take a browse across most oem sites now and electric or hybrid is front and centre. in 5 years that'll be your lot for bread and butter and rightly so i think but that's another debate entirely. Petrol would be dead in 50 years without these, with them we might still see the odd s2k spinning into a hedge
Still, as an onwership prop measured against other (new) cars around the £30k mark i reckon it does stack up but i appreciate it's looking a minority view, almost everyone i have spoken to about it has asked about range for example, if that's important get a VW Diresel and your balls off I'd suggest.

we all have different use cases of course. Front wheel drive is a no for me though, as is rock hard ride on the family car.

 

I get the strategy. In practical terms, how will the less well off afford wheels? Will there be the equivalent of a £1000 bangers you can run on a shoestring?

 

There already is - Old Nissan Leafs. They're not quite a grand but they are certainly down in the 5k range - although range has suffered with age.

 

There's a big difference between £5K and £1K for people without much money so the question remains unanswered.

 

Fairly significant barriers remain to very low cost EV ownership.

• As already mentioned, very cheap EVs are not available, though they should be cheaper to maintain and run than an old banger
• EVs work fine if you have off road parking and charging facilities - "it's full every morning". If you don't have that, life might be difficult. Doing the equivalent of a fuelling stop requires a significant chunk of time or planning (such as combining with a shopping trip).
• The public charging system is largely a mess with lots of horror stories of chargers not working, or requiring a specific App etc. It can and will be fixed in time, though.

For those of us with off street parking etc, EVs as they are can work pretty well, but I think for most, they still remain a "second car".

 

I think real bangers are a way off. For £1k I dunno what you get these days
I looked on eBay, a 15yo Corsa with 56k on can be got for 650

Oldest leaf I could see was 4.7k and 9yo, they will get there but whether they will be viable?

Regardless it will take another 17 years to run out of corsas if my 5 year guess is accurate in any way so no big issue
off road parking is 100% a need I think or you'd be driven mad

 

My point was that 5k is eminently more affordable than 35k. If you want an affordable 'E thing' for a grand it's a scooter / bike / mobility chariot not a full car.

But as above there are other issues than just the purchase cost.

 

Yes of course. My point however was that the unavailability of cheap electrics would disenfranchise a very significant number of people. They seem to be forgotten about, along with the infrastructure/charging challenges when electrics are discussed.

 

Its a 20 year away problem though
infra a different issue but for me, so long as we have supply I don't really care about charging anywhere else.

My expectation remains a hybrid for distance, e for majority of local, an S2 for sunny days where I need a car, bike for when I don't. As an only car it's somewhat impractical unless you rarely leave the city or local area where you live (all of us L12m then)
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I think an old leaf which had 24kw and now has 12 left will be as handy as a foot tbh and a recycled battery might be too much £

 

So are we to do things now to save the planet in 1000 years but **** the working class in 20? Seems out of step with the fluffy save the planet agenda and a cyclops sized eye being turned blind.