A plaything for the rich

It’s fair to say that many people have probably thought about buying an EV. It’s hard to get away from the propaganda ‘nudging’ us in that direction, whether from the car companies, activists in the media, or the political classes. If you have needed a new car in recent years, an EV will at least have crossed your mind.

It’s also fair to say that most of the people who have actually gone through with the deal are either environmental fanatics or people with money to burn. That’s because the cost of EVs remains much higher than their fossil-fuelled equivalents, and they are also more expensive to own and run.

That’s not my opinion, by the way. It’s revealed by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s rEV dataset, which was recently made public. While they don’t publicise these particular figures, it shows that in the UK, despite being subsidised, an EV costs 46% more than its fossil fuelled equivalent.

What is worse, once you have bought one, it costs 32% more to run each year. The research predates the recent energy price crisis, so they are currently an even worse buy than the figures suggest.

That being the case, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that EVs remain a plaything for the wealthy, and the fanatical few.