Aletho News

The climate scaremongers: How to lose a lot of money – buy an electric car

By Paul Homewood | TCW Defending Freedom | May 19, 2023

New analysis shows that electric cars (EVs) are depreciating at twice the rate of petrol cars. According to the Express :

‘EVs on average will lose 51 per cent of their purchase value from 2020 to 2023, compared with just 37 per cent for petrol vehicles. This equates to a massive £15,220 loss for electric car owners, with petrol drivers seeing a decrease of £9,901.

‘The data, from ChooseMyCar.com, used a comparison of new car prices three years ago compared with their value now.

‘The higher the original purchase price of the car, the bigger the loss, with the Tesla Model S losing £25,000 in value in just three years – a 46 per cent drop. However, entry-level EVs like the Nissan Leaf are also losing a massive amount of value in such a short space of time. The Leaf’s value dropped by £13,000 – or 58 per cent – despite being one of the most popular small EVs on the market.’

There are three factors in play here. Firstly the battery life for an EV, typically around 100,000 miles, means that the car is virtually worthless once it gets to around 80,000 miles. Nobody is going to pay thousands for a car which will end up in the scrapyard a year or so later. This depreciation works its way up the chain. For instance, if you buy a petrol car with 50,000 miles on the clock, you expect to still get a reasonable trade-in three years later.

Secondly, whilst new EVs are attractive for companies and green virtue signallers thanks to government subsidies, there is very little demand for them amongst the public at large. People buy second-hand cars for a very good reason – they cannot afford new models. Consequently they cannot afford to pay a surcharge for a second-hand EV, even if they want one.

Thirdly, increasing numbers of EVs are appearing on the second-hand market, reflecting the surge in new sales in recent years. As demand has not increased, this is also forcing the price down.

The prospect of losing so much money in depreciation will inevitably make drivers think twice before buying a new one.

Meanwhile a US study has found that EVs may not reduce emissions of carbon dioxide as much as thought – indeed they may even increase emissions. According to the report:

‘the relevant and surprising emissions wildcard comes from the gargantuan, energy-hungry processes needed to make EV batteries. To match the energy stored in one pound of oil requires 15 pounds of lithium battery, which in turn entails digging up about 7,000 pounds of rock and dirt to get the minerals needed – lithium, graphite, copper, nickel, aluminum, zinc, neodymium, manganese and so on. Thus, fabricating a typical single half-ton EV battery requires mining and processing about 250 tons of materials.’

The fact that much of this mining and processing takes place in China, where energy is nearly all derived from fossil fuels, makes the carbon footprint even larger. Other studies have suggested that an EV will break even at about 60,000 miles as far as emissions are concerned. This new study implies that the situation is probably worse.

And as some of us have been warning for years, the UK and EU rush to phase out petrol/diesel cars is beginning to cause real harm to the European car industry. Whereas Europe has long had an unassailable technological lead over China in car manufacturing, EVs have introduced a level playing field which China is now exploiting through its lower energy and labour costs, along with its near–monopoly of the battery market.

As a consequence, Chinese EVs are flooding the German market. Official statistics have revealed that 28.2 per cent of the electric vehicles imported into the country during the January-March period originated from China. This figure demonstrates a substantial rise from the 7.8 per cent recorded over the same period in 2022, highlighting China’s expanding influence in the global adoption of EVs. If this was not bad enough, the data also reveals a decline of 23.9 per cent in German exports of new vehicles to China compared with the same quarter of the previous year.

Unsurprisingly, then, a major study by Allianz Trade, part of the European insurance giant, says that China’s growing share of the EV market in its home market and the EU will see the European car industry shrink by €24billion a year and associated supply chain industries shrink by an additional €21billion.

It is not only Chinese inroads into Europe which are in play here; another nail in the European motor car industry’s coffin is the fact that the enforced switch to EVs will force millions out of their cars completely, because they are simply not fit for purpose for many drivers.

Indeed it is becoming increasingly clear, with ULEZ zones, 15-minute cities and so on, that the real objective of European governments, including our own, is drastically to reduce the numbers of cars on the road, cut the mileage driven and force us all on to buses, bikes and Shanks’s pony.

They do not seem to care that they will destroy a major industry and millions of jobs as a direct consequence. – Full article

May 18, 2023 - Posted by aletho | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | European Union, Human rights, UK