Have they thought this through?

As a reader of CAR for 40 years, I’ve always been amazed at the way the car industry continues to innovate to meet whatever requirements are placed upon them, whether by the consumer or governments.

I am confident that concerns over the charging network, where the electricity will come from and how clean that energy is, as well as individual concerns around range anxiety, the loss of the sound and emotion, and the current high cost of entry, will all be resolved in due course.

No, my concern with electric vehicles has more to do with the reality, rather than the soundbite, of whether they will actually do what they must – help save our planet by reducing CO2 output – surely the main reason to go electric in the first place?

In his October column, Gavin Green highlighted that an EV needs to cover around 50k-70k miles before it offsets the additional CO2 produced in its build when compared to a ‘conventional’ vehicle. So, by the time the car is old enough to finally offset its higher CO2 and is sold on the used market, the previous owner will already have got a new EV, thereby increasing overall CO2 some more. And how many people will want to buy an EV at 70k miles, designed for a previous generation of batteries?

The reality of the future is more likely based on people leasing EVs, then discarding them (to the detriment of used car prices) and leasing a new EV after three years. If so, it’s hard to see where and when the real CO2 savings will actually come.

Guy Pettengell

Current thinking from the optimistic end of the o ce is that drivers will go electric when it suits them, and both the infrastructure and battery tech will improve vastly by the end of the decade, when the rest of us make the change. And by then, with luck, someone will have thought of a way to avoid the vast potential for waste you highlight. CO