EVs... no one wants them!

I was quite surprised by an earlier post saying that around 70% of drivers had off road parking. Seemed to be backed up in this article (which I haven't read in full yet).

https://www.transportxtra.com/publications/parking...

What's the loss to the U.K. if we stop importing Ford badged cars from Germany?

The U.K. employees in Ford clothing currently working to import, sell and maintain cars with Ford badges on them just change the logos on their clothing and the cars.

The U.K. consumer market isn't going to randomly reduce the number of vehicles it imports and sells every year just because one of these exporters can't compete with the others.

Ford cars could evaporate from the docks tomorrow and not only would no one in the U.K. even notice but the next day the docks would have more cars from another brand arriving to fill the gap.

The U.K. execs of Ford should have paid a little more attention to the writings of Charles Darwin.

And the U.K. should not be changing policy just to favour the weakest of the overseas manufacturers but letting them die and be replaced by superior competition.

But if someone is perpetually having to use non domestic tariffs then they really shouldn't have bought an EV unless they doing such low mileage that the other savings compensate.

It raises the aspect that employers need to account for whether an employee has the ability to charge at night, on private land, using a discount tariff or whether they have no such ability as to force the latter into EV use to benefit the employer's ESG credentials is in reality a discrimination.

Just picking out two points from this post - first one. Yep, its screwed, screwed for the reason given and for the fact that idiotically it has culled the small and medium size ICE cars that have been its staple big passenger car sellers - Fiesta and Focus. Meanwhile Vauxhall seems to be doing ok. Its Corsa is everywhere on the roads thanks to picking up ex Fiesta buyers and actually offering an EV Corsa for those who want to make the BEV switch. Ditto Astra. It also shifts tons of Mokkas to suit all those peeps who used to buy a Zafira.

Second point, yep Ford are losers now. They have chucked away their core branding in the UK and furthermore, the USP which helped them in the 90s, 00s, namely the good to drive, deft handling and riding feeling of their bread and butter cars has gone, with the possible exception of their popular Puma crossover. Bye bye nippy, chuckable Fiesta/Focus, hello big fat and overweight Mustang EV. Surely it was not beyond Ford to have sold a BEV Fiesta or Focus?!

Back to the fuel station point, at the end of the day its personal choice. I am sure it is possible for most people to find a charger mid trip home and have a quick 20 mins top up, but if they would rather keep their old ICE car for now knowing they don't need to refuel it on a 400 mile round trip then that's their prerogative. People need to stop telling others how to run their lives!

Would an extra 15 minutes to charge be the end of the world?

Further to my previous post, the trend for average distance travelled annually supports the idea that range anxiety is predominantly a manufactured concern.
COVID obviously skews the data, regardless, when you are dealing with a technology solution to a transportation challenge where the average person is not exceeding 6000 miles per annum, or less than 20 miles per day, arming every single car with the ability to travel 700 miles in one go seems ridiculous.



Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64e...

Super, average distance. Meaningless when you need to do regular long trips and the car won’t make it.