The truth about electric vehicles!
Busting the myths and misconceptions about electric vehicles (July 2024)
“You can’t hear them coming!”
In 2019 the government introduced regulations mandating that all manufacturers must install acoustic sound systems in all new quiet EVs. These will produce a specified level of noise when vehicles are reversing or travelling at slow speeds. This will allow pedestrians and other road users to hear EVs more easily.
EVs aren’t as silent as some people seem to think though. They still make road noise from their tyres, and certainly a lot more noise than a cyclist would make! The fact that they are quieter should be considered to be a good thing, particularly in residential areas. As long as pedestrians have the common sense to look in all directions before they cross the road, there should be no problem!
“Electric vehicles don’t go far enough on a single charge and have a short range”
The average EV can now travel between 200 and 300 miles. Our 2022 Renault Zoe does between 190 (in the winter) and 240 ‘real world’ miles. Enough to get from Scarborough to London (224 miles), Edinburgh (214 miles) or Liverpool (137 miles)
Many ‘top of the range’ models now cover between 400 and 500 miles on one charge!
Statistically in the UK, the first car in a family does around 37 miles a day on average and any second car covers around 11 miles daily.
When we take longer trips, most of us already do stop for 15-30 minutes at a service station, to grab a drink, use the facilities or fill up on petrol or diesel. This is the time it takes to power up your EV with ultra-rapid chargers that are already being installed across the country, with plans for more over the coming years.
“There aren’t enough public EV chargers“
At the end of June 2024, there were 64,775 electric vehicle charging points across the UK, across 33,829 charging locations. This represents a year-on-year increase of 46% in the number of public devices, with 20,367 installed since June 2023.
“What about in Scarborough?”
This article is from the NYCC website in September 2023; this is in addition to the existing charging points in Scarborough. Search Google, and look at ‘places’ to see where they all are. You might be surprised!
“We (NYCC) are installing 96 electric vehicle charging points across the former Scarborough borough in 18 car parks, offering residents and visitors convenient locations to recharge their batteries.”
https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/your-north-yorkshire/electric-vehicle-charging-points-rolled-out-coast
“It takes too long to charge an EV”
Charging your EV can take as little as 30 minutes using a rapid charger or up to 12 hours using a home charger (0% to 100%) – it all depends on the size of your car battery and the speed of the charging point. As with all technology, EV chargers are changing and developing all the time, and will continue to do so.
For those with home chargers, up to 80% of your charging will likely be done at home, including while you’re sleeping, using off-peak cheap rates.
“Electric vehicles are too expensive”
At the moment, NEW EVs are generally more expensive to buy than similar petrol or diesel cars, but there are now more used EVs available, which has brought down their price drastically. Auto Express magazine recently reported some second hand EVs being cheaper than their petrol or diesel equivalents. While it’s true that products based on new technology do tend to be more expensive for early adopters, prices typically come down as they become more mainstream and volumes increase – look at mobile phones and laptops for example. EV battery prices are also falling, which helps reduce the cost of a new car.
EVs are cheaper to run than petrol or diesel cars over their lifespan. This is due to a number of factors. First of all, electricity is typically significantly cheaper than petrol or diesel per mile driven. This difference has become even more pronounced with recent energy price rises affecting fossil fuels. An electric car costs £6 less than the average petrol car for every 100 miles. Using an average electricity cost of 34p per kWh, it costs £12 to drive 100 miles. Whereas it costs £18 to drive 100 miles in the average petrol car. In our experience, the cost of doing 100 miles has been much less than that though! EVs have a lot fewer moving parts than traditional petrol or diesel cars. This means you’ll need less frequent and generally less expensive maintenance like oil changes, engine tune-ups, and transmission repairs.
“The electricity grid won’t be able to handle the increase in EVs”
Follow this link to see what the national grid say.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/electric-vehicles-myths-misconceptions
“The electricity used to charge EVs is created by burning fossil fuels, so there are still emissions involved”
More and more of our electricity now comes from renewable, green or clean energy sources and zero-carbon power in Britain’s electricity mix has grown from less than 20% in 2010 to nearly 50% in 2021. With the growth in onshore and offshore wind farms and the closure of a number of coal plants, transport is now the most polluting thing the UK does as a nation.
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/electric-vehicles-myths-misconceptions
“EVs catch fire!”
The cause of the Luton Airport fire has been a popular topic across social media, with many blaming EVs. It follows a number of years of negative stories about fires involving Teslas.
However, a diesel-powered car is now believed to have started the fire! Data from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency shows that EVs are 20 times less likely to catch fire than petrol or diesel cars.
https://www.intelligentinstructor.co.uk/evs-catch-fire/
“We’ll end up with lots of EV batteries going into landfill”
The lithium ion technology in our mobile phones is not dissimilar to those in an electric vehicle, but what’s different is that EVs have effective power management systems that guard the long-term health of their batteries. Most manufacturers are offering battery warranties of seven or eight years, or around 100,000 miles, but there’s a reasonable expectation that they will actually last longer than that and indeed outlive the car itself.
Even if a battery became no longer fit for use in the car it won’t end up in that landfill site, as it can either be recycled or given a second life as an energy storage unit for homes or businesses.
“Electric cars break down more than normal cars”
Electric cars are actually shown to break down less than combustion vehicles, as they have fewer moving parts. They also require less maintenance, fewer fluids and their brake systems generally last longer due to regenerative braking.
“EVs are slower than petrol and diesel cars”
Electric vehicles are leaving combustion engine cars in their emission-free wake in performance terms! The fastest-accelerating production car in the world is currently an all-electric supercar – the Rimac Nevera (1.74 seconds!) – but even your average EV is much quicker accelerating than its petrol or diesel equivalent. While top speeds aren’t really any different to other cars, EVs’ rapid acceleration certainly feels a lot faster. That’s because you get instant torque delivery, whereas you need to ‘rev up’ an internal combustion engine car to get maximum power and torque.
“Are EV motors efficient?”
An electric motor makes vehicles substantially more efficient than internal combustion engines (ICEs). Electric motors convert over 85 percent of electrical energy into mechanical energy, or motion, compared to less than 40 percent for a gas combustion engine.