Middle classes cannot afford electric cars, warns Vauxhall owner
By Paul Homewood
Demand for electric cars slumps as energy crisis makes them more expensive to run
Motorists are rapidly losing interest in electric cars as the cost of power surges and petrol and diesel prices continue to fall, the AA has suggested.
The proportion of car buyers considering purchasing an electric model this year has slumped to less than a fifth compared with one in four a year ago, its research found.
It came as the boss of Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall, warned that the middle classes cannot afford the cost of electric cars without the support of state subsidies.
Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Stellantis, said: “The most significant problem of electrification is the affordability for the middle classes.
“That’s what we are now fighting against – how fast can we reduce the costs to bring the EV [electric vehicle] to the level of affordability that people can pay for without subsidies.”
The up-front cost of plug-in vehicles has become unaffordable for many as rampant inflation makes models even more expensive. For example, a Volkswagen Golf costs from around £25,000, while a similarly-sized all-electric VW ID.3 starts at about £36,400. Prices for Nissan’s battery-powered Leaf start at £29,000, while its combustion engine model Juke starts at £20,700.
At the same time, falling prices at the pump means many drivers are holding onto petrol and diesel cars for longer.
After rocketing following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, petrol prices have declined from highs of more than 191 pence per litre in the summer to an average of 148.4 pence per litre. Meanwhile, diesel prices have fallen to the lowest level since just after the start of the Ukraine war.
Higher wholesale gas prices have also driven up electricity prices, making it most expensive to charge an electric vehicle both at home and on the road.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
My advice? Learn to ride a bike (if you are unable to, at present) and learn to watch out for potholes on the UK roads. The only way that roads can be fixed is by fossil fuel-burning vehicles using that substance formerly known as tarmacadam.
Tell us how you manage to do the weekly family shop from a supermarket twenty miles away on a bike in the middle of winter.
Unfortunately, the powers that be appear to favour large corporations and not the likes of you and me.
Options as they presently stand appear to be very limited.
At the moment you have :-
buy an electric cargo bicycle and balaclava; home delivery; becoming self sufficient; help from friends and neighbours or move.
Don’t expect any concern from the present government or that bunch of clowns laughingly know as the opposition.
Catweazle, do you really live 20 miles from the nearest shop? If you have a car licence, you are entitled to ride a 50cc moped or scooter so there is one option once you have learned to balance on two wheels if you really are 20 miles from the nearest shop. You wouldn’t be the only one in warm clothing, balancing on two wheels in winter.
No, we live around twenty miles from the nearest supermarket, the local shops are considerably more expensive than the supermarkets and do not have the range of products, OK for fresh milk and the like but no good whatsoever for a fortnightly shop for a household of four .
As to your patronising drivel about being able to balance on two years, I rode a motorcycle to work in all weathers for several years and I raced motorcycles both and off road for over a decade in my youth and still own three classic bikes including a BSA B34 Gold Star Clubman.
Also, being partially disabled and requiring to visit the local hospital fairly frequently – around a sixty mile round trip – I need to be able to transport my folding wheelchair in the back of my Mercedes Estate.
So go screw yourself, you ignorant patronising little townie twerp.
Maybe not miles, but many people live 20 kilometres away from the nearest supermarket, even bank branches and ATMs and of course family and where they work if their jobs require physical presence. While most “office jobs” don’t actually need physical presence (but try finding employers who don’t insist on it), almost every other type of job does.
Are the manufacturers finally waking up? It’s not only a matter of affordability. Electric cars are LESS practical.
Never ming the middle classes, the lowest end will be truly shafted. They will be the ones who could only buy second hand cars, like now, and they will be lumbered with buying a new battery, which they won’t, or scrapping the car when the battery gives up, which they will. So the richest get a subsidised, tax advantaged car which, leaving aside inherent limitations, will give them a couple of years of trouble free driving, much the same as now putting aside the financial advantages, and the poor who will subsidise the rich and be lumbered with clearing up the mess. The situation is similar today but the difference is today’s cars can have their lives extended by fairly cheap parts, therefore making them affordable for the poor, whereas the repair costs of ageing EVs will make owning an old one too expensive for the poor.
