When are you going fully electric?

I'd go FULL electric right now, if the Government actually gave a damn, and offered a REAL incentive to purchase, like 30% minimum subsidy, but as usual, it is a pathetic response, pathetic foresight, and a total lack of departmental motivation.

Having said that, I have no clue whatsoever about incentives offered in any other countries so for all I know, the UK could be amazing...(but I suspect not)
 
Trappi$t said:
I'd go FULL electric right now, if the Government actually gave a damn, and offered a REAL incentive to purchase, like 30% minimum subsidy, but as usual, it is a pathetic response, pathetic foresight, and a total lack of departmental motivation.

Having said that, I have no clue whatsoever about incentives offered in any other countries so for all I know, the UK could be amazing...(but I suspect not)
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£4,500 is a pretty good incentive as it goes. It’s on par with the highest direct subsidies worldwide and way more than most places.

Norway is probably the best overall, but that’s largely due to exemption from import duty and VAT, the latter is way higher than the UK.
 
The incentives are no longer £4.5k, it was cut recently to £3.5k. Still pretty good though, I agree. It probably won’t last too much longer as the cars naturally get more affordable and budgets are squeezed.
 
The technology should be subsidised sufficiently until it reaches maturity, whereby it'll be more attractive and desirable to a wider market, and won't need subsidising anymore.

The rate of take up could be much higher, but the current government aren't interested enough in seeing electric vehicles succeed quickly. State backing is important for many technologies at early stages in the life cycle (the internet, web and computing generally wouldn't have got far without massive government funding!).
 
I really don't see how take up could be any higher if the incentive was even tripled, almost all EV's are supply constrained* which means the subsidy and the market is working correctly. All increasing the subsidy would do is give the people who were going to buy an EV more money to do so and wouldn't result in more sales because there isn't any more cars to sell.

*I'm fairly sure there is a wait list for everything except a Zoe and perhaps an i3.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I really don't see how take up could be any higher if the incentive was even tripled, almost all EV's are supply constrained* which means the subsidy and the market is working correctly. All increasing the subsidy would do is give the people who were going to buy an EV more money to do so and wouldn't result in more sales because there isn't any more cars to sell.

*I'm fairly sure there is a wait list for everything except a Zoe and perhaps an i3.
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I’d have an I3s if it was another 5k cheaper....
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I really don't see how take up could be any higher if the incentive was even tripled, almost all EV's are supply constrained* which means the subsidy and the market is working correctly. All increasing the subsidy would do is give the people who were going to buy an EV more money to do so and wouldn't result in more sales because there isn't any more cars to sell.

*I'm fairly sure there is a wait list for everything except a Zoe and perhaps an i3.
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More demand = more investment in production. There's normally always a way of making more of something, though it obviously takes time to implement.
 
Fusion said:
The technology should be subsidised sufficiently until it reaches maturity, whereby it'll be more attractive and desirable to a wider market, and won't need subsidising anymore.

The rate of take up could be much higher, but the current government aren't interested enough in seeing electric vehicles succeed quickly. State backing is important for many technologies at early stages in the life cycle (the internet, web and computing generally wouldn't have got far without massive government funding!).
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It would struggle to be higher take up as it’s battery supplier dominated, global issue for the markets. Look at norway, huge sales driven by the taxation but now the market is normalised sales and dried up. Not something you would want exposure to on a wider scale based on whims of a government.... I’m living that dream now with diesels.
 
When hydrogen becomes mainstream, it's definitely the way forward instead of EV's.

Until then, I'll continue to do my bit to kill the planet with my rotary.
 
There is absolutely a future for hydrogen fuel cells but just not in normal passenger cars. It's been covered multiple times in this thread already, it has more of a place in heavy duty applications like trucks and shipping. While you can 'fill up' quickly, they are hugely complex, incredibly expensive and the fuel isn't easy to produce and often not environmentally friendly (but would shift emissions from town centres).

In addition the pull to a battery car for most people will be that they can fill it for 95% of their journeys at home for next to nothing over night. The amount of time the average person will loose having to go to a filling station is likely to be more than the few times they would need to sit at a fast charger for the off journey they do over 200 miles.

BMW/Porsche also just demonstrated a 450kw charging system just last week that can fill a 57kwh BMW i3 from 10% to 80% in 15 mins (first 100km/62 miles in 3 minutes) at a minute fraction of the complexity of a hydrogen fuel cell system. The chances of them catching on for light vehicles is pretty slim.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-n...-porsche-is-as-fast-as-filling-up-with-petrol

That being said this is of course a prototype and I have no idea how well the cells with last if you did that to them on a regular basis, not very long would be my guess at the moment.
 
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles aren't bad. They're just very, very late to the party. Proponents have spent the last 15 years espousing the technology's virtues, stating time and again that the technology is 3-5 years away from breaking in to the mainstream. They're still saying the same thing now.

The current industry prediction is that cumulative HFCV sales will hit 2 million, with annual sales of around half a million, by 2030. BEVs passed both milestones some time ago. By 2030, cumulative BEV sales are expected to hit 125 million, with annual sales in the 10s of millions.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
I really don't see how take up could be any higher if the incentive was even tripled, almost all EV's are supply constrained* which means the subsidy and the market is working correctly. All increasing the subsidy would do is give the people who were going to buy an EV more money to do so and wouldn't result in more sales because there isn't any more cars to sell.

*I'm fairly sure there is a wait list for everything except a Zoe and perhaps an i3.
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There's definitely a waiting list for the Zoe, I ordered mine at the start of August and its still not here
 
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