UK AA president says millions of second cars could be electric
01 July 2015
At last week’s Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership conference in the UK—prior to the Battersea Formula E Grand Prix run over the weekend—Edmund King, the UK AA’s (Automobile Association) president argued that millions of second cars in households could relatively easily be electric vehicles.
According to King,
74% of AA members park their cars overnight off the road and on their own land (58% on the driveway, 16% in the garage) where, potentially, they could be charged overnight.
50% of 18,688 respondents in AA Populus survey in April have access to two or more cars, 12% of them drive the ‘second’ car.
Second cars are more likely to have access to charging, 79% v 74% overall.
Second cars are less likely to be used for long journeys: never drive between 100 and 200 miles a trip – 25% v 15% overall, never drive 200+ miles a trip – 38% v 25% overall.
AA also presented estimates that 2.5 million second cars could become electric vehicles with home charging and, more importantly, wouldn’t need to be charged away from home.
The dominant views of second car drivers also favor electric vehicle take-up:
Slightly lower range expectation from an electric vehicle – 105 miles per charge v 109 overall.
Slightly lower expectations of reliability and safety.
Slightly less concerned about charging time.
Less likely to be concerned by the cost of battery replacement.
Less likely to be concerned by possibility of increased taxation.
Another AA Populus poll with 28,265 respondents taken in May 2015 points to a readiness to move away from traditional fuels. Of the three quarters of them expecting to change their car within the next three years:
58% will buy a gasoline car – no change on the 58% who already use gasoline
33% will look to diesel – down from the current 41%
Despite less than 1% currently owning a non-gasoline or diesel car, 7% in the next three years will buy a hybrid, 1% a plug-in hybrid and 1% a solely electric vehicle.
The route to introducing an alternative fuel has always been via fleet and business cars, the rationale being that these would start to change opinion by finding their way into the second- hand market or convincing business drivers to extend these new fuels into private use.
Electric vehicle range anxiety demands a different approach. We must look where EVs might work, instead of trying to shoehorn them into travel patterns for which they are currently not best suited. Even though the purchasing power and volume discounts of car fleets traditionally create a gateway for introducing new but initially expensive technologies, it hasn’t taken off with electric vehicles.
Family spending on the car tends to favor the bigger family car and/or the ‘first’ car, usually the commuting or work vehicle. The AA argues that families should consider diverting more of their available car purchase funds into the second car, and make savings on their budgets. As the second car tends to be smaller, the cost of the switch becomes more affordable.
“Financial incentives could help the change in mind-set, such as a scrappage scheme tailored (by size, age and cost at new) to replace the second car with an electric vehicle. Alternatively, when a family purchases a new larger car, manufacturers might offer a significant price reduction on a small electric vehicle should that family decide to change the second car within a matter of months.
—Edmund King
They still don't get it. With sef-driving cars worries about where to park the car and where to charge the car in the cities are ridiculous. The self-driving car can always find a parking space and start charging itself. This is another reason they will be very inexpensive to use relative to private ownership in a city where you in addition to the car need to pay for expensive parking. Just make those self-driving vehicles and all the current problems with BEVs will no longer be an issue. Parking, charging and range anxiety all solved by self-driving cars.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 01 July 2015 at 03:37 AM
The self driving car as described by you does not yet exist and is a bit away.
You can do bits of self driving but a car that can dive to any house and drop a person to any location and then go and charge itself is a way off (even assuming that the total range for the trip is < 80 miles).
I agree with the AA. Loads of second cars could be replaced with EVs.
There is no need to mix up EVs and self driving cars.
Self driving cars do not have to be EVs (the Prius AV isn't) and EVs do not have to be self driving.
In the future (say 5-10 years) we may see fully self driving EVs, and Evs licensed to move around with nobody in them, but right now they do not exist. (In the near future (2-5 years) we may see partially self driving cars where you can drive on freeways with a human occupant, but not in cities and not alone.
Posted by: mahonj | 01 July 2015 at 01:25 PM
@mahonj
I agree with you that commercial self-driving taxi services will not come until 5 to 10 years from now. I hope only 5 years are needed to make it happen. Until then I do not believe BEVs will be more than a niche business in the global auto-industry. Specifically, BEVs will be less than 5% of total global vehicle production. Until self-driving BEVs arrive they will still be too expensive and they will still suffer from parking, charging and range anxiety all of which prevent them from going mainstream.
Last month Google started running fully self-driving cars limited to 25mph on public roads for the first time so I hope Google will be able to start a commercial self-driving taxi service in about 5 years that is also allowed to do 60 mph on highways and drive in cities at 40 mph.
It is true that the self-driving ability will also greatly enhance the value of gassers but BEVs stand to gain by far the most from this technology as it solves all the weaknesses of BEVs versus gassers. With self-driving technology BEVs will therefore gain the competitive edge over gassers. Self-driving BEVs will become better and less costly per mile driven than self-driving gassers in all situations. The self-driving taxi services will chose BEVs over gassers because they can do the required job better than gassers and they cost less to fuel and maintain and they are far more durable than gassers.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 02 July 2015 at 12:06 AM
@Henrik, I do not see how automatic driving solves the range problem.
I can see how a PHEV, or a large battery or a dense network of very high speed chargers solves the range problem, but not automatic driving.
What could do it is a mixed fleet of AEVs and AICEs where you specify the distance and duration of the trip and the most suitable vehicle drives to your door.
Or, you could have an EV/ICE swap club/app where EV owners can swap to ICEs for long trips. You might have to price adjust, you might not. You could also swap for pickups or MPVs if you needed them and if they would sign up to the club.
The problem with BEVs is that you need to lug around a battery sized for the largest journey you are likely to do. It takes hours to recharge, unless you have a $80K Tesla.
With an ICE you can refuel at 22MW and get 500 miles in about 5 minutes.
If you have a PHEV, you have the best of both worlds, but at the cost of complexity and weight.
If you have a swap club or app, you can drive electric for the 95% of the time you need moderate range and ICE for the rest - a kind of "2 car PHEV".
Also, EVs confer no particular benefit on automatic driving.
If we split the problem into "motive" and "control", all the motive has to do is go forwards, backwards, left and right.
Both EVs and ICEs do this already.
The control section is common to both, and exactly the same for both.
Posted by: mahonj | 02 July 2015 at 01:41 PM
@mahonj
It is elementary. You get another fully charged autonomous taxi BEV if the first one you drive need to stop for a charge. You can do that for as long as you need to go without losing average speed apart from the 60 sec it take to change the car.
Also Musk said Tesla did not make a 600 miles range, 200 kwh Model S because it costs too much for most customers at Tesla to want it. It is not because it can't be done. In a world full of autonomous BEV taxis a few will be 200kwh versions that can take you non-stop for 600 miles during the night so you can sleep while you are transported to the destination in mind. That will end much of the short distance air travel. I imagine it to be a motorhome with bed, toilet and a small kitchen. Far more comfortable and private than an airplane and no time wasted going to and from an airport in a taxi.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 02 July 2015 at 02:50 PM