OPINION: Are EVs really the answer?

I’m not saying EVs don’t make sense for anyone. Company car buyers can make huge tax savings and the low-range problem isn’t an issue if you don’t drive that far. They’re also incredibly relaxing to drive – instant thrust and silent drivetrains allow basic EVs to possess Rolls Royce-like refinement. Any petrol car feels agricultural after a few hours in an EV.

And while we could debate until the cows come home about production emissions, precious metals and the disposal of EVs, no one can argue that they don’t reduce local emissions. The benefit is obvious in a city like London with the air quality of a private member’s smoking room. 

But EVs are not without their problems. While they make sense with incentives, without a carrot dangled in front of their eyeballs, private owners who don’t get tax incentives and have to deal with high insurance costs, pricy public chargers and so on, are less hot on the idea of EV ownership.

The second-hand car market flooded with EVs nobody wants reflects this, shedding value like bars of gold bullion timed to be blown to smithereens a week next Tuesday. Cars like Audi’s sharp-suited e-tron GT, which are about as desirable as EVs get, can shed a third of their value in a year. 

Anecdotally, some dealers have told me EVs depreciate quicker than they can sell them and won’t stock them for that reason. And we’ve all heard friends’ tales of EV ownership woes. Mine? My mate swapped his brand new Audi e-tron for a Q5 after the EV couldn’t get from Dublin to Donegal on a charge.

And there’s more. When you’re searching for a petrol or diesel, you get a good sense of the car’s health from its service history – the longer and more fastidiously it’s kept updated, the more likely it is that you’re buying a car that’s been looked after.

With EVs, there’s no way of checking the condition of the battery, which can be affected by everything from charging cycles to climate conditions – it could be in rude health or close to death’s door and you’ll never know. That seems like a massive problem that needs to be addressed. 

Even the government appears to be wobbling, extending the ban on petrol and diesel cars by five years, up from 2030 to 2035. It’s hard to not be sceptical of legislators' plans. Not too long ago we were told diesels were better than sliced bread because the huge belches of soot they produced contained less CO2 than an equivalent petrol. A few years down the line the tables have turned, with diesels now recategorised as public enemy number one.

Could EVs fall to the same fate? Right now, it certainly feels like buying an EV is like entering into a life-sized beta test, putting the cars and their charging networks through their paces before they’re ready to be released to the wider public.

Due out at the end of the decade, solid-state batteries could be the answer. They’ll be lighter, smaller, more powerful and quicker to charge than a traditional battery, revolutionising EVs in a oner. The downside? With the same stroke, older EVs will be rendered obsolete, which will do wonders for values we’re sure.

A powerful voice speaking to the relative murkiness of how future automobiles will be powered is Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota, grandson to the company founder and someone who knows a thing or two about cars. Toyoda believes EVs will only account for 30 percent of a market that in the future will include hydrogen and hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered cars. Toyoda also makes the point that one billion of the world’s population lives without electricity which will make charging an EV at present little short of an impossibility.

Will electric cars stand the test of time or are we backing the wrong horse? In a decade or so we should know the answer but like an automotive Lord of the Flies, consumerist natural selection will choose its own winner – not governments – and like CDs and smartphones, the true answer might be one we’ve not even considered yet.