Monthly Archives: January 2019

Let The Fully Electric Flood Begin!

January 11, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

After a couple of slow performances in previous months, in November, the European passenger plug-in market was back at cruising speed, with +31% year over year (YoY) sales.

There were some 37,500 registrations, pulling the year-to-date (YTD) count to 345,000 deliveries (+34%). In broader context, 2018 EV market share grew to 2.4%, thanks to a 3.2% market share in November.

But if on the surface everything seems to be back to normal, when you separate the fully electric (BEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrains, there are seismic changes. On the BEV side, sales (or I should say deliveries) jumped 96% YoY, the segment’s highest growth rate since July ’14. Fully electrics reached a record 23,000 registrations (61% share of all plug-ins), allowing them to (finally!) surpass PHEVs in the total year breakdown. This is the first that has happened since 2014. Historic month, indeed!

On the other hand, PHEVs continue feeling the sting of the new WLTP standard, with sales down (-14% in November) for the third month in a row, the segment’s worst downward trend since … well, forever. Will PHEVs in Europe recover sometime in the future, or are they going to be swallowed by the upcoming BEV flood?

One thing is certain, BEVs start 2019 with the upper hand.

But the PHEV debacle isn’t equal across all brands. Some automakers (BMW, Mitsubishi, Volvo…) did their homework and continue to thrive under the new rules, leading to some brilliant performances. In particular, the #3 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is soaring again.

In November, the top spots didn’t have major surprises since sales were high across the board. Three of the top 5 best sellers last month hit record performances (the i3, e-Golf, and Zoe), while the Outlander PHEV had its best month since 2015. The leader, Nissan Leaf, didn’t have a memorable score simply because Leaf output in the Sunderland factory is limited by the weight of the Qashqai production there. Maybe Nissan should think about sending units from the US to Europe?

Non-plug-ins to pay London Congestion Charge from April

January 10, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and CommentRepost

Vehicles without plug-in capability will no longer be exempt from London’s Congestion Charge under new plans, set to come into force in April.

The first phase of a new Cleaner Vehicle Discount (CVD) scheme, replacing the Ultra Low Emission Discount, will see only ‘zero emission-capable’ vehicles – such as plug-in hybrids or EVs – to be exempt from the £11.50-a-day charge.

Private hire vehicles (PHVs), such as those operated by Uber and Addison Lee, will also have to start paying after a public consulation supported a change in the rules. The changes will coincide with the introduction of the 24-hour Ultra Low Emission Zone in London, and are expected to see around 8000 fewer PHVs on the city’s streets each day.

Restrictions will tighten further by 2021, when only pure-EVs will be eligible for discount, while by 2025 the C-Charge discount will expire altogether. The move is aimed at improving air quality, which has been a hotly debated topic recently.

Electric vehicles showed the strongest used performance in 2018

January 9, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

USED car values fell by 1.7 per cent in December as demand weakened to its lowest since November 2017, according to Cap HPI.

The December used car market saw the usual drop-off in retail and trade demand, with some vendors deciding to hang on to stock and aiming to sell for higher prices in January. Any fall in values, however, has to be seen in the context of an exceptionally strong year overall in 2018.

Electric vehicles showed the strongest average performance with values rising by 0.3 per cent at three years and 60,000 miles. Models such as the Renault Zoe, Nissan e-NV200 and Nissan Leaf continued to be in demand, with prices increasing, while Tesla and BMW models struggled to achieve cap clean prices.

Derren Martin, head of UK valuations at Cap HPI, said: ‘The pattern continues for the more affordable electric cars to be sought after, whereas at the higher end finding buyers is more difficult.

‘As a new year gets under way, there is often a feeling amongst vendors and buyers that prices go up as we enter January. Over the last five years, the average value movement in our Live product during January has actually been a drop of 0.4 per cent.’

One in 20 Brits wonder if they need rubber-soled shoes to drive an electric car

January 8, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenRepost

The country has yet to get to grips with the latest car innovations – and some of the myths we have about electric cars are really bizarre

Brits have some weird and wonderful misconceptions about electric cars – including a belief they can’t be driven through puddles, it has emerged.

It also emerged others don’t think they can be used in the rain at all.

One in 20 even believe electric cars are fundamentally less safe, and nearly one in five believe an electric car will slow down as the battery depletes.

