EV Discussion thread

silvercar

michaels said:

thevilla said:

Surely the tax incentives should be loaded against ICE.  Increase fuel duty on fossil to incentivise alternative fuels.  Less need to give takes breaks to employees and a less skewed EV market.

The govt won't do it though as the right wing press in particular, use fossil fuel price as a dog whistle.  The fuel price escalator of the 1990s(?) was a good idea.

I suspect if you worked out how much tax is being lost through the BK the amounts are eyewatering (although of course they have hugely altered purchasing patterns).  If instead they had spent the same £5-£10bn subsidising buyers of UK produced EVs as the US did we would have the same number of EVs but they would have been produced in the UK.  Not sure why the UK govt finds it so uniquely hard to tie together environmental and industrial policeis?

Personally, we wouldn't have taken company cars if it hadn't been for the BiK amounts. In fact, we probably wouldn't have moved to BEVs if it wasn't for the tax benefits.

thevilla

Exiled_Tyke said:

CKhalvashi said:

michaels said:

thevilla said:

Surely the tax incentives should be loaded against ICE.  Increase fuel duty on fossil to incentivise alternative fuels.  Less need to give takes breaks to employees and a less skewed EV market.

The govt won't do it though as the right wing press in particular, use fossil fuel price as a dog whistle.  The fuel price escalator of the 1990s(?) was a good idea.

I suspect if you worked out how much tax is being lost through the BK the amounts are eyewatering (although of course they have hugely altered purchasing patterns).  If instead they had spent the same £5-£10bn subsidising buyers of UK produced EVs as the US did we would have the same number of EVs but they would have been produced in the UK.  Not sure why the UK govt finds it so uniquely hard to tie together environmental and industrial policeis?

I'm not sure that is possible under trade agreements.

There generally are non discrimination clauses in these.

I think you are right on this. Even if UK government isn't barred from incentivising UK production under trade agreements there would surely be retaliation by other countries.   However the point raised is an important one.  The benefits have been given to those who need them least and those billions could probably have been spent far more imaginatively to produce the step change we need (and that's before we talk about battery factories and the government's role in that debacle!!) 

The terms of the US Inflation Reduction Act seem plainly and simply to ensure incentives for home grown production  is prioritised - to put it mildly!

thevilla

michaels said:

thevilla said:

Surely the tax incentives should be loaded against ICE.  Increase fuel duty on fossil to incentivise alternative fuels.  Less need to give takes breaks to employees and a less skewed EV market.

The govt won't do it though as the right wing press in particular, use fossil fuel price as a dog whistle.  The fuel price escalator of the 1990s(?) was a good idea.

I suspect if you worked out how much tax is being lost through the BK the amounts are eyewatering (although of course they have hugely altered purchasing patterns).  If instead they had spent the same £5-£10bn subsidising buyers of UK produced EVs as the US did we would have the same number of EVs but they would have been produced in the UK.  Not sure why the UK govt finds it so uniquely hard to tie together environmental and industrial policeis?

Indeed.  Increasing fuel duties would need to go hand in hand with a normalised second hand EV market too which seems to be coming.  I reckon it would be fairer than penalising city dwellers with xLEZ zones.

As a recent EV driver my priorities have switched 180 degrees in the last few years I must admit.  Buying pesky solar PV started it 😄

JKenH

JKenH said:

Ahead of the SMMT’s registration figures for July which, I believe, should be published today I came across this article from Autocar with figures for the private buyer take up for some of the popular EVs. Perhaps we will see better figures this month. 

Industry calls for urgent support as electric car uptake slows

That market share plateau is driven by a slump in overall private EV registrations, which are down about 20% year on year and now account for less than half of the total number of new car registrations. 

As dramatic snapshots of the market, just 13% of Volkswagen ID 5s, 21% of Tesla Model Ys and 41% of Ford Mustang Mach-Es this year have been sold to private customers. 

