If that happens, there will be a huge stampede for cars in 2034 
And the car repair business will do very well.
Those of us (well, many of) with loads of money and space will be driving EVs long before then, but what about the rest?
Anyway, it’s not impossible. As with other EU directives like ROHS (which caused an absolute uproar – google for the Swatch business… didn’t work for Swatch, predictably as Swatch is non-EU so ripe for shafting 
) what is today called “impossible” can become possible if the cost can be spread around, most preferably within trade (B2B) so the end user doesn’t see it directly.
I mean, we know EVs do work. There is just a vast landscape around them which doesn’t work. But it can be solved. The problem is that there is a cost. The Q one needs to ask is: who pays for it. With ROHS, the industry scrapped € billions of finished products, € billions of components (a lot of these got quietly used up, in the exemptions, and often in the US ), redesigned a fantastic number of products, and eventually everybody paid extra on top of anything electronic. 20 years later, the issue has passed, assisted by vast exemptions like “control and monitoring equipment” which, hey ho, is just about everything that isn’t a phone and a total lack of enforcement in most countries, and this huge cost has been sunk into general inflation. The military keep an exemption because their stuff has to work. And many really loved it: design engineers loved it… bread on the table at home, for years!
Quite how they will address the (my guess) > 50% of the population which cannot use an EV, will be interesting. Again, at some vast cost, you could provide loads of charging points. And build the power networks, and build new power stations.
Another big part of it is that any half decent car (like my VW) will easily do 20 years. So you are looking at 2055…
Peter wrote:
If that happens, there will be a huge stampede for cars in 2034
You are certainly right about that one, although the industry will by then probably have a much reduced capacity at producing conventional cars, at least in Europe. So foreign manufacturers might benefit disproportionately.
Peter wrote:
Those of us (well, many of) with loads of money and space will be driving EVs long before then, but what about the rest?
In cities the stated political aim, in Germany at least, is to discourage private car ownership. People are supposed use bicycles, walk or use public transport, with car-sharing supposed to provide for the allegedly rare cases where one still needs a car. But our cities are still built around cars, so this will require heavy investment to reshape them. Some cities like Copenhagen or Amsterdam are way ahead and people bike everywhere.
In the country, space is usually not the limiting factor and many will be able to use BEVs instead of ICE cars.
Peter wrote:
Quite how they will address the (my guess) > 50% of the population which cannot use an EV, will be interesting. Again, at some vast cost, you could provide loads of charging points. And build the power networks, and build new power stations.
That’s the stated aim of the German government, to invest in infrastructure around EVs. But the scale of the task is certainly daunting. Labour shortages and bureaucracy hinder a fast transition to a new transport infrastructure.
NicR wrote:
But lets assume I had to pay for everything, at the worst case scenario it would have cost £369 to drive 14,141 miles in the year.
But how much did you have to pay for the two EVs?
£369 to drive 14,141 miles
That’s unreal, surely. Something big is missing.
Sounds like a guy I know who has a 6kW wind turbine, and (my guess) 50k’s worth of PV panels, getting totally free EV driving.
MedEwok wrote:
In cities the stated political aim, in Germany at least, is to discourage private car ownership. People are supposed use bicycles, walk or use public transport,
That sounds awfully like China was before their own industrial revolution… now add boiler suits and distribute the little red book and Chairman Mao is going to smile in his grave.
IMHO, it won’t be possible to outlaw cars without serious consequences and not in any current form of democracy. As long as people get to vote and to elect their governments, it will be very difficult for any such state to pull through with this. Maybe people don’t realize yet that they are relegated to be pedestrians after 150 years or so of mobility, but once they do there will be a massive surge of political unrest. Clearly, what some of the radicals have claimed is that “saving the planet” won’t work with democratic means, so maybe elements of those governments are willing to really get to the point where they will try to suppress democracy in this manner.
Peter wrote:
Quite how they will address the (my guess) > 50% of the population which cannot use an EV, will be interesting.
I was looking around the used car sites here a bit. the mistake many do is to equal EV = Tesla, which are hugely expensive. You can find used EV’s such as Nissan Leaf or the various Citroen and Peugeots for less than 10k EUR, including battery (Some manufacturers sell you only the car, the battery is rented). That is achievable for most households. The question remains about charging infrastructure, particularly for those who have no dedicated parking or garage.
The general question will also be, what kind of car is essential to use for most people. I’d say lots of them can do with cars which have an operational range of 200km, for their daily commutes and shopping trips, including the possibility of charging at work or where you shop. So I could see a scenario where people have an EV for short range daily commutes and keep a ICE driven car for the few times they do longer travel.
