EU trying to ban PHEV’s from 2025….

[nlee]

57 minutes ago, ernieb said:

My EV time is 83%.  For me it’s a lot of short trips with regular, every few weeks, bursts up and down parts of the M1. I’d suggest this is the ideal sort of driving pattern for a PHEV.

Long term not as good as you and Lawnmowerman but last month was 84% time, 75% distance and 141.6 mpg so very similar again.

[Guest]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:14 PM, APS said:

As Nigel showed, the power mix in the UK is made up from a significant portion of renewables. Currently there are only three coal fired power plants left in the UK. These are due to be closed in 2022 (Sept.), 2023, and 2024. 

Gas (and nuclear) can easily vary its output to cope with changes in demand. This is also where hydroelectric is extremely useful as it can go from 0 to 100% output in a matter of minutes. 

Advantages of electric cars? Lower service/running cost. Better reliability. Quieter. Much more flexible power delivery. You can generate your own energy. 

Thanks both of you. This is good to know. The grid is a lot better than I gave it credit for then.  

do you both think electric is here to stay then?  

[Rav Rob]

Although lots of private PHEV owners are doing very well with the majority of their local travel in EV mode and able to still do longer trips in the same car running on petrol....

Realistically the vast majority were sold to company car drivers to reduce BIK tax, its why I had one, and they are in the  majority in our company fleet. I guess the EU sees it as closing the 'loophole' by changing the emissions measurement method and handily raking in more tax too from the higher CO2 ratings.

But its not the EU killing off PHEV's, its fuel costs. Most our drivers can't wait to get rid of them. Whilst the RAV4 PHEV is an exception in that it can still do a commendable MPG purely on petrol power, most others can't, I have colleagues in BMW PHEV's getting 27mpg!!

Worse still... nearly every PHEV is sub 2.0L, companies paying AFR rates for business miles, an increasing number, only pay 15p a mile, so if they don't make 45mpg they lose money!

I have colleagues right now losing money from their own pockets driving for work!

The RAV with its 2.5L engine means you can claim 22p a mile instead meaning only need to do 30mpg to break even.

So whilst the RAV4 (and perhaps Ford Kuga) PHEV's still make a lot of sense for company drivers, almost everything else from BMW, Mercedes Kia, Hyundai, Citroen, Renault, Audi, VW, etc, etc, etc.. don't! due to engine size= low AFR. 

PS new AFR rates from 1st June, sub 2.0L 17p, over 2.0L 25p
 

[Roy124]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:56 AM, Broadway One said:

Hi all.....There are 1000's of retirees like me that welcome an intermediate transition to BEV.

At time of purchase I reckoned on a 5/10 year window for PHEV's.

Retired means mostly suburban miles with a longish journey now & again.

The RAV (46mls) with convenient home charging is the perfect fit in my case.

I have no desire to move to a BEV in the foreseeable. 

Barry Wright, Lancashire.  

  

This nails half the PHEV issue.  A retiree may do exactly this. 

The problem might arise with workers driving greater distances each day and less assiduous in plugging on.  Essentially they have got the wrong car. They would be better with a 300+ mile BEV. 

I fall between these profiles.  I don't want or afford to buy a RAV4 long range BEV.  But I do need a single day 150 mile journey per month and approaching 275 some times. 

The Hybrid suits me fine. 

[Rav Rob]

8 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

This nails half the PHEV issue.  A retiree may do exactly this. 

The problem might arise with workers driving greater distances each day and less assiduous in plugging on.  Essentially they have got the wrong car. They would be better with a 300+ mile BEV. 

I fall between these profiles.  I don't want or afford to buy a RAV4 long range BEV.  But I do need a single day 150 mile journey per month and approaching 275 some times. 

The Hybrid suits me fine. 

I nearly went BEV last year, so glad I didn't!   the company fuel reimbursement rate for EV's (AER) is only 5p per mile, whilst charging at the current 29p kwh, assuming about 3 miles per kwh means 9.5p per mile cost to me, I would only get half the money I am paying British Gas just to go do my work. When the price cap goes up again in October it will get worse a the HMRC is reluctant to raise the AER rate.

PHEV's are different in that employers tend to pay as if it was just an ICE car, so big incentive to plug in, getting paid 25p a mile whilst it would only cost me 9p in electricity for those miles, profit in my pocket! 

[Roy124]

RAV Rob, a few years ago I had a £1,000 cashback from Barclaycard and bought a top range Mondeo 2.5l.  HMRC had a per mile rate of 62.5p/m.  My tax relief was so high the HMRC did an investigation. 

