One big benefit of driving an electric vehicle is an end to visiting fuel station forecourts to pay for overpriced petrol. One big disadvantage is that tech-savvy criminals already have EV drivers wanting to charge in their sights.
Crooks have figured out that EV charging points offer a wealth of riches within. Home chargers are usually in easily accessible positions and require an internet connection. “We’ve looked for vulnerabilities in domestic EV chargers and found quite a few,” Andy Davis from car security expert NCC Group said. “Someone could use that to hack into your home network and get access to bank details and passwords.”
Public charging points are at risk, too. Hack into those, Davis explained, and you can get into where people’s banking information is processed when they pay to charge. “And we’re starting to see more remote unmanned charging stations that would be likely high-risk targets,” he added.
Some crooks aren’t even that sophisticated. In London, enterprising criminals simply put stickers with their own QR code on public charging points. When innocent drivers scanned it to pay for a charge, it took them to the legitimate-looking website the crooks had created.
There’s nothing mythical about organised crime targeting EV drivers. It’s proof that battery cars have reached the mass market, but it’s not the only problem afflicting this still relatively new technology.
Last year was the first since 2018 that battery cars have failed to increase their market share. In March 2024, traditionally the busiest month for new car sales, the number of new EVs sold was down slightly (1 per cent) over the same period in 2023.
More worryingly for the motor industry, only one in 11 private buyers (as opposed to fleets bought for organisations) chose an EV. Head of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), Mike Hawes, said: “When it comes to market share, we have fallen behind partly because there aren’t incentives for the private buyers that other countries have.”
European countries Belgium, Denmark, Portugal and Finland have seen annual EV sales more than double. In Norway, four out of five new cars sold last year were battery electric; the Norwegian EV Association claims combustion-engined cars will soon be history in the nation.
But even though the Scandinavian country is often cited as a plug-in paradise, it does share one thing with the UK: charging displeasure.
Anyone who’s driven an EV will know how frustrating it can be when chargers don’t work or are already occupied. They’ll be familiar with that knot in the stomach while waiting for the car and charging point to communicate, enabling electricity to flow and your journey to continue. And they’ll be surprised at how expensive public charging can be.
Chief executive of the EV Association England, James Court, assured us things will get better soon. He said: “Once EVs get to price parity and once there’s more charging on the roads, that’s when you’d hope to see a real tipping point from internal combustion engine (ICE) to EV.” But when will that be?
To discover whether public attitudes are likely to change in the short term, we assess various widely held beliefs about electric cars to sort fact from fiction.
Myth: EV prices won’t come down any time soon
EVs are much more expensive to buy than their internal combustion engine (ICE) equivalents – for now.
Buy a new electric Vauxhall Corsa Yes and it’ll cost £26,895; the petrol equivalent is £18,505. On finance, the EV costs £307 a month over four years. The ICE model is £206 a month over the same period with the same deposit.
But EV prices will fall. Bloomberg New Energy Finance claims battery costs have dropped by 14 per cent in the past year and, it says, there will be price parity between EVs and petrol cars in 2025. This is driven in part by greater numbers resulting in manufacturing savings for car makers, part by increasing numbers of cheap EVs from China and part by government policy.
The Labour government says it will reverse Rishi Sunak’s decision to delay banning new ICE car sales from 2030 to 2035. What is less clear is how it will implement this. Under existing ‘2035 rules, car makers must sell a gradually increasing proportion of EVs. This year it’s 22 per cent of total sales, in 2028 it’ll be 52 per cent. With a £15,000 fine per car they miss the target by, that’s a compelling incentive.
In its State of the Switch report, consultancy New Automotive claimed: “We predict consumers can expect price cuts and discounts – potentially up to £10,000 – for sales of some new EVs… This will cut – and potentially eliminate altogether – the price differentials between battery electric vehicles produced by these manufacturers and their petrol and diesel equivalents.”
Senior forecasting editor for car valuation specialist CAP HPI, Dylan Setterfield, added: “We’ve already seen price reductions on some new models.” Visit a showroom looking for a new battery car in the coming months and you might be pleasantly surprised at EV price reductions.
