Electric Cars: The Expert Q & A Guide

By Peter Henshaw

A simple, straightforward guide to buying your first electric car. Why go electric now when other fuels are still widely available? What are the pros and cons? How do I charge it? What public or private charge point options are there? Are electric cars really greener than petrol/diesel cars? How do electric cars work? All this and more is explained with a minimum of jargon and tech speak. With a look at electric motorcycles, classic cars, records and racers, this handy guide is a must-read for anyone interested in the future of personal transport.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Veloce
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781787117853

Peter Henshaw

Peter Henshaw has had an enthusiasm for anything with wheels – from bicycles to 500bhp tractors – from an early age. He was editor of Motorcycle Sport & Leisure for five years before going freelance, and now contributes to a range of transport magazines and websites including The Vintagent, Bike Social, Tractor & Machinery and A to B. He has also written over sixty books and is an all-year-round motorcyclist who does not own a car.

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Introduction & Acknowledgements

Introduction

If you are thinking of buying an electric car, then you are not alone. Electric cars aren’t the mainstream choice yet, but they are heading that way, as the reality of climate change, and the legislation needed to mitigate it, begins to impinge on everyday life.

Their numbers are increasing fast. In 2013 there were only around 3500 electric cars in the UK – by late 2020 there were well over 160,000. Sales had increased by 168% that year, and they more than doubled in the EU as a whole. In December, Britain’s best selling car overall was electric – the Tesla Model 3. In Norway, petrol and diesel cars had dwindled to just 10.5% of new sales in November 2020. Worldwide sales are just as dramatic, thanks to the fast take up by China – 2.2 million electric vehicles were sold across the world in 2019, with more than 7 million in use.

The Nissan Leaf, the first mainstream electric car when it was launched back in 2010, has since sold over 500,000 worldwide. The Leaf’s development over the years shows how EVs (electric vehicles) are improving fast as the technology develops. The first Leaf had a 24kWh battery – the 2020 version packed 62kWh into a smaller space, offering a bigger boot, better driving experience and nearly three times the range.

Manufacturers have responded to that rocketing demand, ramping up the number and variety of models on offer. Not long ago, buying an electric car meant narrowing down your choice to just a few models, but over 200 were on offer in the UK during 2020, and over 300 expected by 2025. The range has blossomed as well, to include everything from small hatchbacks to sports cars, luxury saloons and SUVs. Significant new car launches in 2020 included VW’s ID3, the Mini Electric, Vauxhall Corsa-e and Fiat 500e. One thing we can be sure of is that there are many more new electric cars to come.

Why go electric?

For most of us, the electric car is still an unknown quantity – petrol and diesel cars (also known as ICE, internal combustion engine) are still the mainstream choice. Fossil fuel is still freely available, you can buy as much as you want and a vast infrastructure surrounds petrol/diesel cars, which makes them very convenient to use. Given that, it’s understandable that most of us want to stick with the familiar technology we grew up with. So why change at all?

There are three basic reasons – climate change, legislation and the ownership experience. The scientific evidence for climate change is now well proven and it’s a good enough reason to make the change to electric cars on its own. The response of governments to this immense challenge is increasingly stringent legislation. Most governments around the world have accepted the need to change, so legislation to restrict ICE cars and encourage electrics is on the way – some of it is already here.

Many countries have already announced a date when new ICE car sales will end. In the UK, it’s 2030 (2035 for hybrids), having twice been brought forward. Several countries, including Germany and Holland, have also gone for 2030 while Norway is set to ban new ICE sales in 2025. The EU is aiming for zero or low emission cars to make up one in five new sales across Europe by then, and 40% by 2030. In short, for petrol and diesel, the end is now in sight.

So why make the switch to electric now? Why not wait until 2030? The approaching deadline means that ICE residuals will begin to decline well before then (diesels already have, having never recovered from the emissions ‘cheating’ scandal of 2015). It’s likely that, as the move to decarbonise society as a whole accelerates, ICEs will face higher taxes and increasing restrictions on where they can be used in urban areas.

Of course, stopping new car sales won’t mean the immediate disappearance of petrol/diesel cars from our roads, because millions will still be around. But as the supply of cars drops off, oil companies will begin to ramp down fossil fuel production and start closing filling stations. Inevitably, the residual value of ICE cars will start to suffer before these bans are enforced, perhaps years earlier, because the fuel infrastructure will decline and they will become less convenient to use – they may even become socially unacceptable in urban areas.

Electric cars are increasingly common on Britain’s roads.

Many cities already charge a toll for ICE vehicles while exempting electric cars, and some are planning to ban ICEs altogether in the coming years. In 2020, the EU announced a new fleet average of 95g CO2 per km (previously 130g) – for every gram over that limit, the car manufacturers have to pay an extra tax of €95 on each and every car produced. Multiply that up, and manufacturers could face fines amounting to billions of euros. So they have a good incentive to sell us electric cars.

These first two reasons for going electric – climate change and legislation – make it seem like a distress purchase, but the third reason is good news. Put simply, electric cars are more affordable than ever before, with a longer battery range and faster changing. They are easy and good to drive, quiet and sophisticated. After an initial downturn, residual values are rising in parallel with demand.

For all these reasons, as well as practical advantages such as lower running costs and ease of driving, not to mention zero tailpipe emissions, changing to an electric car makes a lot of sense.

Electric cars are not a silver bullet solution for the future, but they are a practical alternative, and part of the much bigger solution to the challenge of climate change and dwindling global resources. This book is a no-nonsense, practical guide to buying your first battery electric car – making the change might seem scary, but if the owners we have met are any guide, no one ever regrets it.

Note: Throughout this book, we often refer to electric cars as EVs (electric vehicles) for short, and to petrol and diesel cars as ICEs (internal combustion engine). Every new technology has its jargon …

Why decarbonise?

Climate change has become a buzz phrase of the 21st Century, and for a good reason. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that it is happening now, the result of man-made fossil fuel emissions, already leading to catastrophic changes in the climate – floods, droughts, storms and