All claims accepted 😁

[APS]

1 hour ago, SB1500 said:

do you both think electric is here to stay then?

Yup. It always has been. Remember, the first car (ignoring the French steam powered 'trolley') was electric and made in Britain. I'm an engineer and a geek since childhood. I knew even then that electric is the way forward. If you were around back in the late 70s and 80s, we thought we would have depleted earth's oil resources by now, and the world succumbed to acid rain, so the thinking of Plan B was always there. The problem we had in the past was cramming in batteries with enough power (it was lead acid back then) and having compact control systems that could finely modulate high enough currents demanded by the powerful electric motors. There are so many benefits of electric motors in terms of power delivery, power:weight ratio, and service life.

The biggest problem with still have, is with the power source. Whether this is batteries, hydrogen or something else. So far, nothing comes near fossil fuel in terms of power density (unless you want to carry some enriched uranium and a reactor in your car).

BUT, that doesn't mean we should give up and just say it's impossible. We've made huge advancements in both Battery and control system technology and I'm sure we will come up with progressively better tech.  For instance, we now have incredibly good semiconductors that can handle incredibly high currents, incredibly fast and with incredible precision. That has meant that we have been able to move to 'synchronous', or brushless, motors that have only one moving part and no brushes that wear out and that can be super powerful with very small losses.

And before I get slammed and stereotyped: I'm not a tree hugger. I'm as much a petrolhead as many. I work on cars, I tune engines, drive round tracks and love the noice! At the same time, I'm also a pragmatic realist that love technology. Steam and combustion were really important stepping stones for us, but that's what they are. We have some cool things ahead of us. Not least from Toyota.

[Cyker]

Electric is here to stay, but because of law, not because of merit, which sucks. I reckon we're still 8-10 years out from them becoming genuinely better than ICE in the way that hybrids are only really just becoming undeniably better than ICE in all areas.

At the moment EV's only have a single undeniable advantage over ICE - They don't produce emissions at point of use. That's it.

Otherwise they're heavier, more expensive to buy, insure and repair, and have less utility than an ICE car. They can have lower running costs if you have access to free charging or can charge at home, but that's going to be a fraction of car owners. The fact that my Mk4 is in competition with my mate's Model 3 for p/mile costs (Which I was winning until the recent huge fuel cost rises!) really should not be happening.

 

The PHEV news sucks - It's at least partly because everyone, other than a few manufacturers like Toyota, were only making them as compliance cars to get their official fleet CO2 levels down, so they looked good in tests but sucked in the real world; Almost as bad a dieselgate all over again, except the electrics allowed them to cheat 'legitimately'.

It should be impossible for any hybrid to have worse mpg than an ICE car, but here we are!

The EU finally noticed and so is clamping down on them. This kind of irresponsibility by those auto makers is why we can't have nice things - Instead of working to the spirit of the rules they just try and find ways around them.

We really need higher capacity and lighter batteries, but whether that's physically possible remains to be seen - One of the biggest downsides with EVs is they use more energy the more load they're put under, whereas ICE gets more efficient the more load its under, (Well, up to a point!) which is why the range of ICE cars doesn't seem to change much between a full and empty car whereas EVs loose a very noticeable a mount of range.

My Mk4 is already very noticeable heavy compared to all previous Yaris models I've driven, and I really don't want to be driving around e.g. a 2-ton Yaris EV in the future in order to get my minimum 300-mile winter motorway range 

[AndrueC]

On 5/30/2022 at 11:14 PM, APS said:

Advantages of electric cars? Lower service/running cost. Better reliability. Quieter. Much more flexible power delivery. You can generate your own energy. 

..and even if the power is being generated from fossil fuels it's a lot easier to apply capture/cleaning technology to a couple of dozen fixed chimneys owned and operated by large corporations than it is to attach such technology to millions of highly mobile vehicles owned an operated by private individuals.

Oh and electric cars can take advantage of whatever new technology we develop to power the grid. A BEV might only be 60% green today but if fusion power ever arrives that same BEV becomes 90% green without needing to be modified.

[Stivino]

3 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

..and even if the power is being generated from fossil fuels it's a lot easier to apply capture/cleaning technology to a couple of dozen fixed chimneys owned and operated by large corporations than it is to attach such technology to millions of highly mobile vehicles owned an operated by private individuals.

Not really, that’s why all cars are fitted with devices to monitor and control emissions.  