We can see a situation where we have perfectly good 10 or 12 year old cars being scrapped because the battery would be too expensive for most. How this can be termed Green is not obvious to me.
” the poor who will subsidise the rich and be lumbered with clearing up the mess”
That’s the history of humanity
EVs are really cheap to charge! My 5kW Yanmar diesel generator will burn through 1 litre of Red Diesel per hour at 80% load. Red Diesel is currently at 88p per litre so that works out at 22p per kWh generated and much cheaper than the standard 35p grid rate.
Simply buy a diesel generator to charge your EV………………..!
Ray, what did your generator cost you to install if you don’t mind me asking? I don’t imagine that you connected the unit to the house’s supply yourself.
Mine is a manual transfer switch and they are inexpensive to buy. I actually have three house rentals and have a good mate who is an electrician so all I can say was it cost me a “good drink” if you catch my drift!
A full blown automatic transfer switch and electronic start up system for the generator will probably set you back a couple of grand but for most circumstances is a bit over the top. If you are just looking for cover during power cuts (as I am living in a rural area) then simply throwing the switch then manually starting up the gennie is satisfactory.
Many thanks
‘Motorists are rapidly losing interest in electric cars . . . . The proportion of car buyers considering purchasing an electric model this year has slumped to less than a fifth compared with one in four a year ago.’
‘One in four’ is not interest. It’s gone from tepid to cool.
“The most significant problem of electrification is the affordability for the middle classes.”
Then there is the other most significant problem of having a place for a private charger.
And the most significant problem of power supply as government destroys centralized power generation.
There are quite a few most significant problems.
EVs were never meant to be cheaper. If take up was say, 50% of all new cars by 2030, imagine the loss in fuel duty and VAT. The latest wheeze is a tyre tax not to mention the spectre of road pricing. This is what happens when ideology trumps innovation.
Cheer up! The lithium price bubble has burst – for now at least. Prices are projected to halve from the peak because of lower demand for EVs and new capacity coming on stream.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/analysis-lithium-price-slide-deepens-091038011.html
After that? Looks like a scary ride still.
China is working diligently on reducing the cost of electric vehicles for the masses (their own admittedly). According to: https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/manufacturer-news/2023/02/24/chinese-car-growth-in-europe-could-push-down-electric-vehicle-prices
“With China’s advanced battery technology, sourcing of raw materials and more advanced BEV supply chain, Chinese OEMs can manufacture BEVs at €10,000 cheaper than European automakers, representing a significant cost advantage.”
With Green politicians setting European energy policy, I don’t see that advantage going away soon.
Electric vehicle for the masses will have two wheels, not four. Bonkers video alert…
EVs are expense, unreliable, pretentious displays of vanity and self-abuse. We have been lied to. Forget about charging them if it is cold outside, and, whatever you do keep them well away form anything you value while charging, for when the battery pack bursts into flames nothing save a plane-crash foaming truck will extinguish the blaze. Want to save energy–but a Toyota Hybrid and get it over with. Why do you think Toyota in the only large automaker not “all-in” on the EV craze? What do they know the rest do not?
I suspect they all know, it’s just that Toyota (or rather their MD) has been the only one brave enough to publicly say so…
This guy on youtube has a wonderfully sceptical take on EVs in the UK:
In Sweden, the subsidies (about 6 000 pound per car) was suddenly removed at the end of 2022. In panic a large number of contracts were signed (by the more wealthy) and now there are complaints that the sales figures for EV’s are going down.
With the inflation, the increased rate of interest and very high costs for electricity (in Sweden), people hold closer to the pockets and a new car is not the highest item on the list. It is also true that new EV’s are for the upper middle class and other well paid, few persons with low income has the possibility to buy even a used EV.
Due to the subsidies and the set-up – that once you got them, you can do whatever with your car – many newer cars are sold to Norway, Finland and other countries, so there are not so many used one to buy either.
State pension circa £10k per annum, so who could afford a ‘battery car’ on that income?
I very much doubt anyone would want to buy a secondhand ‘battery car’, it would seem the only thing that’s ‘green’ would be the purchaser. This is such nonsense.