We Do Not Want
Electric Cars

The electric vehicle roll-out appears to be a disaster in the making. The car industry is understandably hesitant at backing a technology which appears to be unworkable on several levels and yet which is being foisted on an unwilling public. Meanwhile car manufacturers are kitted up to produce petrol and diesel vehicles which will go 300-400 miles on a tank of fuel, do not corrode, have ultra-low emissions and a performance which was unimaginable forty years ago.

No wonder so many people think electric vehicles are a really bad idea.

Electrification of cars was initially opposed by the car industry, but when politicians introduced deadlines for phasing out the internal combustion engine, they were obliged to go along with it.

Nevertheless the struggle is not yet over. Politicians drew up plans to electrify everything, regardless of effectiveness or expense. Now they face a public which does not want to buy. EVs are far too expensive, and the performance is inferior to that of a conventional car. Rowan Atkinson was right when he felt 'duped'.

Volkswagen, the largest car maker, has decided to stop EV production at its plant in Emden. 20% of its staff have been laid off because of poor sales. The VW ID.7 and ID.4 will both be delayed. The reason, according to Manfred Wulff of VW: "strong customer reluctance".

Ford has reported thousands of job losses in Europe after the switch to making EVs. Lordstown Motors in the USA, which only makes EVs, has filed for bankrupcy protection. Elon Musk has reduced the price of his Teslas several times.

It seems that the politicians are making a big mistake in forcing electric cars on the public. The industry is being told to abandon petrol and diesel vehicles (which most people want), and bullied into making a product on a colossal level for which there is little demand. It looks like being a commercial catastrophe. Toyota are hedging their bets, taking account of the cobalt/lithium shortages and will offer customer choice: petrol-diesel, electric and hydrogen vehicles, which seems a more reasonable approach.

The phase-out of internal combustion cars will be worse in the UK because the deadline is 2030, instead of 2035 as in the rest of Europe. Virtue-signalling is more important than good sense.

We also have a Grid which is struggling to cope with current demand. How will it deliver the extra 20GW or so required by electric cars? We face a dearth of chargers which actually work, the spiralling cost of electricity, and the limited range and enormous price & depreciation costs of EVs themselves.

This has not been thought through, and on present evidence, the Government is not capable of solving any of these challenges. As for the Labour Party, it is equally clueless on technical matters. And if you despair of the Tory Party's approach to energy generation - the Labour Party's is worse.

We need some engineers to take charge of this fiasco.

habitat21

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