Figure 1. Peugeot 107
Whether you believe that global warming is a real or imaginary scenario, the current climate change issues affecting our planet have given rise to an increasing anxiety regarding the current and approaching energy crisis. It is clear that there is now the need to find ways in which we can lessen the impact that we are having on the environment. This paper proposes that electric cars could be one such way. The technology associated with electric cars is now starting to advance in a way which is making them more suitable for all car users, no matter what their needs are. Electric vehicles (EVs) are no longer just milk-floats or mobility buggies, the imagery typically associated with battery-powered travel, but super-fast, sexy, money saving machines that can now travel faster and for longer than most normal cars. Despite electric vehicles now becoming comparable to normal cars with internal combustion engines, they have not been adopted on a large scale. This paper aims to find out why this is the case. The author of this paper has studied electric cars, their technology and the industry over a period of time. The research contained within this paper, obtained through interview, questionnaire and literature review, shows both the range of benefits associated with electric cars and some their limitations. It also shows just how poorly people currently perceive electric cars even though they know little about them.
Climate change issues are real and the global warming clock is ticking. There is increased anxiety over an everapproaching energy crisis. Fuel prices are increasing at the highest rate they have done for some time and each day (oil now costs over 100$ a barrel, NYMEX, 2008), as a nation (and as a population) we are being told more and more how we must not continue to use energy at the rate that we currently are doing. One way in which one can maintain the way of life they have developed and grown comfortable with, is through new and emerging technologies, energy-saving technology (like light bulbs) and energy-efficient technologies. The electric car is one such technology that has been hyped for around a decade but is yet to take off on a large scale.
Electric cars are, not a new invention and have been around for over a century, with some of the first electric carriages appearing in the early 1800s and since being developed by the likes of Thomas Edison, famed for inventions like the light bulb (Gao, 2004). These early electric vehicles were soon superseded by the petrol powered car, designed by Henry Ford, and by the 1960s they almost vanished. There has been little interest in electric vehicles since then but growing concerns over the environment, and indeed our planet on the whole, has revived new interest in the electric car.
Recent efforts to bring an electric car to the American consumer car market in the 1990s were apparently halted due to high price points and poor performance, but there is an entire film about how the EV1, by General Motors, was apparently 'killed off' by big oil companies and the US Government, entitled Who Killed the Electric Car?, 2006. The estimated 1100 cars that were built and leased out to individuals were eventually gathered up and mostly crushed. The 1990s brought the invention of the hybrid car, which depended upon a combination of electric charging technologies and petrol, culminating in the production and manufacture of the Toyota Prius. The Prius was seen as a compromise for many and maintained the performance that many normal cars enjoyed. Sales soared and the Prius gained a number of celebrity fans including Mel Gibson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz. This celebrity interest has promoted the desire and demand for transport options without the detrimental effects on the environment that normal cars carry (Paine, 2006).
The next great leap for alternatively fuelled cars was in the late 1990s, and came in the form of the hydrogen fuel cell. Hydrogen fuel cell cars received much hype and were the option that the United Sates government wanted to opt for instead of the electric car. There are still issues with hydrogen fuel cell cars: currently costing around £500,000 each, they are at least 10 times the price point of the latest electric cars. Hydrogen fuel cell cars require materials and technology that do not exist on our planet, to enable them to carry enough fuel to give them a range that compares to the latest electric vehicles with Lithium Ion batteries. For the consumer, hydrogen is ultimately going cost more when re-fuelling your fuel cell car than electric cars could possibly cost to recharge with the most expensive electricity available (from renewable sources at peak times of day). A fuel cell car, powered by hydrogen, will also use three or four times as much energy as a car powered by batteries to go the same distance (Romm, 2004). If the hydrogen fuel cell is ever going to supersede the electric vehicle then it will not be for a very long time.
Since the EV1, electric vehicle technology has become highly sophisticated and exclusively electric vehicles can now outperform the range and performance of some cars with internal combustion engines to shame. So if electric cars have been seen socially as the technological solution to the world problems of slowly diminishing fossil fuels and large C02 footprints, due to pollutant emissions from petrol and diesel powered cars (Paine, 2006), then why are there only a limited number of electric car manufacturers selling them to choose from? None of the main European manufacturers, such as Citroen, Volskwagen or Vauxhall have one in production, yet the need is there.