[AndrueC]

5 minutes ago, Stivino said:

Not really, that’s why all cars are fitted with devices to monitor and control emissions.  

Really? You think we could fit scrubbers to the exhaust pipe of every vehicle on the road as easily and as quickly and as cheaply as we could add them to every power station chimney?

And of course power station chimneys are large things so it doesn't matter if the scrubber weighs a couple of tonnes and is a couple of cubic metres in size. It also doesn't matter if the scrubber needs a discharge hose connected to a large storage tank.

Spend a couple of million fitting scrubbers to power stations and within a few months all the BEVs suddenly become a lot cleaner. Like to know how you'd make ICE vehicles cleaner so quickly.

[Mike2222]

16 hours ago, Cyker said:

One of the biggest downsides with EVs is they use more energy the more load they're put under, whereas ICE gets more efficient the more load its under, (Well, up to a point!) which is why the range of ICE cars doesn't seem to change much between a full and empty car whereas EVs loose a very noticeable a mount of range

I suspect this is a poor choice of words than a genuine statement, but is factually incorrect, in potentially a variety of ways, depending on what you're trying to say. 

All machinery use more energy at higher loads, EV or ICE is irrelevant. This is a fundamental principle of physics, assuming you haven't changed the design of the machinery mid-experiment. EVs typically don't have gear ratios, which allow ICE to more effectively translate the action of the engine into propulsion at different speeds, but this doesn't change the amount of energy required to overcome friction/resistance etc etc. 

Energy required to generate speed/propulsion, and efficency are two entirely seperate concepts. Additionally, you appear to be suggesting that a fully packed/loaded ICE vehicle is more efficient than a non-loaded ICE. This is incorrect.

The efficiency of an EV motor is quite consistent compared to ICE, but even at peak efficiency, the best of the latter are in the 30-40% thermal efficiency range (amount of stored chemical energy in fuel that is actually translated into propulsion), the Rav4 2.5L petrol engine being in the low 40s and one of the bets I've heard of, and the range of the former being from mid to high 90s. The range loss at increased weight & speed in EVs is a problem entirely due to the fact they are so efficient, not lack of efficiency (side point, range loss due to cold temps in an EV are to do with Battery chemistry mostly, not the actual motor) - if you increased the drag/work needed by 10% in an ev, you need an additional 10% stored energy to provide the same amount of range. If you increase the work required in a 30% efficient ICE, you only reduce range by 3%, and is thus not really noticed by the average driver. 

Your comment in a different thread is more accurate here, and as @APS also says, its the energy density of the storage medium that is the drawback here, the rest of the package is pretty !Removed! brilliant. 

[Stivino]

The things I mentioned in my previous post are the automotive equivalent of scrubbers which obviously don’t need to weigh two tonnes.

 

[Mike2222]

Wasn't expecting to get bleeped there. I was using an adjective that in a literal sense relates to the contents of one's arteries/veins. 

Additionally on the subject of energy density. I think I'm right in saying that a litre of diesel has approx equivalent of 10kwh of stored chemical energy, so a large/2l pepsi bottle's worth would have more than the entirely Rav4 phev Battery capacity [other soft drink analogies are available]. 

[Cyker]

I believe the official beverage we use in such comparisons is Le Croix (Sorry, an Engineering Explained in-joke  )

15 hours ago, Mike2222 said:

I suspect this is a poor choice of words than a genuine statement, but is factually incorrect, in potentially a variety of ways, depending on what you're trying to say. 

Yeah I didn't get my point across at all well there.

It's the same trouble I have explaining where HSDs get their efficiency from.

So, in a normal ICE car, if it's just you travelling, say the car will need 7kW to do this journey; It will get this from the fuel at say 30% efficiency and waste 70% of its energy.

Say we do the same journey with a full car - A loaded ICE burn more fuel, but gets higher efficiency, so say it needs 10kW to do the same journey, but gets 40% efficiency. This time tho' it only wastes 60% of its energy, so although it uses more fuel, it doesn't use as much as it would have at 30% efficiency because of the load allowing it to operate at a more efficient band.

(I'm just pulling these numbers out my proverbial to make the point btw! They are not factual in any way!)

Does that make the explanation any clearer?? It's hard to do as I'm just doing it in hypotheticals.

The thing is that theory is the whole reason the hybrid system works - In a normal car, you're rarely operating at the maximum efficiency of the ICE, probably even low as 5-10% if you're idle-crawling in traffic, so you're always dragging that mpg down and wasting even more fuel.

