Do Electric Cars Have A Future?

Saturday, 10. October 2009

Will electric cars ever take off? It’s pretty difficult to say but the Government looks hell bent on supporting the new green technology even though you will only be able to travel about a mile on each overnight battery charge! OK I lied about that, the standard batteries will take you 100 miles on a charge and the upgraded and larger pack will take you 200 miles but I can imagine lots of dead cars lining the sides of motorways following an accident or traffic jam. One of the biggest challenges, faced by manufacturers, was the additional cost of the batteries which Nissan have said will cost £6,000 in their new Leaf, set to launch in 2011. The Government is yet to announce the subsidy that it will be providing towards the cost of new electric cars but it is expected to be between £2,000 and £5,000. In the meantime Nissan have decided that the best solution would be to lease the batteries to you even if you buy the car. That way they retain ownership and will replace them if they die within their expected life of 5 years. But then what happens when the car is 5 years old and needs new batteries, I guess you either buy some new batteries that will cost more than the car is worth or you lease them at a monthly cost around the same as the cost to finance a similar sized diesel car? Is anyone giving this some serious thought? Also Nissan predict that fleets would save around 20% of their fuel cost after allowing for the lease costs of the batteries and the electricity cost. Hmmm, I dropped from a 3.0 diesel engine to a 2.2 diesel and saved over 30% with an improvement in performance as the new diesel works better than the old one and my latest car is smaller. I can see companies queuing up for this new technology or is that me being cynical? By Graham Hill