The aim of this paper is to understand why more electric cars are not being driven around the UK than there currently are. It will look at the benefits and limitations of electric cars generally, and take a glimpse into the future to see where the technology is heading. In order to find this out, there are a number of pertinent questions that need answering:
Do people know that electric vehicles are now a viable alternative to petrol & diesel cars?
What are the pros and cons of electric vehicles?
How does the average electric vehicle compare to the average car with an internal combustion engine?
How are electric cars perceived by potential car buyers? How much do they cost to buy and run?
How are they marketed compared to cars with internal combustion engines?
Why do people currently buy them?
Are people aware of all the benefits of driving an electric car?
Why are more people buying and driving electric cars already?
So why is everybody not driving an electric car?
Some of the answers to these questions are quantitative and can be found through literature review. Others will need approaching from a different, qualitative perspective, obtained through interviewing people and through questionnaires.
An increased (or total) use of electric vehicles (EVs) has been associated with a range of established environmental benefits (Paine, 2006):
For the majority of users in the UK, there are a range of financial benefits available:
These factors apply to the majority as the congestion fees and parking apply to users in London where 95% of electric car owners live. In fact it is arguable that the reason that most people own and drive an electric car is primarily to save money. When you consider that the London congestion charge is £8 a day and 40% of commuters still travel by car (London Travel Report, 2008 / Smit, WWW), it is easy to see why an electric car would be beneficial financially.
Electric cars are cheaper to run, better for the environment and quieter than the average car with an internal combustion engine, yet they have not been adopted on a large scale. They are clean at point of use, quiet, can draw its charge from renewable sources and are relatively cheap. The move towards 'paved zone' shopping areas in our towns and cities, has been partly driven by health issues regarding vehicle emissions. Could the next logical step along this road, be areas of the towns or cities that can only be accessed by Evs?
The electric car is not without its critics, who argue that the electric car is really just a way of shifting the environmental problem from the exhaust pipe to the power stations that burn coal and oil. It is disputed that electric cars rely on 'dirty' energy, reversing their advantages. This argument is, without difficulty, ignored as electric cars are being designed and manufactured to rely more on renewable sources of energy. It is now possible to register your home with an electrical services provider who gathers energy solely from renewable sources, such as Ecotricity (NICE, WWW) . Ecotricity, for example, supply all their energy from wind power a totally renewable source. The money that is spent by their customers on their green energy is then reinvested in 'green' energy production (carbon free). As well as all the aforementioned environmental benefits, electric cars are cost efficient.
Other practical incentives are:
The sale of electric vehicles is growing but this increase is, by comparison with sales of ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles, still on a small scale. Of the 27,830,000 cars currently on the road in the UK, only approximately 2000 are fully electric (DfT, WWW). This percentage is rather low, considering the many benefits, which begs the question why?
When thinking about reasons that people may or may not want to buy an electric car, a good starting point would be a comparison of electric vehicle performance with the average or best-selling cars ICE cars.
There are now a number of companies in the UK that sell exclusively battery-powered cars, such as GoinGreen or the NICE Car Company, none of which include any of the major car manufacturers such as Ford, Vauxhall or Volkswagen. The electric car manufactures are mainly based in London, where there is the largest market for electric vehicles, and all the companies are of relatively small size. For the best comparison, the three best selling electric cars will be compared to the three best-selling eco-friendly Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars. Unfortunately there are no exact figures available for the current best-selling electric cars and the companies that sell them are reluctant to release exact figures, so it is necessary to make some estimation, based on figures published in recent media BBC, WWW).
GoinGreen, UK stockists of the G-Wiz, the first electric vehicle in London, has sold approximately 950 vehicles. This popular little runabout is manufactured in India, which raises concerns for its carbon footprint for some people. In the long-term it can pay for itself in approximately one year of commuting in and out of London on a daily basis. Its top speed is more or less 50mph and it has a range of roughly 40 miles on a full charge. The NICE (No Internal Combustion Engine) Car Company has sold around 300 of their MEGA City cars. The Mega City is designed by the French company Aixam and is also manufactured in France keeping its carbon footprint relatively low in comparison to the G-Wiz. The Th!nk City has only just started being produced again since it was sold back to a company in Norway by Ford in 2004. This particular vehicle has been type certified as a car instead of a quadricycle, unlike the G-Wiz. It also takes 8 hours to fully charge the battery and as with the previous two cars, the battery can be topped up with charge. It will be the just as popular as other brands if not more, because of the increased range and speed, but it is yet to sell in the same sort of numbers in the UK (Westminster Council, 2006). The top three eco-friendly ICE cars of 2007 are the Peugeot 107, the Ford Fiesta and the Toyota Aygo according to SMMT (Tiscal, WWW). The Aygo and the 106 are sister cars, also with the Citroen C1 and have been embraced by those on a budget, who want good fuel economy.
