Electric car apathy comes as no shock
A few months ago, Shaun McCarthy succinctly summed up the dilemma for fleet buyers over whether electric cars are a truly sustainable option for purchase.
This uncertainty and apathy has been borne out with news this morning that – even with grants of up to £5,000 to cut the cost – just 680 electric cars have been bought since the government launched a £400 million scheme to promote their use in January. It’s not exactly the ‘revolution’ heralded when the programme was launched.
Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, repeated the problem buyers face. “Despite the lower fuel costs associated with electric cars, the high purchase price means it will take owners several years to reap the financial benefits of not choosing fossil-fuel powered vehicles,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
In California they have a different problem. According to the LA Times, the state has run out of money to pay for $5,000 (around £3,100) rebates they were offering to buyers of electric vehicles. This has left a waiting list of around 500 people who have bought cars, but haven’t got their rebate. But experts believe demand is sufficiently high that people will not be put off by a lack of rebate.
And if these buyers fancy a right-hand drive model, I’m sure the UK government would be more than willing to offer them a good deal.
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Paul
Maybe the cars currently on offer are too ugly and have no soul?
Do you have an RSS feed I can subscribe with?
This is a personal opinion, but I don’t believe that it is apathy that is stopping electric cars being purchased in high numbers, but more the practicality of owning them.
An electric car would fulfil at least 90% of what I need a vehicle to do, but how many people/companies want only 90% of their needs satisfied? I am fully behind the sustainability agenda, but believe that currently, hybrid vehicles are the most environmentally friendly option.
If as a company you operate in cities and buy enough vehicles to have ‘city only’ vehicles, then some of your fleet could be electric, but the numbers may not add up, or this choice could/would be as part of a sustainability policy?
Electric cars are probably the future of motoring (or Hydrogen may be?), but it doesn’t seem to me to be just yet?