Myth: Charging EVs isn’t that cheap
One of the benefits of EVs is pleasingly low running costs. Servicing is around half as much because EVs have fewer moving parts and don’t tend to wear their brakes as much as an ICE car. And New Automotive claims EVs cost around a third (36 per cent) less to fuel than a petrol car.
But this all depends on where you charge. Energy supplier EdF offers a 9p/kWh night-time home charging tariff. In an averagely efficient EV, a 20-mile drive will cost 51p. But on a motorway, with a top-whack 79p/kWh tariff, that 20-mile drive costs £4.51 in energy.
Many public charging stations only cost about 40p/kWh (£2.28 for 20 miles). So that’s cheaper than the same journey in a 40mpg petrol car, which will cost £3.29 in petrol at July 2024 prices.
But public charging is made more expensive because using them attracts 20 per cent VAT versus a 5 per cent rate for domestic charging. Vicky Read, CEO of ChargeUK which represents 40 charge operators and installers, said: “That definitely doesn’t help affordability and it discriminates against people who can’t charge at home.”
So while public charging isn’t always cheap – and many in the EV industry think it should be cheaper – EVs do have lower energy costs than ICE cars.
Myth: We’ll never have enough public EV chargers
At the end of June 2024, the UK had 64,632 public charging points, a year-on-year increase of 47 per cent. If that growth rate is maintained exponentially, we’ll have more than 600,000 chargers by 2030, around double the previous government’s target.
Vicky Read is confident we’ll have sufficient charging points to meet driver demand. “Currently systems and processes for accessing the grid, planning and streetworks haven’t been designed for EV infrastructure to be rolled out at pace,” she said.
The result is that the government missed its target to have at least six rapid chargers at every motorway services by the end of 2023. And more than four in 10 UK chargers (44 per cent) are in London and the South East, while Wales has a paltry 4 per cent.
But with a street or car park charger having to pass 19 approval stages, from a local authority grant application to the charge point finally being commissioned, it’s hardly surprising installation can be patchy, and in some cases, take “multiple years”.
But the new government wants to address planning issues and give local authorities more guidance in how to take advantage of available grants. Read added: “Once that’s done, the huge backlog that’s waiting to squeeze through this bottleneck will move much more quickly and the exponential growth will increase.”
That, hopefully, will see public charging cease to be so South East-centric and improve the particularly poorly served areas of Wales, the North East and Northern Ireland.
Myth: The grid won’t cope if we all drive EVs
It’s 2034 and the nation has turned on to watch England play in the World Cup final. At half time, the population dashes to put the kettle on – except that with all the EVs charging, the grid can’t cope and swathes of the country black out. A likely scenario?
Not according to the Energy Networks Association (ENA), which represents the companies operating the UK’s energy system. The ENA claims it’s investing £43 billion over the coming years to deliver the energy we will need to charge our cars.
Like ChargeUK, it’s hoping government reforms will speed things up. “Challenges remain, especially around planning consents and securing necessary land rights for the vital infrastructure needed to bolster connections,” it told us.
Myth: EVs don’t depreciate like petrol cars
A few years ago, EVs were infamous for shedding value as you drove away from the showroom: some were worth just a third of their sticker price after only three years. But anyone hoping that the passage of time has been kind to EV values will be disappointed.
Auto Trader said: “With manufacturers and retailers increasing the incentives on new electric cars to stimulate demand… This would worsen the already high levels of depreciation that exist in the (used) market.”
CAP HPI’s Dylan Setterfield added: “At four years old, an average EV is worth 14 per cent less than its petrol or diesel equivalent. That’s about £2,400.” He showed us a forecast for the Vauxhall Corsa GS Line. After two years and 20,000 miles, the EV will be worth £2,050 less than the petrol car. The EV starts life £8,465 more expensive.
But to reverse the saying: one man’s poison is another man’s meat. While hefty depreciation might be hard for the new car buyer to swallow – and result in higher monthly finance payments – it’s far more palatable for the used car buyer. And used EV prices fell significantly more heavily than those of petrol cars last year.
Auto Trader concluded: “Affordability has improved to such an extent that many used electric cars are priced below their petrol or diesel equivalents. A three-year-old electric Jaguar I-Pace retailed for an average of £28,000 at the end of 2023, whereas the same-age diesel Jaguar F-Pace retailed for £30,000.”