The current electric cars on the market are, on average, similarly priced to their ICE competitors. The ICE cars are a little cheaper to buy, apart from the Ford Fiesta (see Figures 1-6), which costs around the same price as an expensive EV. Comparing fuel economy shows that electric vehicles are reported to have the equivalent to 600 miles per gallon (worked out as pence per mile). The most economic ICE cars achieve 61.4 miles per gallon, making electric vehicles a better option. Electric cars can cost approximately £150 a year to keep charged up so running costs are extremely lower for electric cars. The ranges that the electric cars give per full charge are unfortunately low, compared to the range you can get from a full tank of petrol in an ICE car except for the Th!nk.
The Th!nk City is a newer model of electric car and benefits from the use of Lithium Ion batteries, but does come at a higher cost. The batteries for the Th!nk will be leased to the owners of their cars at a price of around £100 a month, putting it in a slightly higher price bracket to the other electric cars. These electric cars have been purely developed for the commuter, inner city traveller and generally anybody doing less than 40 miles a day. The battery technology, discussed later on in the report, is the limiting factor but as the technology develops, so will the maximum range of electric cars develop, demonstrated in the latest super-mini EV, Th!nk City.
The big practical difference between these two types of car comes with the top speed that all these vehicles achieve. The three electrical cars can, on average, barely achieve more than 60 miles per hour, whereas the petrol powered cars can all achieve at least 100 miles per hour. This is okay if you are commuting in central London, where traffic moves at just 10mph (Department for Transport, 1998, This Is Local London, 2006), but for most other main road motoring , such as on a motorway for example, this lack of power could prove to be inconvenient, if not potentially dangerous. All three of the main EV's on the market, have a performance which comfortably exceeds 7.5 mph for inner city driving.
Other aspects of car use are generally the same. All the cars can be heated, have a radio or CD player, they all have horns and just about every feature you could have in an ICE car can be fitted in an electric car with the exception of maybe air-conditioning, due to the effect it would have on the performance of one of these electric cars. All the extra options that are put in an electric vehicle will drain the battery further. It is just a compromise that has to be made for the small journeys that are currently made in these vehicles.
There are reports that the Th!nk City will have some very clever features by the end of this year, including a function where you can text your car from your mobile phone and see how much charge is left and the ability to also remote activate the car's heating system too (Willums, WWW).
Figure 1. Peugeot 107
Figure 2. Ford Fiesta
Figure 3. Toyota Aygo Platinum
Figure 4. GoinGreen G-Wiz
Figure 5. NICE Mega City
Figure 6. Th!nk City
Car safety could arguably be regarded as an essential factor in any car's performance. With electric cars, especially due to their characteristically lightweight nature and construction, safety and build quality has become particularly important. The electric car market was spread across international media last year after a GWiz was put through a EuroNCAP crash test by Top Gear Magazine and the Department for Transport, the most thorough and toughest crash test for the car industry (Top Gear, 2007) . The reason the G-Wiz had not already been crash tested was because it had been classed as a quadricycle, by virtue of its lightweight construction and relatively slow maximum speed. Motorcycles with sidecars are similarly exempt (BusinessGreen, WWW).
The G-Wiz failed the test spectacularly, resulting in the dummy driver's lower torso being crushed, partially amputated lower limbs and its head being smashed onto the steering wheel and windscreen Following the test, GWiz sales reportedly fell by two thirds, waiting lists withered and GoinGreen were rumoured to have in excess of 30 surplus cars in stock. Since the tests, GoinGreen have 'hit back' at the Top Gear crash tests by developing the GWiz-i 2008 model, featuring “increased front and side impact protection, a strengthened space frame, a collapsible steering column, a hill rolling restraint feature, plus new front disc brakes that deliver a 30% improvement in performance” (GoinGreen, WWW) amongst other improvements.
