PERSONAL ACCOUNT

Don’t believe the myths – electric cars will benefit our wallets and the planet

My parents were early adopters of the electric car, hurtling around London and picking their children up from parties in a first-edition G-Wiz, the 8ft 6in by 4ft 3in vehicle that made a Smart car look like a limousine. As with so much when it comes to parents, this mortified me as a teenager, and fills me with pride today.

Technically classed as a “heavy quadricycle”, and exported to America under condition of a maximum speed of 25 miles per hour, the G-Wiz was the only affordable option for the mainstream consumer who wanted an electric car 10 to 15 years ago.

In 2005 there were only a few hundred electric cars on the planet – of which two lived on our driveway. There are many more options today. So why has uptake been so low? There are 150,000 ultra-lowemission vehicles on British roads – less than 0.4pc of all registered vehicles.

Earlier this week the Government published its Road to Zero strategy to encourage British drivers to ditch their petrol and diesel cars and get behind the wheel of electric alternatives. It aims to “make the UK the best place in the world to build and own an electric vehicle”, by stopping the sale of new combustion engine cars by 2040, expanding the network of charging points and extending the grants available to people who buy new electric vehicles.

But Edmund King, president of the AA, said the Government’s goal would be reached only if it helped “dispel some of the myths” that meant drivers were yet to be convinced about electric vehicles.

Mr King cited the findings of a poll of more than 10,000 respondents which found the majority of drivers thought that there weren’t enough public charging points, that electric cars took too long to charge, that they couldn’t go far enough on a single charge, that there wasn’t enough choice of model and, most significantly of all, that electric cars were too expensive.

Policymakers, think tanks and the media can shout about climate change and pollution until they are blue in the face and black in the lungs. But, the minority of environmentally conscious consumers aside, most people won’t be persuaded by conscience or even convenience. What they care about is “cold, hard cash”.

So says Matt Finch, an analyst at the Energy and Climate Change Intelligence Unit, who argues that money is the reason electric cars will eventually become mainstream. It does already work out considerably cheaper to run an electric vehicle than a combustion one. Mr Finch crunched the numbers and found that the typical commute would cost around £5 a week in an electric car, less than half the £10.70 bill for a diesel driver and £12.50 in a brand new petrol car.

Those costs are likely to be even higher in older models, not to mention their pricier and more frequent maintenance needs. As it stands, it is still cheaper to buy a

The G-Wiz was the world’s best-selling electric car in 2005, but there are more options available today