[Edd Beesley]

IMO we are no where near any kind of tipping point yet. EVs and PHEVs are certainly becoming more popular and more common but it is still such a small percentage of total car sales that it is still almost insignificant in the scale of things overall.

The tipping point is still a long way off IMO but I am still convinced it will happen... just more slowly than most people expect.

If you take tipping point as point of no return then I think we are there. With just Nissan in the game a few years back it wasn't the case, but there's enough different models in enough peoples hands that the demand is growing and unstoppable.

 

[Edd Beesley]

I don't agree... I think that there is still a real and genuine chance that EVs may not break through and if they do then it will be a quite a long time in coming.

IMO it depends on when the battery and charging technology gets developed to allow manufacturers to deliver the real-world range and speed of charging that the public want at a price they are prepared to pay. At the moment the technology is not there. It is currently fine for us early adopters but not there yet for the general public IMO. When it is, and manufacturers launch cars with that tech and the charging is in place, then and only then do I see EVs picking up serious traction in the market. That is a very long way off and until then I see EVs selling in dribs and drabs albiet increasing numbers.

I could see PHEVs becoming quite popular though.

The good thing about phevs is that they give people a taste of EV, and get them to realise how many miles they actually do. There will be a large number of i3 Rex buyers who in 3 years time don't bother with the Rex. There will also be some who have never used a full charge + full tank, and realise they can opt for a 200 mile car, and some who found the CCS network good enough by the end of the three years and their use of it so infrequent that although they want to do 200 mile + trips they are fine with a 100 mile battery.

 

[Edd Beesley]

Yeah, and for some people a gen 1 leaf is fine (my friend and neighbour has only used a rapid charger once, to get the car home. He just doesn't need to go further than 60 miles), for some people 150 miles will be the sweet spot and for some it's 400 miles. They can make that choice when buying and a PHEV helps them make that choice.

In a way the 400 mile EV will make things easier to understand. 400 miles is about 100kwh, £10-£12ish at home, versus a petrol/diesel car where that might be anything from £30 for a 70mpg supermini to £100 for a large engined car.

Also, I don't personally see PHEV sales being higher than BEV once the Model 3 is on sale, I am convinced it will be a massive hit.

 

[Edd Beesley]

Depends what you mean by "massive".

I too think the gen 3 Tesla will be quite popular as far as BEVs go but it will be far, far too expensive for most people if it comes in at the £35k that has been touted. £25k might do the trick but IMO even that is probably too much. Not everyone can afford that kind of money on a car or wants to spend it.

I am sure it will become one of the more popular BEVs but it will still be very much a niche market IMO.

By massive I mean that the 500k per year they want to sell is achieved. As far as I know the most popular phev so far is the Volt/Ampera, with about 77,000 global sales according to wiki, roughly 25k per year.

"Far too expensive for most people" is a bit of a stretch, I think. I couldn't find a newer number, but the average car price in the UK for 2012 was £27,219. Given the running costs, expected maintenance and emissions related benefits it's a better value proposition than a diesel car at £35k. There will be hundreds of thousands of cars sold this year for £35k+ in the UK, it's easy to believe that 20-30k could be Model 3's in a few years time, right in 3 series territory.

 

[Edd Beesley]

By "average" I assume you mean taking the models and their prices. If you take the average price paid by cars sold then I am pretty sure it won't be anything like as high as £27k.

IMO I think we should all be very careful at quoting stats. Unless you clearly explain what you mean by the stat it is pretty much useless and can be highly misleading.

I know there are loads of cars sold at higher prices but I am considering what the average Joe Public is likely to spend and that is way below £35k IMO. If you think that most people would be able to afford or willing to spend in the BMW 3 series price bracket then I think that you should get out and talk to more people out there that are not already EV converts. People generally spend a lot less on cars that we EV early adopters do.

In fact, I would guess that the majority wouldn't buy new anyway.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-2408807/New-car-prices-risen-inflation-25-years.html

That's where the £27k number came from.

When you look at new car sales there's a very obvious pooling, private buyers buy tens of thousands of Corsas, Fiestas, Focus's and Astras every year. Fleet buyers buy tens of thousands of 3 Series, A4's, and C-Classes. I fully aprreciate the costs are not low enough for the Corsa and Fiesta market yet, but for the fleet market the costs are fine.

 

[Edd Beesley]

EV sales are doubling every year. What point is tipping point? Not sure but it will happen.

http://evindustry.com/2014/04/02/electric-vehicle-sales-double-every-year/

Year cars sold Cars with plugs
2013 2,260,000 2,448 0.11%
2014 2,260,000 4,896 0.22%
2015 2,260,000 9,792 0.43%
2016 2,260,000 19,584 0.87%
2017 2,260,000 39,168 1.73%
2018 2,260,000 78,336 3.47%
2019 2,260,000 156,672 6.93%
2020 2,260,000 313,344 13.86%
2021 2,260,000 626,688 27.73%
2022 2,260,000 1,253,376 55.46%
2023 2,260,000 2,506,752 110.92%

For the 2013 year it's the actual number of Zoes, Amperas, Volts and Leafs registered. The number then doubles each year.

 

[Edd Beesley]

@Flaninacupboard I believe that curve is hopelessly optimistic. IMO that speed of take up will not happen. We are still in the early adopter stage. At some point sales will start to flatten out until there is a sea-change in range/charging time/price... then it may even be steeper than that graph suggests.

Yeah it's a curve based on doubling sales units. Let's look at the Leaf, new registrations according to howmanyleft.co.uk

2013 was more than double 2012, and just Q1 for 2014 is 49.3% of 2013. To me that looks like 2014 will be double 2013. Add to that the i3 and Outlander sales, and it's easy to see more than double across all plugins. Late this year/early next we have the e golf, golf phev and A3 phev, and of course Model S deliveries are building up. I don't think it's impossible....!

 

[Edd Beesley]

When you can rock up at any backstreet garage to get a refurbished battery installed, or an inverter replaced, then you know you are out of the early adopter phase.

In the US there are dedicated hybrid repair shops already in "hybrid friendly" areas, Luscious Garage springs to mind, and they are already doing EV's. It will come

 

[Edd Beesley]

People just don't get it sometimes. I remember talking to a neighbour about my plugin Prius:
"So what mpg does it do then?"
"I'm getting a tank average of over 90mpg"
"Oh, my diesel does over 60mpg on a good run"
"Oh, well mine is not just on a run, it'll do over 90mpg just going to the shops or going to work"
"But mine does 60 on a run"
As though fuel economy only matters on "a run".