A vehicle that is classified as a car will have typically undergone a process called homologation, involving test upon the cars electronics systems, parts, engine and equally its safety features through, carried out by a governing body. EuroNCAP ratings are given by a distinctly different organisation altogether and are not a necessary part of a cars homologation, certification and testing. Manufacturers may submit cars for EuroNCAP testing should they want to advertise their car as being much safer. There will inevitably be some risk involved here so manufacturers tend to opt for EuroNCAP testing if they are confident in achieving a good rating.
The Th!nk City has a range of safety features that the first GWiz models did not, including air bags, an Advanced Breaking System (ABS), side impact bars and the frame of the Th!nk has been designed in such a way that it distributes energy away from the cars cockpit. Other features include a regular 3 point tension seatbelt and headrests, so it can out-perform some of the safety criteria set out for normal cars.
After looking at the performance of current electric cars, it is important to understand why they do not have very high top speeds in comparison to cars with internal combustion engines. They do not have a very great range per battery charge most with approximately 50 miles autonomy. The most limiting factor is the battery technology that is used, followed by the way in which the car has been assembled.
Battery technology is one aspect of exclusively electric plug-in vehicles that will need constant development to make newer models cost-effective for the consumer market. The current and emerging battery technology is explored in terms of EVs, and the difference they are making already.
The fact is that one gallon of petrol, with a mass of 4 kilograms, gives a typical ICE car a range of 50 kilometres. The equivalent amount of useful electrical energy, stored in a lead acid battery, would require the battery to have a mass of 270 kilograms (Larmine et al, 2003) a considerable weight. The NICE MegaCity has batteries weighing approximately 300 kilograms. This gives it a range of roughly 62 miles travelling on a test track at 20 miles per hour. A more realistic range, considering that the car is aimed at inner city drivers, is 40 50 miles. Normal ICE-powered cars will have a fuel tank capable of holding 10 gallons, giving the ICE vehicle ten times the range of the electric vehicle when used similarly. For an electric vehicle to be able to match the range of an equivalent petrol or diesel powered car, as previously described, it would have to have a battery weighing at least 3 tonnes. This is an unrealistic and unusable arrangement for such a small vehicle.
Current electric cars use Lead Acid batteries, the same as normal cars, because they are inexpensive. They are also a compromise on performance. This technology has been around for almost 150years. They are heavy and have a low energy density. Two other types of battery technology that are being developed for electric cars which promise development in range and speed are Nickel Cadmium (or Ni Cd) or Nickel Metal Hydrides (NiMH) and Lithium Ion Batteries. Ni Cd and NiMH are the next step up from Lead Acid, but have been somewhat ignored because the cost of Lithium Ion (Li Ion) batteries is slowly becoming more cost-effective. NiMH batteries are generally used in hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius, currently allowing the user to obtain a range of 120 miles. Hybrids, however, pollute heavily in comparison to exclusively electric cars.
Lithium is the lightest metal and has the greatest electrochemical potential giving it the potential to achieve very high energy and power densities, giving you a smaller battery with a very long life (MPowerUK, WWW). This is why it is used in laptops and mobile phones. Whilst they sound appropriate for the job, they can overheat, catch fire and are more expensive than other batteries. Tesla Motors USA has now started manufacturing their Roadster electric car (Tesla, WWW) which uses the Li Ion technology but it is water and glycol cooled for safety adding to the expense.
Tesla Motor's Roadster is a new class of electric car, which out-performs all other electric cars and a lot of normal cars. It can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.9 second (Tesla Motors, 2008) . The other big difference is the price, and at $80-100,000 is not what the cost-cutting city consumer wants to pay for their 'green' peace of mind. Tesla have decided to start at the expensive end of their range, in order to offset the cost of their batteries and then release cheaper sedan-like cars (TreeHugger, WWW). The chairman of Tesla Motors says “Almost any new technology initially has high unit cost before it can be optimized and this is no less true for electric cars. The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market [with the roadster], where customers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible[…] Without giving away too much[…], the second model will be a sporty four door family car at roughly half the price point of the roadster”. It is simple economies of scale really which will take time; the reason why the cars in London at the moment are small and do not have the performance. Tesla has signed a big-money agreement with Th!nk to supply their Li Ion batteries so it should not be long until the electric car in the UK will have a longer range (Woody, WWW). Are people waiting until then?
