Government hints that plug in car grants could be cut

[FROSTYBALLS]

https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/government-hints-it-could-be-about-to-scrap-plug-in-car-grant-for-ev-buyers/228591?utm_source=Car+Dealer+Magazine&utm_campaign=ea5354e9bc-CD_Daily_Briefing_20_July_2021&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e969a44e74-ea5354e9bc-53634362&mc_cid=ea5354e9bc&mc_eid=150b8479e9

[Catlover]

Interesting.  Maybe the thinking is there are now more manufacturers marketing electric vehicles let them cut prices as production cost drop. Let the market develop itself.

[Cyker]

This should surprise no one - I'm surprised it lasted this long! They always start cutting them just before the cars start getting worth having. If it follows the same trend, the right time to buy an EV will be about 5 years after they cut grants for it 

I've never liked these grants - IMHO the sooner they go the better; Total waste of our money!

They only benefit the rich, who don't need grants to buy such vehicles in the first place - Even with that pitiful grant, no normal person could afford such cars without an excessively long finance agreement.

The people they should be targetting are those that can only afford cars that are a few grand max - Those will be the people with the most polluting cars. Heck, if I had my way they'd provide a significant grant to everyone that bought a diesel car on their recommendation!

[AndyRC]

The really interesting issue will be how the Government (no matter who they are) fill the inevitable budget black hole of reducing fuel duty revenue as we move to a BEV future ? Even higher fuel duty for those polluting ICE vehicles?  Road Pricing per mile/time of day / day of the week? What’s for sure is changes are coming , like it or not. 🤷‍♂️

[FROSTYBALLS]

56 minutes ago, AndyRC said:

The really interesting issue will be how the Government (no matter who they are) fill the inevitable budget black hole of reducing fuel duty revenue as we move to a BEV future ?

At some point BEV's will need to be included within the fuel/road tax systems, and probably before 2030/35. 

How about a tax per kwh on vehicle charging - paid when charging via public charging points and a separate tariff when charged at home (smart meters could be modified to detect when vehicle charging is being used). 

BIK could also be changed to take account of business miles.

[AndyRC]

On 7/20/2021 at 2:12 PM, Catlover said:

Interesting.  Maybe the thinking is there are now more manufacturers marketing electric vehicles let them cut prices as production cost drop. Let the market develop itself.

The choice of pure electric vehicles is rapidly increasing, unfortunately very few are  sub £30k and generally with the smallest battery/range,  many are above £40k or £50k and upwards. What is noticeable is the number of BEV on the road compared with a couple of years ago. I’m looking forward to seeing the BZ4x when it arrives, hopefully it will have a decent range and not be too expensive. 

[AndyRC]

7 minutes ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

At some point BEV's will need to be included within the fuel/road tax systems, and probably before 2030/35. 

How about a tax per kwh on vehicle charging - paid when charging via public charging points and a separate tariff when charged at home (smart meters could be modified to detect when vehicle charging is being used). 

BIK could also be changed to take account of business miles.

I think all options will be looked at but with the technology now  in cars to track journeys road pricing of some sort would be a likely option, but I can see how a lot of people will object to having their driving being  “monitored”. 

[TonyHSD]

E cars benefits ends in 2025, where these will be treated with road tax, as mentioned some sort of fuel taxes and all other free parking, free congestion charge, low emissions zones, all will be scrapped. The BEV like we know now might have the shortest life of all cars and may well be abandoned like happened 100 years ago in favour of a new tech of power sources, like hydrogen fuel cell or new type of Battery technology. Here it’s an interesting video I like to share. 

 

[Cyker]

Yeah, the problem is I'm not seeing anything on the horizon to advance Battery tech any time soon and I fear we'll either be stuck with cars with less than 150 miles of real range as The Norm, or everyone will be driving giant land boats for a loong time.

We are literally using the same underlying Battery tech that we were like, 15-20 years ago! The only reason modern lithium cells seem to have more energy is they have pushed the boundaries of the safety limits and found ways to pack more in. The chemistry has hardly improved at all!

This pushing of margins is partly why the Kona and Bolt have been having so many battery fires lately - I was wondering how they managed to get so much range out of their packs, and partly it was because they have significantly more efficient drive trains than most other EV makers (4-5 miles/kWh vs 2-3 in Tesla and others), but it turns out they cut the safety margins to the bone and were using 95% of the pack's capacity, which is why they seem to be having such short lifespans.

Toyota were smart with their hybrids - They have maybe 80% of the battery's capacity available and the computer tries to keep it in the middle, so you're using maybe 40-50% on average.

Tesla learned from Toyota and also limited the capacity to 80%ish, and also encouraged owners to not charge to 100%, and also kept a healthy buffer at the bottom so if you went down to 0%, the car would shut off but still have maybe 20% of real power there to protect the pack from damage. Most other EV makers did similar.

From recent news, it's looking like this is what GM, Kia and Hyundai did NOT do, which is why after some years their packs are failing earlier than everyone elses - If you notice, their packs have lasted about the same as the average laptop Battery before these problems started showing up!

Remember when people were saying ooh you'll need to replace the prius battery after 2-3 years, just like phone and laptop batteries, but they turned out to last over 10 years and still work fine? This is the difference that management and safety buffering makes, which is why I don't like it being removed and advertised as an improvement.

 

I was hopeful for solid-state batteries, but at the moment they look like they will actually have worse energy density than 'wet' cells. It turns out the way they will get more capacity is what they've always done - Removing more safety systems and packing more cells into that vacated space! The thinking is that, since they don't have flammable electrolyte, we can just do away with the cooling system, pack them all together even tighter with less structural elements taking up space, and let them run as hot as they like and use more of their capacity! I think I'll let the early adopters find how well that works out...

 

And then there's hydrogen - Painfully inefficient to extract, difficult to store; It has all the problems of LPG and more, and we saw how well LPG succeeded... I can't see it happening. At least they have tried to address some of the issues LPG had and made the refuelling system connectors less awful, but it's still a pressure vessel so you have to lock the hose in; If it's worn or damaged getting it on is a pain, and if it's even slightly off it will leak, and from the condition I've seen of some petrol nozzles lately I imagine if a lot of people started using hydrogen we'd see similar problems with people damaging them. The difference is a dented bent petrol nozzle will still work... (If annoying to use because it clicks off much easier!)

Heck, even EV chargers have this problem in spades - I think one of the biggest problems with EV chargers at the moment is not how many there are or where they are, but their reliability; I've rarely seen a petrol pump that isn't working unless it's being repaired, or some exceptional circumstance like they've run out of fuel, but with EV chargers they seem like they're faulty more often than not! The one exception are Tesla superchargers - I rarely see these down; As much as I dislike Tesla for their business practices, they deserve credit for keeping a reliable charging network -  It's all well and good having a map of charging locations but if they're not reliable the map is useless!

I personally believe we need another 10 years before EV's are out of the 'early adopter' phase and are ready for the likes of us. Heck, it took Toyota 20 years to make hybrid that I considered worth my money!

I do feel I made the right choice blowing the money I was saving for an EV on this Mk4 - I can't see an EV getting close to the utility of this for at least a decade - I just hope it doesn't become the next diesel scapegoat in a few years time!