The poll of 2,000 drivers also found some even worry about electric cars being TOO QUIET – as pedestrians may not hear them approaching.

The research was commissioned by Volkswagen, whose spokesperson said: “Electric vehicles are becoming more mainstream, but it seems many people still have lots of unanswered questions about them.

“Despite overwhelming evidence showing them to be beneficial on environmental grounds, some motorists still have concerns over safety, battery life and charging issues.

“Clearly it’s the job of us in the automotive industry to answer these questions, get the correct information out there and make electric vehicles a viable option for people buying new cars in the next few years.”

The study also found Brits have numerous questions they’d ask a car dealer when considering buying an electric car.

Top of the list would simply be ‘How quickly do they charge up?’ followed by ‘How quickly do they run out of charge?’

Fifty-two per cent of drivers would also like to know how much it costs to fill the ‘tank’ with electricity from a charge point.

And one in 20 would even query whether they’d need to drive wearing rubber-soled shoes to prevent electrocution.

Nearly six in 10 Brits would like to own an electric car someday, and would even consider one as their next vehicle.

A third of the population also believe that by the year 2025 most people will drive electric cars, leaving fossil fuels in the past.

Chris Grayling under fire as promise to boost electric cars backfires

January 7, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

Less than 2% of vehicles used by transport department are electric, despite minister’s vow

Chris Grayling has been accused of failing to back up his positive words on electric cars with action after it emerged they account for less than 2% of his department’s car fleet.

The UK transport secretary said the government would “lead consumer uptake” of the cars when he laid out his plan for tackling air pollution with a switch to battery-powered vehicles.

However, he has come under fire for subsequently scrapping grants for plug-in cars, in a move condemned by vehicle manufacturers as “astounding”. Now official figures have revealed that only 29 of the 1,830 vehicles run by Department for Transport and its agencies are electric.

Labour said it was “laughable” that two months ago Grayling had been “bragging” about the DfT’s plans to take on more electric vehicles.

“The Tories’ policies show how little they care about the environment and dealing with air pollution. Chris Grayling’s hypocrisy and failure to get his own department to order more low-emission vehicles is further proof of that,” said Andy McDonald, the shadow transport secretary.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency and Driver Vehicle and Standards Agency, which carries out driving tests, are the worst performers. Neither has a single electric model among their hundreds of cars.

So far this year, the DfT has bought 10 electric vehicles, including some of Jaguar’s £64,450 well-reviewed I-PACE models. Last year, it bought three. Other popular models in the UK include the Tesla Model S, which sells from £53,500, and the smaller Nissan Leaf, which starts at £21,990.

The government has set itself a target of making a quarter of its car fleet electric within four years, and 100% by 2030. About 2% of new car sales in the UK are of electric models, either fully electric or plug-in hybrids.

Electric vehicle leasing expected to become cheaper and more popular

January 5, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, SalesRepost

Electric vehicles are expected to become much cheaper over the next two years as stronger residuals make them more attractive to the leasing sector.

Vantage Leasing says it should become cheaper to lease a battery powered car.

There is anticipation of a strong second-hand market for electric vehicles in 2021/22, which will in turn reduce the depreciation cost in a lease payment before then.

“Higher residual values for EVs in coming years due to the anticipation of a second-hand market should also make it cheaper to lease an electric vehicle in the very near future.

“That’s because any enhancement of EV residual values means the depreciation cost in a lease payment will also be smaller,” said James Buttrick from Vantage Leasing.

Registration figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show a dormant EV market, where sales of pure electric vehicles only increased by 1,307 vehicles from 2017 to 2018 year-to-date.

However, supply issues and the switch to WLTP has affected the availability and lead times of many electric and plug-in hybrid cars in the last 12 months.

OVO installs its first domestic vehicle-to-grid charger

January 4, 2019Charging, Electric Cars, Leaf, News, Reviews and Comment, Nissan, Ovo EnergyRepost

OVO has successfully installed its first vehicle-to-grid charger in a customer’s home, after the charge point was unveiled at the Energy Technology Product Showcase earlier this year.

The 6kW OVO Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) domestic bi-directional charger offers drivers of certain electric vehicles the opportunity to discharge excess electricity from their cars back to the electric grid to help supply energy at times of peak demand.