The performance of electric cars, like any normal car, is also governed by how it has been designed and constructed. Performance petrol-propelled cars are now constructed from carbon-fibre shells to keep weight to a minimum and their centre of gravity is kept low. Electric cars are designed a lot differently but with the same features in mind. They are designed to be lighter than most normal cars so that the power in the battery can be used more efficiently. Electric cars are typically designed to carry only two people, making them less desirable to some consumers, and are constructed from lightweight materials like aluminium and ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene). Other lightweight materials such as carbon fibre would make costs soar and unfortunately, people believe that electric cars are too expensive to buy as it is. The G-Wiz is a good example of how this can work against it, as previously discussed when considering safety. The body panels of electric cars are generally plastic, making them lightweight and recyclable. The soft acrylic ABS panels also make the cars additionally safe for pedestrians (NICE, WWW) .
Whilst super-mini electric vehicles are not capable of travelling at great speeds, on average less than 60mph, aerodynamics might not seem to be an issue. As with any sort of vehicle, consideration of aerodynamic drag is an important factor in increasing a car's, indeed an electric car's, performance.
Despite the currently limited range of super-mini electric cars available to the car-driving public, there is evidence that their popularity is expanding (discussed later in the report). Due to the slow rate at which sales are increasing, it is difficult to understand why, in view of the financial benefits if nothing else, that sales have not increased. Consumers are worried by some unknown aspect. Improvements in technology are now making electric cars a more viable option for commuters so it is essential to find out why more people are not opting for these cars
The research that was undertaken for this paper, was initially taken from secondary sources in a type of literature review, reading articles, journals, and books and watching the video 'Who killed the electric car?'. This method of research was considered to be the best way of collecting factual information about cars and environmental issues. It was crucial to be careful about the validity and accuracy of data, as some of the evidence on electric cars could have been out-dated, due to the rate at which the electric vehicle industry and technology associated with it is developing. There can literally be breakthroughs of some sort each day.
Searching the internet was also useful when looking for facts and figures on the electric vehicle industry, car specification and up to date news about the industry, but it was important to back up any finding with multiple sources to authenticate the data. Some of the search results were often contained in blogs, which are not entirely factual and usually somebody's opinion. There are some questions in the paper aims that needed a more qualitative approach, which involved gathering primary source data via interviews with members of the public and potential buyers of new cars, and creating an online questionnaire.
The online questionnaire was constructed using a website called Thesis Tools, and consisted of twenty-two questions in total. In excess of four hundred people were invited to participate in the online questionnaire via email and over one hundred replies were received within a week. Some of the responses were incomplete or inappropriate so the data was reduced to one hundred entries.
Part of the research involved spending time in London, trying to speak to drivers of electric vehicles but unfortunately, not many people were prepared to spend their time talking. Prêt a Manger, the deli and sandwich shops, own a fleet of electric vans for deliveries around London and a gentleman from the company kindly took the time to help with the research. This source looks after their fleet of electric vans, manufactured by NICE Car Company, and ensures they are charged, maintained and running smoothly. This provided with an alternative view and opinion that provided valuable insight into another area of electric vehicle use.
The purpose of the interviews and questionnaire was to establish people's awareness and perceptions of electric cars. Do people know about the range of benefits of owning and driving an electric car? Why might they decide to buy an electric car or not? Electric cars are generally not advertised to the masses, certainly not to the extent that ICE vehicles are by large motor manufacturers, and this is understood to be in an effort to keep costs down.
It was also important to find out how many people had seen electric vehicle advertisements and secondly, what effect this had on their knowledge and consciousness of the electric vehicle market. Of the people asked to complete the online questionnaire, there were one hundred respondents. These respondents were from all over the country and of varying age. 61% of the people taking part were male, leaving 39% female. Their ages were recorded in three ranges: 78% were aged between 17 and 21 years, 19% aged between 22 and 26 and the remaining 3% were aged 27 and over (See Figure 7). Analysis of the raw questionnaire data revealed that 21% of the people that completed the questionnaire do not drive a car at the moment but they were mostly aiming to within the next four years.
Figure 7. Ages of Participants
This section intends to make sense of the research data that was collected over the past months. On its own, the raw data does not mean anything but careful consideration reveals some interesting patterns amongst the people that were interviewed and questioned. The discussions have been broken up into sections, covering different topics for ease of understanding.
