Electric Car Sales Are Going Off The Boil!

Not to be in any way alarmist, but the latest news is that the sales of electric vehicles have slowed down dramatically. There are various reasons for this drop in sales. One, there are issues with charging and mobility, with a recharging infrastructure nowhere near as ubiquitous as it needs to be. To make matters worse, many car owners are reporting problems with the recharge facilities there are. The problem is that if the recharger is out of order, the driver is going nowhere fast.

Added to that is a degree of range anxiety and the worry about what to do if your car runs out of juice on the motorway. You can’t just ask somebody to bring you a gallon of electricity. And if that is not enough to make potential buyers think twice, the news that the government is seriously considering a mileage charge for EVs to cover a looming five billion pound black hole in tax revenue from the car-driving public will surely create a significant pause for thought. Also, like any car EVs suffer from depreciation and for some models, it can be quite a significant hit.

Other problems have to do with electric vehicles being more expensive to buy in the first place. In a telling case point, it has been said that the demand for Tesla cars is down due to the company's failure to release a new affordable model. And it is not just Tesla that has seen a decline in sales. Taking a broader view, Ford, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz have been prompted to delay their electric car plans due to problems in manufacturing and selling enough cars for the venture to be profitable.

None of this is helped by what is happening politically in the UK and Europe. In 2023, the UK government said that the previously set date of 2030 for introducing a ban on petrol and diesel cars would be extended to 2035 to give manufacturers time to gear up production of electric cars. However, since the Labour Party took control, it has been said that the date for the ban is going to be set back to where it was before, 2030. Meanwhile, European countries are sticking with 2035. This conflict in dates will be the cause of many a headache in the board rooms and marketing planning departments of the big players affected.

Given this changing backdrop, it is not too surprising that many car manufacturers are being forced to fall back on what they have done best for the past hundred years, making and refining petrol and diesel-engined cars.

The big three German car giants Audi, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz are all trying to second guess what comes next. Hedging their bets, they are all not only delaying the wholesale release of EVs but also re-investing in new internal combustion engine power

The word is out that Audi has even started to seriously consider the closure of a new EV manufacturing plant in Brussels, putting the loss of some 3000 jobs for skilled workers. Volkswagen will release the new ninth iteration of the legendary Golf as both an EV and ICE version. Mercedes-Benz will be marketing updated versions of their EVA platform, and the MB S Class will soldier on with an upgrade of what is presently on offer before they go all-out electric.

In the big picture, some feel that EVs will one day be a mere footnote in the history of the car as we know it. Despite manufacturers’ claims that EVs are emissions-free, that is only at the point of use. At the point of the production of electricity, emissions are increasing by the day due to the consumption of fossil fuels such as oil and gas. The day will come when there will be a significant enough development of hydrogen to make that resource the default setting, that is until somebody discovers something called Unobtanium..

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