What if it were 2030 Today? How Ready are we for Electric Motoring?

Close your eyes and pretend it’s 2030. Wait, no, how can you read this if your eyes are closed? Open your eyes and pretend it’s 2030, autonomous vehicles and flying cars, the lot… Reminiscing over the last decade, you recall some striking news headlines; “Oxford COVID vaccine hit 90% success rate”, “New petrol and diesel cars to be banned in 2030”, and “Trump still refuses to concede”. Imagine that all being in the space of a week! 2020 sure was a rough one. Well, here we are. It’s finally 2030, all that is behind us now… or is it? Is Trump ever going to admit defeat? How are we fairing with the new petrol/diesel car ban? Just how ready are we for full-electric motoring?

In 2020, electric cars made up 10% of car registrations!

Shocking nowadays, I know. They would be charged at home on the drive overnight. Typically, they could cover around 200 miles between charges, but who does that long a journey every day? The five times a year that one would need to use public charging, which is covered easily with motorway rapid chargers or Tesla Superchargers. Ignore the fact that half of the UK do not have a drive or garage and focus on the half that does. Hold your horses the rest of you, we’ve not forgotten about you.

There were many electric cars on the market back then, improving each day. Hell, look at where they are now! Flying, of course… Electric cars were and still are easier to produce and maintain than ICE vehicles. They’re more efficient with a much lower impact on the environment all around. They typically covered 30 miles a day, which is more than most people’s daily commute! How far we’ve come…

Back to Liiiife, Back to Realityyyy

Back to present-day-no-flying-cars-2020 with outdated song references, let’s look at the cost. Only the elites can afford electric cars today, right?

My friend has a Renault Scenic, nine years old. In just one month, it loses £100 a month in depreciation, costs £30 to tax, £100 to fuel, £50 to insure and £40 to maintain. That’s £320 a month! Did you know on salary sacrifice schemes, you can get a brand-new MG ZS for a similar cost? That’s including the electric to recharge it as well!

How About Charging?

Everyone knows that there aren’t enough charge points and the grid definitely can’t cope either.

The typical electric car uses the same amount of electricity per day as running an oven for just over 2 hours. I don’t recall a time since the 70’s that we have mass power cuts at dinner time. Besides, half our electricity is produced from renewables nowadays.

Plus, electric cars generally charge at night when the grid has a huge oversupply. From time to time, you’ll have to use a public charge point. Don’t worry though, there are 35,000 in the UK currently with only 3% utilised! Bizarrely, there are also 33 million cars in the UK, so that’s one charge point per hundred electric cars. You’ll only really need to use a public charge point five times a year, not including the odd times fancy a quick top-up while you do the big shop.

I may be Oversimplifying Electric Motoring Slightly…

Remember, it’s not 2030 yet. I know our exercise earlier was very convincing, but we can’t go back to the future now. I’m so sorry. Anyway, moving swiftly forward, things will only improve for electric cars. Charging black spots, such as mid-Wales, will catch up and charge speed will increase.

As I’ve said a couple of times now, the typical driver only needs to charge publicly five times a year.

Again, there’s one public charge point per hundred cars on the road (currently based on petrol and diesel cars in addition to electrics). Time management or a booking system could just about charge your car for all your public charging needs. You could book your own charge point for a total of around 80 hours a year, you’d probably only need around five hours.

Yes, I am making lots of assumptions, but this is today, not 2030 (unless you’re reading this in 2030, if you are, hello!). For those with a drive or garage, you already have everything you need to get into electric motoring!

For those without a drive or garage, your electric motoring dreams are a little more difficult to achieve.

The effort does need to be delivered here. We do need more widely accessible infrastructure to support the change to electric motoring; kerbside charging, workplace charging, and communal charging will all form part of the solution. The reality is that for half of us, we’re already ready! The media resist change and cast their doubt onto others. Then again, most of them still think we want to buy our papers at a shop and wrestle with them on the train. Essentially, they’re a little old fashioned.

The future is coming! Start your electric motoring journey today with no faff! Get a guide.