Myth: Don’t buy now as EV battery technology will improve
Remember when it was hard to buy a computer because the following month you’d be able to get a better, faster one for less money? EVs are almost at a similar point with impending changes in battery technology.
Later this year, car making giant Stellantis (Vauxhall, Peugeot, Citroen, DS Automobiles and Fiat) will launch an EV that it claims gives a range of 435 miles on one charge.
Dr Euan McTurk from Plug Life Consulting said: “There’s a plethora of exciting new battery technology on the horizon. Vehicles using sodium-ion rather than lithium-ion batteries are already coming off production lines in China. These batteries are cheap to make and powering vehicles the size of a Ford Fiesta, if not smaller, that cost just £8,500.”
There are also batteries coming that will charge more rapidly. Israeli company StoreDot claims it’s put the combined brain power of 35 PhD researchers into producing a battery for the forthcoming Polestar 5 that can charge from 10 to 80 per cent in only 10 minutes.
But Dr McTurk claimed rapidly advancing technology is no reason for not buying today: “I would not be put off buying because today’s battery technology is already very capable. But the technology of tomorrow will be a gamechanger in improving affordability.”
Myth: EVs will make us more reliant on China
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Critical Minerals Market Review from last year claims that China processes 65 per cent of the world’s lithium, which is necessary for EV batteries.
But Dr McTurk said: “We’re seeing that change in front of our eyes. North America and Europe are actively moving to create their own EV supply chains.” The IEA says that in 2023-30, China’s share of lithium refining will reduce to 49 per cent with less hostile countries Australia, Argentina and Chile increasing their joint share to 36 per cent.
“Many consuming countries want to diversify their source of refined metal supplies,” the IEA said. With Australia already producing about three times the lithium China does and Chile nearly half the amount, any current dependence on China will only diminish.
Myth: Building EVs is worse for the environment than petrol cars
An EV is identical to a combustion-engined car in all areas apart from its drivetrain; to be a car as we know it, both need the same quantities of plastic, metals, glass and rubber. The difference is that EVs need batteries. In Polestar’s Life Cycle Assessment for its new 3, the company claims battery module production accounts for 16 per cent of the car’s cradle-to-grave emissions.
A study for the European Parliament found: “For BEVs, production impacts are around 50% higher than gasoline cars in 2020 (mainly due to the batteries).” But as soon as the cars hit the road, the zero-emissions EV starts clawing back its deficit.
Nikolas Hill is technical director for British sustainable vehicle consultant Ricardo. He added: “Over its lifetime an EV will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) impact by about 60 per cent compared with an equivalent petrol car. We estimate that the EV will have overcome its GHG production deficit within 13,000 to 15,000 miles.”
This is only going to get better. Hill said: “There will also be a substantial reduction in EV production emissions as battery chemistries change. The pollution [from extracting minerals for batteries] is often used against EVs but no one talks about bad practices in fossil fuel production. We’re just more familiar with those.”
Myth: EV batteries won’t last the lifetime of the car
We’ve all had mobile phones or laptops that become virtually useless because their battery holds so little charge. Happily, that looks unlikely to happen to EVs.
EV batteries are designed, like a combustion engine, to last the lifetime of the vehicle. In the UK, that’s about 14 years or 130,000 miles. And most car firms guarantee their batteries will have at least 70 per cent of their new capacity for up to eight years or 100,000 miles.
In a 2022 study of 3,262 EVs by Which?, cars registered in 2015 suffered an average 5 per cent reduction in their original range. Those registered from 2019 – three years old at the time of the survey – lost only 2 per cent of their original range.
In its Impact Report 2022, Tesla said its Model S/X batteries lost 12 per cent of their power over 200,000 miles. So while batteries do degrade over time, it’s unlikely to be a big problem for most car owners.
Myth: EVs are a fire risk
There are plenty of weird and wonderful EV myths, like you can’t take them through car washes (you can) and that EVs are a fire hazard.
There’s little research about this in the UK. But in Australia, the government’s EV Fire Safe said: “Our initial research findings, based on global EV battery fires from 2010-2020, indicate a 0.0012% chance of a passenger electric vehicle battery catching fire. A range of country-based reports we found suggest there is a 0.1% chance of an ICE vehicle catching fire.”
At least there’s little to worry about from EVs there.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
