Electric Companies Hike Prices after motorists switch to EV

Bachelorplace

Some award winning responses here from the highly intelligent.

One of my favourite was the "the plan is not for them to be cheaper" argument, I had not considered this. An extremely relevant and comforting arguement. Partly answering my question, thank you for that steer.

To look at EV as an option for cost saving was and is a mistake. Regardless of cost per mile being cheaper, it probably isn't when you consider amount of energy being used per mile and the cost of purchasing it and taxing it ( pre April 2020 ) The fuel savings are marginal from my experience and so the 'cost' argument promoted by owners or sellers is slightly flawed.

Every EV I have had delivered bad mpge, not making a strong enough arguement to get one. I am being polite. Tesla obviously are a slight exception.

I may be wrong but I do think when VW and Model Y start to flood the market, there will be a tariff introduced as companies will know that we are charging a car or they will find a way and in that case the "cost" per mile arguement is likely to be weakened and EV ownership will simply be more more a case of "Do you want one cause its better for you or not?"

That said company car tax being abolished on EVs WILL be a massive incentive, as will abolishing the £450 a year VED

(not £320, dont wnat to correct you but...) IF these two things go ahead then the VW and Model Y options become very attractive and electric companies would have to raise prices unfairly to make them non viable options.

I think my original question was paranoid, because I am a bit, but it derived from the "should you get a deisel" question back in the day. All the numbers added up in a much more transparent and predictable way. Granted I could have assumed at the time that derv would shoot up if everyone bought derv cars, but due to the subtle way in which they crept into the market it did seem rather more clear cut. 

When EVs are £25,000 and do 400 miles from a single home 7KW charge the sums will be easier to calculate, regardless of tariff uplift, but they don't and so perhaps I will wait until they do, and stop worrying.

Arklight

AFAICS the purpose of moving to EV has nothing to do with the environment, or cost. It's about providing a captive market to shore up the UK's ailing manufacturing industry, and trying to position the UK as a leader in EV, renewable energy, and autonomous vehicles. Not necessarily a bad thing, and unusual forward planning for a British government. 

Current road tax makes £35bn per year for the Exchequer, so that will be coming back someway or another. In the early phases I would expect some hefty increases in fuel duty for those who are trying to cling on to gas guzzlers, to offset those who have moved. Which might decide your car purchase in the next decade or so.

Overall, EV's should still save you money in maintenance and running costs, if you are buying one now.

Car_54

Arklight said:

AFAICS the purpose of moving to EV has nothing to do with the environment, or cost. It's about providing a captive market to shore up the UK's ailing manufacturing industry, and trying to position the UK as a leader in EV, renewable energy, and autonomous vehicles. Not necessarily a bad thing, and unusual forward planning for a British government.

First, when the government started to incentivise to incentivise EVs the UK car industry was boomig, not ailing.

Second, what captive market? We'll still be free to buy EVs from the EU, US, Korea ....

Farway

Car_54 said:

Arklight said:

AFAICS the purpose of moving to EV has nothing to do with the environment, or cost. It's about providing a captive market to shore up the UK's ailing manufacturing industry, and trying to position the UK as a leader in EV, renewable energy, and autonomous vehicles. Not necessarily a bad thing, and unusual forward planning for a British government.

Second, what captive market? We'll still be free to buy EVs from the EU, US, Korea ....

Depends how any UK government wants to play it, maybe wack on huge import tariffs to protect our own UK manufactures?

born_again

Farway said:

Car_54 said:

Arklight said:

AFAICS the purpose of moving to EV has nothing to do with the environment, or cost. It's about providing a captive market to shore up the UK's ailing manufacturing industry, and trying to position the UK as a leader in EV, renewable energy, and autonomous vehicles. Not necessarily a bad thing, and unusual forward planning for a British government.

Second, what captive market? We'll still be free to buy EVs from the EU, US, Korea ....

Depends how any UK government wants to play it, maybe wack on huge import tariffs to protect our own UK manufactures?

Do we actually have any that are fully UK owned that anyone on a average wage can afford... Come to that all the so called UK marques at the top end are offshore financed.
Rolls Royce = BMW
Bentley = VAG Group

Exemplar

My conspiracy theory here is that smart meters will be able to detect that a car is plugged in and increase domestic electricity costs accordingly ( as per other posters thoughts). 

DrEskimo

Exemplar said:

My conspiracy theory here is that smart meters will be able to detect that a car is plugged in and increase domestic electricity costs accordingly ( as per other posters thoughts). 

Smart meters allow you to pay less for charging, as you can take advantage of cheap electricity when demand is low and there is greater amounts of cheap renewable energy (largely off shore wind at night).

Smart meters are a great way to manage energy demands and reduce peak demand.

Exemplar

DrEskimo said:

Exemplar said:

My conspiracy theory here is that smart meters will be able to detect that a car is plugged in and increase domestic electricity costs accordingly ( as per other posters thoughts). 

Smart meters allow you to pay less for charging, as you can take advantage of cheap electricity when demand is low and there is greater amounts of cheap renewable energy (largely off shore wind at night).

Smart meters are a great way to manage energy demands and reduce peak demand.

Hey, like I said it's a conspiracy theory, leave me and my tin foil hat alone! In seriousness I do think that we will see a time not far away when it's all monitored and charged accordingly per device.

DrEskimo

Exemplar said:

DrEskimo said:

Exemplar said:

My conspiracy theory here is that smart meters will be able to detect that a car is plugged in and increase domestic electricity costs accordingly ( as per other posters thoughts). 

Smart meters allow you to pay less for charging, as you can take advantage of cheap electricity when demand is low and there is greater amounts of cheap renewable energy (largely off shore wind at night).

Smart meters are a great way to manage energy demands and reduce peak demand.

Hey, like I said it's a conspiracy theory, leave me and my tin foil hat alone! In seriousness I do think that we will see a time not far away when it's all monitored and charged accordingly per device.

Ha!

Hmmm it's certainly possible, but SMART meters are a way to stabilise demand and flatten the curve. It's peak demand that causes problems. Far from being the problem, EV's could be the solution. With V2G and smart meters, everyone could come home, connect their cars up and then the grid can draw on excess energy from millions of connected EVs. The EV's would then be able to charge over night to the desired % that the user needs. Studies have found that controlled discharge and charging of EV batteries can actually prolong their health too.

Rather than have to look at one single massive battery storage solution, you instead rely on millions of individual batteries connected like a hive. That's the theory anyway....

As for lost taxation, that's likely to come in the form of miles per year as a set rate. Using something like MOT's or the car's black box to monitor usage.

peter_thomson

Solar energy and Wind energy on a grid scale will only come down in price. Energy storage on grid scale will only come down in price. If you want to see what this does to energy prices look at the prices for Octopus Energy Agile and Tracker tariffs. Octopus Energy have actually had short periods in the past couple of months when they pay you to use the surplus energy.
The unpredictable factor for EV running costs is future taxation - but it is very unlikely that any western government would tax EVs at a higher rate than ICE vehicles.