Electric dreams
The media are very fond of telling us how wonderful electric cars are and how they will change the way we live.
May I just remind you that the business case is still weak.
They struggle to sell even with the subsidies thrown at them and political arm wringing by governments around the world.
In the case of electric vehicles, subsidies are the direct opposite of the Robin Hood effect.
They steal from the masses to give to the rich. On the face of it electric vehicles appear to be inexpensive once you get them to your driveway but the up front cost seems to create an impediment to buying that can only be overcome by the top 5 per cent of the population.
The rest of us are, unfortunately, destined to continue driving around in second hand imports.
A modestly priced second hand import with 60 or 70k on the clock often drives like new yet it is probably 10 years old with a good 10 years of life left in it.
You have to wonder what state an electric vehicle will be in at 10 years given that one of its most expensive components, the batteries, will be near the end of their serviceable life by then.
As battery technology improves there is no guarantee that the cost will come down as they will probably come with new, less abundant, exotic materials that cost more than those that they replace.
Maybe if the manufacturers tried building a vehicle that was smaller and therefore lighter and had most of the idiot driver assist gadgets left in their boxes they could get the price down to where the masses can reasonably think about buying one.
Things like rear end cameras, bluetooth, wifi, automated parking, adaptive cruise control, mirror monitors, GPS navigation, heads up displays, Alexa connections, tyre safety monitors, dash cameras, radar detectors and the king of them all – AI – which will allow you to abdicate your responsibility for getting your vehicle from A to B safely thereby moving you closer to zombie status than you were before.
I hate to say it but 40 years ago we managed with a push button radio and an automatic gear box.
Geoff Orchard, Ohaupo