Now, the hybrids try to ALWAYS run the engine at its maximum efficiency band - This is why my Mk4 will be running the ICE at 2000rpm even if I'm doing 3mph - It seems like this is a massive waste of fuel when a normal ICE would be running at 400rpm, BUT, this allows the engine to run at its maximum 41% efficient band. You can't do this in a normal ICE as that energy would have nowhere to go, but in the hybrid, we have the Battery of awesome, and can dump ALL that excess energy into it until it gets full, then turn off the ICE and use that captured high-efficiency waste energy to run the car instead.

This effectively lets the car run at nearly 41% average conversion efficiency all the time rather than the much lower averages of a petrol-only engine.

This is also why turbodiesels can average much higher mpgs than petrol despite having worse peak power - They have a higher peak efficiency, often high 40's, and a wider band where they can operate at that efficiency thanks to the turbocharger and low-end torque.

[APS]

57 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Electric is here to stay, but because of law, not because of merit, which sucks

It doesn't suck. Policy making can instigate and accelerates change when there is little present commercial incentive, while merit sticks. 

[Cyker]

It does suck - What I mean is, if EVs could stand on their own merits instead of needing incentives and laws to force them onto us, people would be much more open to them and there would be faster adoption.

As it is, they are seen as a threat by a lot of people and they've created this us-vs-them because of the way they're being seemingly forced onto people before they're ready.

Meanwhile, instead of showing what they can do to improve them, EV evangelists are just telling us the existing cars are perfect for us and oh you don't need to drive that far anyway and we're doing it wrong and not addressing the very legitimate issues that us EV-keen-but-reluctant people have.

The same thing happened with hybrids; The Mk2 Prius was reviled by many as it wasn't considered very good and that people only got them for tax breaks and government incentives like free travel in the congestion zone (Which was then pulled but that's another rant!). Many evangelists popped up, including ironically the very same Robert Lewellyn, who actually coined the self-charging hybrid phrase he now reviles so much, saying how good the car is without addressing the shortcomings and just glossing over them. Just the way they're doing the same thing now!

The Mk2 did not show itself to be particularly good, and wasn't even that efficient or engaging to drive, esp. compared to the diesels of the day. It did not stand on its own merits and was very uninspiring compared to its competition, and I honestly think that harmed the takeup of hybrids for years.

Now, imagine if the new Corolla and Yaris drivetrains were the flagship EVs back then - I reckon nearly everyone would be driving an EV now; They both virtually blow normal ICE out of the water in terms of responsiveness and genuine real world mpg; Truely they are have-your-cake-and-eat-it cars that stand on their own merits, and people see and know this - This is why they have been some of the fastest selling hybrids in the history of them!

This is one thing I do give Musk and Tesla props for - He understands this too, which is why he made the Model S the way it is; It's fast, powerful and has good range. While I hate how everything is on the touch-screen and the vendor lock-in, and the fact it was so ludicrously expensive, it was the first EV to really stand on its own merits and showed what an EV could do and IMHO is single-handedly responsible for jump-starting the EV takeup.

But look where we are now, practically no advancement; The cars are getting bigger faster than the ranges are, and the problems with charging stations is getting worse, not better. The Model S is still a top-tier car, where it should have been surpassed ages ago given the supposed rate of technology improvement.

We still have the same core problems that we had at the beginning, and some of them have in fact  gotten worse as they just keep adding more electronic crap we don't need to try and distract us from the unsuitability of the vehicle.

All that talk about the electric drive trains being smaller and no need for a fuel tank allowing more space in a smaller car, or how they'd be vastly cheaper to run for everyone etc.

Ironically, the flip side was diesels - Horrible stinky diesels, I never thought they would get takeup, but people saw how powerful they were due to that low end torque, and such high mileage you could get and that they were cheaper to run even with diesel costing more than petrol per litre - All the government did was tell people these things and people bought them in droves without any real incentives or laws forcing us to get them.

This was because, environmental issues aside, they could stand on their own merits - Cheap to run, efficient, powerful - Could do anything from city crawls to long distance runs no issues.

More ironically, it is laws and government incentives that have killed diesels off, against their merits.

But that is where EVs need to be - They just need to be "Better", and people will buy them of their own accord, but they're just not there yet. They're better for a narrow band of use-cases, but they are still too far from being general-purpose vehicles than existing cars.