It was important to first understand how it is that people choose the cars that they drive, and what factors have the most influence on their decision when choosing between one car and another. If people chose range and performance as a deciding factor in ownership of a car then this, perhaps this could influence their decision not to buy and drive an electric car?
To establish what the most important factors were, the questionnaire participants were asked to rank the following qualities in order of greatest influence upon their decision to buy a car: Style, Price, Size/Practicality, Fuel Economy, Speed/Performance or Other (providing a space to describe what other factor they would take into consideration). (Table 1) The aim here was to see if a car's performance, range and top speed were its main selling point, as performance is the main difference between normal cars with internal combustion engines and current exclusively electric cars. The results of this part of the questionnaire were fairly conclusive, showing that th performance ranked 5 out of the six options provided (See Table 1). The participants ranked the options 1 to 6, 1 being the most important factor.
As you can see in Table 1, the cars performance is rated below price, styling, size & practicality and fuel economy. As far as these results go, the limited speed and range of current electric cars should not discourage people from purchasing them to the extent that it apparently does. This questionnaire was completed by a good cross section of people of various age ranges so it is possible, that the respondents in the majority age range, have differing needs and desires to those of the target markets of electric car companies. The respondent's ages were checked against the scores that were given to each heading (See Table 2).
Remembering that a lower score is a higher rating, you can see that there is a difference between the two extreme age ranges. Those aged 27years or older would tend to place more importance in a cars size and practicality, where those ages between 17 and 21 years of age decided that a cars price point is more important. If an electric car company's target market was over 27years of age, you can see that there might be a problem, as most electric cars have two doors and two seats. Perhaps some consideration of car buyers with families should be taken. The older age range also placed a deal of importance on a cars fuel economy. There was no reasonable noted difference in the scoring patterns made between male and female participants.
Of the 100 respondents, 58 wrote in the space that was provided to write what their 'Other' attribute would be, when considering what car to buy. In this space, 36% of respondents described, how the cost of car tax and the cost of insuring a particular car, would play a part in whether they would buy it. The other factors that were described included: Reliability, Mileage (2nd Hand Cars) and Features (See Table 3 & Figure 8).
Table 1. The importance of car attributes in the choice of whether to buy or not
Table 2. Desirability of car features to different age ranges
Table. 3 Vehicle attributes
Figure 8. Other important factors considered when choosing a car
Only one quarter of the people that were questioned, said that they knew anything about electric cars, and even fewer had seriously considered buying one. When asked about why or why not they would buy one, most people (39%) said that they just did not know enough, or even anything at all about electric cars, to make an informed decision regarding buying and owning an EV.
A concern expressed by a number of people, was that they would not know where to re-charge an electric car. Perhaps people that were not purely looking for an electric car really would not be aware of the requirement for electric vehicle recharging. There are not yet any major dealerships or garages, even in London. Electric cars are also poorly advertised.
One majority, 27%, had decided that exclusively electric cars just did not have the performance that they required. This is fairly true, with the exception of the very latest models and concept cars (most of which have not yet reached a manufacturing stage). The 'Tesla Roadster' was discussed earlier in the report, and how the first Roadsters are becoming commercially available. For this particular majority of respondents, the only commercially available electric cars at the moment are slow and have a minimal range.
It would appear that those who thought they had some knowledge of electric cars, were also of the opinion that electric cars cost more to run. This, as previously stated, is incorrect. Costing the equivalent of 1.5 pence per mile, they are a lot cheaper to run than a normal ICE car. Several respondents believed that they were under the impression that electric cars are harder to service, and perhaps are a more expensive investment in the long run. This lack of knowledge regarding electric cars is understandable, as electric vehicles do not seem to have a high public profile, and there is limited information available to the car buying public, even in London - the home of most of the electric vehicles on our roads. So where do people find out about electric cars?