Research from Auto Trader, published under the title The Road to 2030, further underlines this, suggesting there has been a 65% year-on-year fall in the number of enquiries sent to retailers about electric cars, with EV enquiries currently only accounting for 9% of the total, compared with 27% this time last year. 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/industry-calls-urgent-support-electric-car-uptake-slows

Apologies for quoting my own post but i thought it would be interesting to compare against the split between private and commercial EV purchases in Europe.



https://www.motor1.com/news/595738/electric-cars-commercial-private-sales-even-europe/

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

https://www.motor1.com/news/595738/electric-cars-commercial-private-sales-even-europe/

It is a shame we can't see those figures for UK rather than Europe.

There have been a few recent comments about EV cars only being registered by businesses and not private buyers, but is the case for EV cars radically different to the case for cars in general?
What percentage of Mondeos, 3-Series, A4's, Passats, Focii, Priii, etc are business or private registrations as new?
Bear in mind that "business" registrations include all the pre-reg cars that are sold on a few weeks later as used to mask discounts.

Martyn1981

thevilla said:

michaels said:

thevilla said:

Surely the tax incentives should be loaded against ICE.  Increase fuel duty on fossil to incentivise alternative fuels.  Less need to give takes breaks to employees and a less skewed EV market.

The govt won't do it though as the right wing press in particular, use fossil fuel price as a dog whistle.  The fuel price escalator of the 1990s(?) was a good idea.

I suspect if you worked out how much tax is being lost through the BK the amounts are eyewatering (although of course they have hugely altered purchasing patterns).  If instead they had spent the same £5-£10bn subsidising buyers of UK produced EVs as the US did we would have the same number of EVs but they would have been produced in the UK.  Not sure why the UK govt finds it so uniquely hard to tie together environmental and industrial policeis?

Indeed.  Increasing fuel duties would need to go hand in hand with a normalised second hand EV market too which seems to be coming.  I reckon it would be fairer than penalising city dwellers with xLEZ zones.

As a recent EV driver my priorities have switched 180 degrees in the last few years I must admit.  Buying pesky solar PV started it 😄

I get ever so slightly overexcited about solar PV. It's a real gateway drug into so many other aspects, helping to encourage/contribute to things like electric cooking, DHW, batts, EV's, heatpumps and TOU tariffs. Incredible to think that around 2010, PV was really such a new idea, but now many of us have our own little power stations, impacting the purchase of leccy, petrol/diesel and gas.

Hopefully the improvements in shade management, efficiency (power output for any given area) up ~50% on a decade ago, and some planning changes, will allow a much greater rollout .... when costs come back down. [Regarding planning, looks like wall mounted panels no longer require planning permission, and installs on flat roofs can be upto 1m above the plane of the roof before PP is now required, whereas before they had to follow the roof pitch, or get PP.]

Hopefully PV encourages EV's, and vice versa. Big changes in a very short timeline, compared to many large scale transitions.

JKenH

In my case once I had solar on the roof and found I was “wasting” my PV sending it to the grid, the logical next step was an EV. In fact, I believe the take up of EVs has been much higher in households with solar panels - perhaps a combination of an Eco mindset and using up one’s spare PV. After my son took over my 40kWh Leaf it was always my intention to get another EV as a runabout, then Octopus went and launched Flux, which (for me) threw the economics right out the window. When Flux came in I was getting paid 22/35p/kWh (now 18/30p) to export which suddenly made the opportunity cost of home charging quite high. I still browse the EV ads but I am less certain I will get another one than I was six months ago. 

Edit: between 5th May and 17th July (my last bill) I have received £368.53 in export payments at an average of 27p/kWh. I don’t know what my total export will be for 12 months but I will forego about £165 pa in deemed exports in a full year. (Good energy were however just about to move me from deemed to metered export any way.) If I hadn’t been on deemed export I would have received about £61 in SEG payments. 

Edit 2: now I am on the lower rates and with the last few weeks being such lousy weather (more like Autumn than Summer) and having family visiting the whole period increasing domestic consumption, the earnings from Flux have fallen. My Octopus watch app tells me I have earned just £87.26 in the last 28 days (15.5kWh exported per day at an average rate of 20.16p.)