I'm really hoping these Battery breakthroughs get to market quick, as that really is the lynchpin and achilles heel - If they can do that and get them to market, we will see the take-up accelerating.

I've always said, when we see a small car that can actually do 300 miles at 70mph in winter, that'll be when the tech-level is where it needs to be and the switchover will start happening more generally...

(I should note that I'm just some random smeghead on the internet and this is all mainly my opinion - Not intended to cause any offence! I know it's a very flame-war inspiring topic...)

[Guest]

I have to admit, I’m learning a hell of a lot here from this discussion.  I’m hearing some of the thoughts I think myself, and then some counter arguments, and then responses to those. 

Actually very very insightful as a 26y/o interested in where we’re genuinely headed in terms of car technology.  

And rare to find online discussions that are productive and full of real world info even where people disagree. So glad I joined this forum. 

[Roy124]

Taking the 300 miles at 70 mph quoted above, this is only possible through two Government initiatives: autobahns and scraping motorways.

Before high speed travel 20 mph in 8 hours was possibly the best one of the few 50s car owners expected. Hotels for commercial travellers were common. 

The initiatives above made the range/speed attractive. Had a consistent 70 mph actually been possible, but rapid refuelling after 4 hours been difficult, we would have been demanding greater range capacity. 

I doubt a constant 70 mpg will be attainable but autonomous driving will see longer time journeys with possibly more journeys spread over the 24 hours. Start at 11pm, settle into the journey and doze for a couple of hours 😁

[Mike2222]

As has been alluded to, the "problem" is far more layered & nuanced than a simple "[vehicle technology X] is not fit for purpose, and [vehicle technology Y] is way better and should be the answer for everyone". 

The independence/personal freedom that is afforded by having ones own car/mode of transport at the drop of a hat, with a national infrastructure that means that one can travel the length & breadth of the country/internationally with very little outside assistance needed to be relied upon, is genuinely life changing. A microcosmic example of this is if anyone has ever had a relative who's faculties are gradually diminishing due to age/illness/infirmity, who has driven for all their adult life, and how stubbornly they cling on to their car/driving license, when it is painfully obvious that they are a massive liability behind the wheel and a danger to other road users - the significance of that independence, and the ramifications of its loss are so profound to their quality of life, that they are willing to (usually passively/subconsciously) devalue/minimise the safety of others to maintain this.

And the crux of this dilemma, is their fears are not unfounded - as someone who works in a field where I have seen this dynamic hundreds of times in some form or other, if you make someone's world 'smaller'/less stimulating, you invariably accelerate their decline either mentally, physically, or both. But this doesn't alter the responsibility to others of being a responsible road user - this is the dichotomy of personal vs societal priorities. 

ithout thousands of EVs & PHEVs churning their way through the company car system, it will be decades before there is enough stock within the used car market to meaningfully reduce the acquisition cost for these types of vehicles vs traditional (polluting) ICEs for vehicles that aren't considered old to the consumer who is used to purchasing 3-5yr old cars on said used market. 

Without this reduction in acquisition cost, it will never be a realistic prospect for a huge cohort of the population, and as we move past 2030-2035, their will be a horribly tiered system for the "haves" & the "have nots". And like it or not, even the people who are currently in the prime of their careers, with their company car Teslas/EQCs/iXs/etc, will be pensioners one day and no longer have the scope, let alone drive, to continue working to supplement their income. And inflation is a **** !Removed!! [I was fully intending to get bleeped there 😂] 

[Mike2222]

I wasn't intending to filibuster on this, but another 'butterfly effect' type thought about this "lazy company car drivers not plugging in/only getting EVs for the tax breaks" vitriol, is that as far as geopolitical policy goes, as well as in most human interactions, money talks. And political lobbying is driven by money/business. 

So if all/vast majority of workers in business sectors who are involved in lobbying are driving EVs, and thus have a vested interest in an improved charging infrastructure....? 

[Mike2222]

6 hours ago, Mike2222 said:

the significance of that independence, and the ramifications of its loss are so profound to their quality of life, that they are willing to (usually passively/subconsciously) devalue/minimise the safety of others to maintain this.

I've already waffled on for quite a while, but also worth pointing out that I chose this particular example because it also thematically sums up the personal motivations many different people have in this discussion, particularly in terms of emphasising the "benefits" of ICEs vs the drawbacks of emmision-free alternatives, whilst largely ignoring/minimising the health consequences (particularly of diesels). 

