ELECTRIFIED FUTURE
It behoves me as an advocate for electric vehicles to respond to the letter by John Sampson (EV issues, March 2020).
Worldwide, petrol, diesel and hybrid car sales have been falling for the last few years (quite precipitously in some countries) while the sales of EVs are increasing. Unsurprisingly, hybrid sales are also collapsing as the last-ditch attempt by the legacy manufacturers to hang onto fossil-fuelled (FF) engines by including some batteries has not fooled consumers.
Many owners are waiting for the EV transition. Many of our friends – having seen and driven in our BMW i3 – are in this category. Every year this phenomenon will increase. This has now pressurised the mainstream car manufacturers to commit to and invest in EVs. This gets trickier as EVs get cheaper and better while FF cars become more expensive and complex to comply with emissions (and to compete in terms of performance). Profit margins are so low on new cars this could result in legacy manufacturers abandoning production of FF cars and obtaining their income from spares on older vehicles. An irreversible tipping point is imminent and will happen fast (as we have witnessed with PCs, smartphones, Amazon, etc).
Unless Mr Sampson is very old or believes somehow all these manufacturers will continue making expensive combustion-engine cars or sell at a loss to keep South African drivers happy, I think he is in for a