Available to Nissan Leaf drivers with a 30 or 40kWh battery, the vehicle-to-grid charger could enable Nissan drivers to have free power for their electric vehicles by selling energy back to the grid, says OVO.

It is part of the Innovate UK Vehicle-to-Grid competition, funded by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and the department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), in partnership with Nissan, CENEX, Indra and OVO.

In the Switch to Electric Vehicles, Expect a Few Giants to Crash

January 2, 2019Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, Opinion, SalesRepost

“Every manufacturer feels like, ‘We’ve got to at least have a dog in this hunt or we’ll be completely left behind.’”

The future of the auto industry is going to look like the history of the cell phone. The two even share technology: the lithium-ion battery. As the world’s automakers gradually switch from combustion to charging, some of today’s dominant car companies will share the fate of a few former titans of the smartphone. Remember BlackBerry, Nokia and Palm?

“Who will be the winners in the electric car race? Who knows?” said Mike Ramsey, senior director of research at Gartner Inc. “The incumbents could be, or they could be cut out entirely.”

This transition will play out as a plethora of electric options land in showrooms. In the next two years, an additional 85 battery-powered models will be marketed, bringing the global fleet to 357, according to the latest tally by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Volkswagen AG is near the front of the pack, promising 20 new electric models by 2020 and another 80 by 2025. Just this month, the German automaker said the internal combustion vehicles being designed now will be its last.

“Every manufacturer feels like, ‘We’ve got to at least have a dog in this hunt or we’ll be completely left behind,’” said Karl Brauer, executive publisher for Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. “If you ignore it and act like the market is never going to be ready, then you’re setting yourself up for real trouble.”

Being first, however, is no guarantee of success. Honda’s Insight promised a space-age 70 miles to the gallon on the highway when it rolled into dealerships as the first U.S. hybrid in December 1999. Yet the Toyota Prius, which reached the market months later, became the icon of greener wheels. A crowd of copycat hybrids arrived but none came close to matching the Toyota model’s cachet.

“An entire segment can be sucked up by one or two models,” Brauer said. Two decades later, the Prius accounts for almost half of electric vehicle sales to date.

The automaker that can capture this kind of icon status in the electric-vehicle space will be in a different gear for years. At the moment, Tesla Inc. appears to have that advantage, although there’s probably room for another paragon vehicle or two—a more affordable SUV, for instance, or an electric pickup truck.

2018 brought the electric car to everyone

January 1, 2019Electric Cars, Hyundai, Kona Electric, Model 3, News, Reviews and Comment, Sales, TeslaRepost

The Model 3 might still be pricey but there are alternatives.

It’s easy to look at a luxury automaker like Jaguar and declare 2018 the year the automotive industry caught up with Tesla. But like the Model X and Model S, the I-Pace is out of reach for most folks. It’s great that people with large bank accounts can get behind the wheel of a vehicle that runs on electrons instead of dead dinosaurs. What’s better is that 2018 showed that the rest of us can do the same thing.

Elon Musk promised a $35,000 electric vehicle with a range of more than 200 miles. The Model 3 is supposed to be the result of that pledge. But the company has yet to deliver a base-model version of the car. Building cars is hard; building inexpensive cars for the masses is near impossible. But that oath, and the fact that Tesla made electric cars “sexy,” inspired (or forced) other automakers to realize there is a market for electric-powered transportation.

The result: On the horizon, there’s a wave of electric vehicles truly built for everyone — and that’s where real change comes from. The spark of revolution might begin with a few rich people here and there, but the fire needs to spread beyond the loading zones of private schools and the valet parking of fusion restaurants. The real transformation is parked in front of Denny’s and charging outside Target while the driver is taking care of back-to-school shopping.

It was possible to get behind the wheel of an EV without dropping a huge chunk of cash before now, but it was a hard sell. If you only have the money to buy one vehicle, something with a range of 100 miles seems like a bad investment. Sure you want to save the planet, but you also want the peace of mind of being able to run errands before and after work without worrying about running out of juice.

We started 2018 with a car that was ready to tackle range anxiety while delivering on outstanding value: the Chevy Bolt. It’s on sale right now and is a perfect entry into the EV world. Even if you hadn’t planned on buying an electric car, get behind the wheel and drive it. At that point, you’ll understand just how great an electric car, SUV or even truck can be.