Pro's and con's for buying an electric vehicle

But Malc seems to take their word as gospal

'Ecotrickery' run whole fleets of cash pumps, disguised as wind turbines.

They are amazingly efficient at hoovering up government subsidies which are paid for by all of us, including grannies in fuel poverty, to make Dale Vince a multimillionaire (currently over £100 million) under a mildly green badge, rather than using tax payers money to fund healthcare / schools etc.

And I say mildly green, because he will not publish any of his generation figures, but a few years ago, the data from one site was leaked revealing a 16% efficiency, meaning the carbon from building the site would never even be offset during the sites 20 year predicted service! 

2 reasons.....

It helps to keep our domestic bills down, important as we probably use a lot more power up here than those who live further south.

While interest rates are low, we reckon it will eventually  give us a better return than just leaving the money in the bank, even though it will take 8-9 years to break even.

The only consistent renewable come rain, shine or wind is tidal. That doesn't seem to be getting the R&D like the other stuff.

The battery on the Nissan Leaf is guaranteed for five years. Replacement £5000 or there about. None ha been replaced in the UK since the Leafs introduction in 2011.

Likewise with our purchase of an EV Kj, an initial outlay but retaining an asset we can resell if needed. We are saving £150 per month in fuel, over the next ten years this could mean £18,000 in savings plus we have a car that is costing us virtually nothing after purchase. Our electricity bills haven't increased much either because we run the car at it's optimum performance  level. 

Too sweeping a statement seeing there are two options.

The 24kW battery pack on the Leaf is guaranteed for 5 years but the 30kW pack is 8 years. 

With somewhere in the region do £50 Bn in duty revenues claimed by the Govt, it’s an illusion that today’s low costs for gas/ electric motor vehicle power will remain cheap. The Govt can’t afford not to balance diminishing fossil fuel usage/ income in favour of electricity, in the long term. Fossil fuel conversion through power stations is about 33% efficient by the time it’s delivered to a charging point. Conversion in contemporary combustion engines is close to 50%. Which makes electricity as motor fuel a poor substitute - UNLESS - our electrical energy is supplied from green sources. BUT an ever increasing percentage of our electrical energy is imported, which in turn hides our carbon footprint. Ie if China makes the steel which we use, then they bear the CO2 burden of our own consumption. In reality, China’s per capita CO2 emissions are similar to the UK’s and Noway is a major source of our fossil fuel energy. In short, current propaganda re the future benefits of elecric vehical consumption is flawed under current production models. UK technology and energy distribution has a way to go before we should be ready to invest in battery powered cars - though they may become viable in the longer term, but cheap, never.

But they are getting cheaper already and they are not being produced in the same way as i.c.e cars, their construction is different. Did you know BMWi3 door panels have hemp in them?.....car production as not seen before. The automotive industry is going through a huge change.

 Hemp?

Is that not just canabis by another name?