I will chose another hyperbolic analogy, and I preface this by saying I am not targeting anyone in particular or their lifestyle choices, only taking a very specific tack to make a point in this discussion - it is like a caravanner saying "well I *need* a diesel, because otherwise I can't go on holiday".... then following it up with "so I don't really care if my grandkids or their children have a significantly higher proportion of respiratory disease, and live a life of higher illness burden, probably dying younger than they otherwise would have" 

...... is 2-3 weeks per year in Eastbourne really worth it...? 

Now, no non-psychopath would ever genuinely think like that, but we all are intrinsically prone to a thought process that forgives our own transgressions due to personal priorities, whilst demonising other people for circumstances where we are not fully informed of all the facts (otherwise there would be no such things as tabloid newspapers!!), but seeing as everyone's vote counts for the same, to make genuine health/environmental change a genuine priority at a geopolitical level, society as a whole needs to accept certain personal and economic sacrifices in the short term, but the full benefits of these will not be seen in many peoples remaining lifetimes.... (and I say this in the full knowledge that many millions of people in this country alone live at the lower end of the economic bell curve, and would be impacted exponentially harder by economic downturn) 

This is not a simple problem!! 🤣

[AJones]

14 hours ago, Cyker said:

It does suck - What I mean is, if EVs could stand on their own merits instead of needing incentives and laws to force them onto us, people would be much more open to them and there would be faster adoption.

Currently the car manufacturers can't build EVs fast enough, with buyers sat on long waiting lists for delivery so the current restriction is not a lack of willing buyers, but a lack of manufacturing capacity. It appears there's plenty of buyers keen to switch to electric.

14 hours ago, Cyker said:

As it is, they are seen as a threat by a lot of people and they've created this us-vs-them because of the way they're being seemingly forced onto people before they're ready.

But in reality no one is being forced to get an EV, there's no plans to stop sales of new regular petrol or diesel cars until 2030 and even then petrol and diesel hybrids or plug-in hybrids will be sold until 2035. Even after 2035, there will be plenty of used petrol cars available for the next few years. Anyone wanting to run a petrol car could buy a new one in 2035, run it until 2045 - 2050.

The shift to EVs isn't going to happen over night, while the technology is new and more expensive it will happen first at the higher cost, premium end of the market with the premium brands and the larger vehicles. But Battery costs are falling rapidly and manufacturers are launching smaller EVs - Mini, the new Ora Cat, MG are reported to be launching a small EV their MG4, VW have their ID3 with a smaller model to follow planned. Peugeot and Vauxhall already have the e208 and Corsa-e.

[Cyker]

To be fair the problem is less demand and more lack of manufacturing components, i.e. lithium batteries. I think the waiting list is significantly bigger for the Toyota hybrids.

Also I'd say that the price of EVs hasn't dropped so much as a result of components and technology advancements - The cheaper EVs are worse and have smaller batteries; That is why they are cheaper. Some have even gone up - IIRC the Kona electric is actually more expensive than it was when it first came out.

But the point is, there were no massive grants to buy a diesel - People just did it because they had clear real-world advantages, clear merits, whereas the first hybrids and now EVs and PHEVs all had to have grants to persuade people to buy them (And even these grants have been pulled or greatly reduced) and even then people didn't buy them in anywhere near the numbers that bought diesels did.

EVs just need to be better, really better, before people will flock to them like they did with diesels. And they really need to sort the charging infrastructure out; They keep building more but they aren't keeping the existing ones working reliably so the net increase in capacity is slower than it should be. And this whole you need to install 4 million different apps or you get gouged or can't charge at all BS has to be stopped.

The progress has just been... disappointing; As you say it should happen first in the premium end of the market first but the Model S came out 10 years ago! 10! And we're still at that infancy stage. I can't see us being ready for the 2030 cutoff with such glacial progress. (Or the 2035 one, assuming that is still a thing - AFAIK no hybrid and almost no PHEVs meet the requirements to be sold to that cutoff)

 

[AJones]

3 hours ago, Cyker said:

To be fair the problem is less demand and more lack of manufacturing components, i.e. lithium batteries. I think the waiting list is significantly bigger for the Toyota hybrids.

UK sales of EVs have increased sharply and so far in 2022 they are outselling HEVs, and PHEVs, and diesels. 

https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/

I'm sure that EVs with their current combination of pricing and range won't yet work for many buyers, they didn't work for me when I was buying a car, but I can see the trend and the new model launches and by the time I come to replace my car in a few years time I've no doubt by that point I'll be getting an EV.