QrizB

JKenH said:

thevilla said:

Surely the tax incentives should be loaded against ICE.  Increase fuel duty on fossil to incentivise alternative fuels.  Less need to give takes breaks to employees and a less skewed EV market.

The govt won't do it though as the right wing press in particular, use fossil fuel price as a dog whistle.  The fuel price escalator of the 1990s(?) was a good idea.

The government will be mindful that over 90% of the electorate still drive ICE cars, as will any new government elected in 2024.

I've never bought a new car (although I did buy an 18-month old one once) and don't see that changing any time soon. My current one was nine when I purchased it.

Every new car is likely to have another three or four owners before it takes the trip to the breaker.

Encouraging the fleet buyers and BiK owners to buy EVs mean that they will end up on the used market where most of us shop for our cars.

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

JKenH said:

thevilla said:

Surely the tax incentives should be loaded against ICE.  Increase fuel duty on fossil to incentivise alternative fuels.  Less need to give takes breaks to employees and a less skewed EV market.

The govt won't do it though as the right wing press in particular, use fossil fuel price as a dog whistle.  The fuel price escalator of the 1990s(?) was a good idea.

The government will be mindful that over 90% of the electorate still drive ICE cars, as will any new government elected in 2024.

I've never bought a new car (although I did buy an 18-month old one once) and don't see that changing any time soon. My current one was nine when I purchased it.

Every new car is likely to have another three or four owners before it takes the trip to the breaker.

Encouraging the fleet buyers and BiK owners to buy EVs mean that they will end up on the used market where most of us shop for our cars.

I read recently that SH sales account for about 75-80% of annual car sales in the UK. So that would appear to fit with your numbers exactly.

I think it was Michaels (not sure) that recently posted about SH Leaf prices being similar to SH Focus prices, so that's very promising too.

My (our) route in to BEV's, was a SH Leaf (24kWh / 70 mile range), as a second car, which quickly became the first choice, and accounted for about 80% of our mileage. That's hopefully how many will 'find' a BEV, and having an ICEV as back up, will make the decision to jump easier.

1961Nick

JKenH said:

michaels said:

JKenH said:

Ahead of the SMMT’s registration figures for July which, I believe, should be published today I came across this article from Autocar with figures for the private buyer take up for some of the popular EVs. Perhaps we will see better figures this month. 

Industry calls for urgent support as electric car uptake slows

That market share plateau is driven by a slump in overall private EV registrations, which are down about 20% year on year and now account for less than half of the total number of new car registrations. 

As dramatic snapshots of the market, just 13% of Volkswagen ID 5s, 21% of Tesla Model Ys and 41% of Ford Mustang Mach-Es this year have been sold to private customers. 

Research from Auto Trader, published under the title The Road to 2030, further underlines this, suggesting there has been a 65% year-on-year fall in the number of enquiries sent to retailers about electric cars, with EV enquiries currently only accounting for 9% of the total, compared with 27% this time last year. 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/industry-calls-urgent-support-electric-car-uptake-slows

This makes logical/financial sense.  Basically company buyers get a big discount which means for them the effective new price is lower which will apply a similar downward pressure on used prices.  Private buyers don't get the new price discount but still face the lower used price hence higher cost of ownership and thus relatively speaking a bad buy.

eg TM3 list price 40k but effetive price to a company buyer 35k due to the tax incentive.  After 3 years the SH value will be based on the 35k as the vast majority of sales are effectively at this price (just as an example 35k x 40% = 14k), leaving those who pay 40k with no incentive seeing depreciation of 26k rather than the 21k seen by the fleet buyers.  ICE vehicles don't see the subsidy so won't suffer from this effect so make more sense for private buyers.

So, the tax advantages for businesses are effectively deterring potential private new EV buyers?

Many private buyers are taking advantage of the business tax breaks via SalSac schemes. This is really skewing the private/business figures. I think it's also tempting many to buy new through SalSac rather than buying a one or two year old car & charging business miles.