I don't disagree that that EV's are more expensive to buy but your not taking into account that they currently much cheaper to run than an ICE car once you have it in your hands. Fuel and servicing costs are greatly reduced. The increasing cost of fuel (filled up at £1.30/litre today) only helps the total cost of ownership calculation for an EV, but education on this matter is generally pretty poor, hardly anyone even thinks about total cost of ownership when making purchasing decisions. Just look at mobile phones, its often cheaper to buy a phone full price at launch and buy service separately than it is buying it bundled from a network. But hardly anyone does it.
Also you can get in a Leaf for £25k at the moment and the Model 3 will be below well £40k for the base model in the UK based on current prices. Even taking a poor retail exchange rate any of us can get it comes in at less than £35.5k before any EV incentive. ($35k/1.302+ 10% Tariff + VAT = £35,483.87).
I was taking fuel and other prices into consideration in that, one of the reasons I mentioned 25-30% reduction. It's also worth considering that unless you're financing or leasing the additional upfront cost may be hard to swallow for he average car buyer (again, not you're £50k+ car buyer but you're average car buyer looking for something in the region of £20k-30k max).
To use the Leaf as an example, it starts at a smidge under £30K (ignoring the incentive that brings it down to just over £25k for the moment). The equivalent ICE is the Pulsar which starts at £14k. That's around £15k difference, which works out as around 150k miles to break even with free electricity and todays fuel prices (double check my maths there, I could be wrong on the specifics). For most people, without incentives it's never going to make economic sense at the moment and even with incentives where they are available it only starts to break even over a reasonable time frame. There are plenty of places outside the UK that don't have any incentive, hence why I'm quoting prices without any specific incentive (and for the reasons discussed in the other part of the discussion).
Regarding the Tesla, I chose £40k+ because currently there is no evidence the base model 3 is going to be available for quite a while, possibly even by release in the UK, not that the specific price is totally relevant.
Agreed, apart from the second car thing. Hardly anyone routinely drives more than 100 miles in a day, the stats very much back this up.
Not day to day, but a significant proportion of the population do on a semi regular basis, families going on holiday is one example. Without a wholesale change in attitude to car ownership (renting a longer range vehicle a few times a year for example) the shorter range vehicles are only really going to be used as a second car for the majority of families. Like today it's likely most will have/want the 200+ mile leaf, Tesla, iPace equivalents as their main vehicle and the Zoe equivalents as their secondary vehicle.
Agreed the incentives can only go for so long, I don't think we are going to get price parity with EV and ICE for a long time especially at the cheap end of the market. But the increasing cost of fuel and the drive for lower emissions will only push EV adoption. There are also other technologies like solar and storage that will increase the demand. In reality the the UK and the US are well behind on EV adoption, look at the stats in places like China and Norway.
I really doubt we are going to get a step change in technology anytime soon but what will make the difference is regulation and the general will to stop burning fossil fuels. I also think the adoption rate for single car people as you describe will be much faster then 20 years (2038), bare in mind ICE cars and possibly hybrids (not yet confirmed but rumoured) will be band just 2 years later. No one is going to want to buy an ICE in 2035 let alone 2038, the residuals will be horrible. The new Leaf for instance will be suitable for the majority of car owners in the UK now let alone what will be available in 2025.
I agree, legislation and possible fuel price increases will certainly drive EV adoption, along with reduction in price (at least the aforementioned 20-30% so it makes economic sense over a reasonable timeframe, like solar now). Norway is a bit of an outlier, in part because of government incentives for EV's but also because ICE cars are about 30% more expensive there to begin with, reducing the price differential in a country with a much higher average income.
I hope so, but realistically how soon are reasonably priced large SUV/4x4 EV's with 300-400+ mile range in snow and -30 temperatures going to come out? Unlikely in the next 10 years at least. The stop gap is likely to be hybrids of some form as the tech/price just isn't there. Note I didn't say a single car household, but one car in that type of household (the other vehicle could easily be anormal EV).
Again, I'm not suggesting EV's aren't going to take off, or possibly be the majority of vehicles in 20 years time, but a pure EV world is unfortunately going to be a long time coming because of cost for a lot of people, especially the lower end of the market as you mention, and to a lesser extent just because they aren't going to be available for some time to come for every niche. Manufacturers are going to be making ICE related vehicles for a long time to come.*
All that will be redundant if we can significantly reduce the cost of EV vehicles in the nearish future. We can only hope!
*This is certainly something governments need to consider more seriously because at the moment those on higher incomes are benefitting from a significantly lower tax burden due to being able to afford an EV. In 10-20 years if the government increases tax on fuel, without increasing the tax burden on electricity then its going to impact lower income groups disproportionately.
