EVs have zero tailpipe emissions, improve air quality, and the break-even point for emissions in total (given slightly higher manufacturing emissions) is 16,000 miles – or just over two years in the UK.

Simon King

Pilley



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