Donald, I completely agree with you. I'm not blessed with a company car or the sort of income that warrants a new £40k car every 3 years. That's why I drive a 3-year-old Soul.
For now, we've got to accept the higher EV prices over ICE. At least depreciation is generally lower, so total cost of ownership isn't bad.
I can't see EVs becoming £1000 - £3000 runarounds for the youth of today like many conventional cars.
Unless EV makers can make big profits from cheap cars, they'll concentrate on the pricier stuff out of our price range. This won't change until the EV battery makers oversupply the market, making prices fall for us mere mortals.
Yep, quite so. In fact, for precisely the reason that (as I agree) I can't see BEVs dropping to a few k, let alone a few hundred, I think the cost of motoring will go up for everyone.
Figure this; Gov has a certain income from ICE cars being plodded around. Without that income, what does it do, how does it generate the car-related revenues?
Well, it'll have to come up with some other creative ideas to pull in the taxes which are not based on the fuels (it is easy when there is fuel costs involved, and indeed easy to use taxes to dis-incentivise people to burn the stuff).
If electricity-for-road-use (ERV) continues to be untaxed to the burdens currently dumped on fossil fuels, then the tax will shift to the cars themselves, making them more expensive in addition to this minimum bottom-end value, which in part is very low now because cars
currently remain expensive to run and own ... try selling a post 2006 car that does 20mpg. The cost of ownership is so high that the purchase value is low. Good for people who want a bargain V8 for the weekends maybe but crap for the lower echelons of societal income demographics.
Instead, the cost of motoring will be spread across the ownership fleet, instead of those with new cars. This will favour people who can afford new cars and have nice driveways in their nice houses, while the runners-up in society will find that they have been slung that particular cost-monkey further down the line.
The total through-life cost of owning a motor car will not change much, Gov income depends on it. That means while new car owners are living it up and seeing good value on their low-depreciating, low-energy-cost cars, those who cannot afford to do so end up going hungry for personal transport.
Frankly, although it is difficult to see right now, there is a potential disaster brewing for the politics of
progressive economics with the demise of ICE.