Certainly the issue will have to be addressed, Britain more than others must have understood that you can’t hack off 50% of the population without getting unpredictable results.
I did spend about €40k on an EV a year ago and I did use a calculator both before and after the purchase. The average electricity cost for me during the past year (taxes and everything included) has been €0.25/kWh. (And this was during a period where electricity prices have been at a record high.) Again during that period my car has used on average 18 kWh/100 km, giving an average energy cost of €4.50/100 km. A petrol-powered car of about the same size as my EV would be hard pressed to use even 5 litres/100 km, but let’s be generous and use that figure. The average petrol price during the same period has been €2.45/litre, for an average energy cost of €12.25/100 km. Using my calculator 4.50/12.25 = 0.37.
That calculation is driven mainly by huge motor fuel tax, an arbitrary invention of local government intended in this case to force you into uneconomical and/or uncomfortable behavior.
I pay €0.33/kWh for electricity and €1.05/liter for gasoline, both still highly taxed but for gasoline not to quite the same outrageous level as in Europe. So with the same cars and the same calculation, my ratio is 1.14 – the electric car would be about 14% more expensive for me to drive now, while electric prices are scheduled to rise again soon and gasoline prices will probably trend generally downward over the next few years.
In reality I drive a car that uses more fuel than the calculation assumes, because that’s what works best for me. The fuel cost is not significant to my overall budget. However in 2017 my new, full sized and useful gasoline car cost €20,700 total in the then-healthy and competitive US new car market, not €40,000, so based on 4.6% US treasury bill rate (that’s where I currently keep my non-invested cash) I’m also saving about €74 per month on cost of money, a small income stream but one that that pays about 1/3 of the fuel cost for my 2300 km of driving every month.
Certainly the issue will have to be addressed, Britain more than others must have understood that you can’t hack off 50% of the population without getting unpredictable results.
Indeed. Europe in its current state (including the UK in this regard) again reminds me of Republican Spain in the 1930s. When an ill informed and arrogant intellectual class imposes itself on large masses of people who may have a little more balance and common sense, it can surely spin off in weird and unpredicted directions that don’t help anybody at all. Be careful what you ask for, as the saying goes.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
You can find used EV’s such as Nissan Leaf or the various Citroen and Peugeots for less than 10k EUR
But what will the battery be like? The problem is that as they get older and older, the battery life will decrease. It isn’t yet really known whether, at e.g. the 10yr timepoint, the car remains useful.
Less than 10k is a start, but there are large parts of the used car market (in all countries) that operates at numbers well under half that.
MedEwok wrote:
People are supposed use bicycles, walk or use public transport, with car-sharing supposed to provide for the allegedly rare cases where one still needs a car.
Communist dream making a come back. Once most of the population will come to realize that ‘green party’ are just rebranded communists, that will most likely fall through. But who knows, people seem to never learn really, maybe it will take another 70 years of misery?
As I reported previously – I work above a large car dealership, which includes EVs – you cannot get finance an EV with a guaranteed final value (GFV) after 6 years. You can get straight hire purchase (i.e. an old style car loan) but no GFV. This is because nobody wants to stick their neck out on the batteries.
The problem with 2 cars – assuming you don’t otherwise want 2 cars – is the cost of keeping a car. Not just the road tax and insurance (a few hundred quid a year) but also servicing (a few hundred quid a year). And – as with planes – if you don’t use it regularly, lots of things will start breaking.
We could certainly make do with a little plug-in EV runabout, even one with a near-useless heater and aircon, for most of our driving. But there is absolutely no way on earth we are going to keep a second car just for long trips. Nobody will do that. And this is despite us being highly fortunate in having not only a double garage but also a sizeable drive in front of it.
Cycling is great until you get the crap weather which all of N Europe has for much of the year. Or, on a hot day, you arrive at work sweating like a pig. Another thing is that a growing % of the population is simply not going to ride a bike; they physically cannot. Also only very small parts of Europe have bike lanes, and the rest is too risky.
Less than 10k is a start, but there are large parts of the used car market (in all countries) that operates at numbers well under half that.
A friend here bought a used Fiat EV for $9K, the idea being to use it as a pure commuter to keep mileage down on his F350 truck. It works for that, and he’s happy with his “disposable” go-to-work car but the previous owner helped by paying $21K in depreciation plus sales tax over 25K miles. It’s otherwise a fairly useless car with very limited range. Local driving only.
@Peter everybody I know with an EV, without exception, keeps a second car for trips.