A mere 14% of those questioned had seen an electric car advertised somewhere. Even some of those were not able to remember where. Those people that had seen them advertised found them on specialist TV programmes such as Top Gear and 5thGear, in magazines like Pistonheads and Autocar or in a newspaper article. The remaining few had read about electric cars online or come across pieces on blogs about them. Why are electric cars not advertised? GoinGreen, who sell the G-Wiz in London, advise on their website that advertising would inherently involve additional cost that would in turn be reflected in the cost of their cars. “The G-Wiz spreads by word of mouth and mouse. Growth is slower this way” but ultimately keeps the cost down (GoinGreen, 2008). There was no information available like this on the websites of other electric car companies. Phone calls were made to the other electric car companies in an effort to find out. The only company that responded positively was The NICE Car Company, who advised, in detail, how they promote their car. They explained that the company who handle NICE Car's advertising decided to promote the MegaCity as a lifestyle product instead of just as a car. Since electric cars currently perform badly when compared to other cars, it seemed plausible to NICE to have it viewed in a different way. One of the respondents to the questionnaire said that they would not or did not buy an electric car “because it isn't fashionable”, but they did not live in London. Maybe the same sort of advertising could be applied to other parts of the country? This of course makes sense, but obviously electric cars need a higher profile in the public domain if they are to stand a chance of entering the mainstream.
Other factors, that might affect a customer's decision to buy a car, include the environmental impact of that car and also how much the car is going to save them. A recent trend in the purchase of diesel cars reflects this, as diesel cars generally give a car owner more miles for their money, despite diesel costing approximately 10 pence more per gallon than petrol. Diesel engines are also cleaner running when used in conjunction with a catalytic converter. Honda advertises this fact with clever and catchy adverts on television including the 'Hate Something, Change Something' video. If electric cars were advertised in this way, it would be possible that they are seen by many more people. Ultimately cars depreciate in value as soon as you buy and start driving them. This is also true of electric cars. Electric cars can however save a user a lot of money in addition to the cheaper running costs, especially in and around London. Londoners can save £8 a day on the congestion charges which are soon to spread into other metropolitan areas of the UK, Manchester for example. Commuters in the city can almost save the cost of an electric car in the first year of driving it. Electric car owners also benefit financially from zero road tax and decreased insurance premiums. The super-mini commuter machines are the equivalent of Group 1 insurance. With no parking fees either, it is hard to understand why more people do not drive them. The questionnaire and interviews showed that 63% of participants understood the environmental benefits, but only 19% knew of the financial advantage that electric cars had over normal cars. Is this something that manufacturers need to be aware of when advertising?
One aspect of cars that many people enjoy is how they look aesthetically. Some people can buy a car purely for the way it looks, or if a newer design of the same model is released (e.g. the Ford Fiesta of Focus) as the older model will look dated. It was necessary to see if this made a difference as, in some peoples' opinion; most of the electric cars that are available to buy at the moment are 'short', 'squat', 'dumpy' and 'toy-like'. Part of the questionnaire involved getting the participants to rank 6 vehicles in order of preference. To make it a fair test, the cars were de-badged in Adobe Photoshop and presented in one image. The order of the cars was mixed randomly with the aim of making it a fair test. If electric cars were all rated at the bottom, then it would suggest that their appearance is less appealing and that this is having an effect on peoples' decisions to buy or not. The cars that were chosen were the six that were discussed earlier. The 3 top-selling eco-friendly normal cars: Peugeot 106, Toyota Aygo and the Ford Fiesta. The three electric cars included in the test were the G-Wiz, the NICE MegaCity and the Th!nk City.
According to the results in tables 2 and 4, car styling was not the most important factor, especially to the electric 27 years or older group. The overall winner in the questionnaire was the Peugeot 106 which is no surprise considering that it was the best selling eco-friendly normal car of 2007. More interestingly, the second favourite car was the Th!nk City with an average score of 2.64 (remembering that the favourite car got a score of 1, and the least favourite a score of 6). When you consider that the other two best-selling eco-friendly cars of 2007 were part of the same question, this is quite promising for the Norwegian super-mini. The G-wiz was the least favourite car amongst the six, with an average rating of 5.05 out of six places.
One problem that can be seen with this particular question, concerning the images that were used, is that there is a chance that a number of details could have affected the participant's decisions: the cars are different colours, the image quality is not the same in each photograph and one of the images is a highly polished piece of photography/rendering/Adobe Photoshop work.
Table 4. Preference of car styling ICE vs. NICE
The interviews produced some interesting insight in to the way in which people perceive electric cars. Electric cars are generally seen as being great for the environment. The majority of the interviewees, 74%, described electric cars as having fewer or no tailpipe emissions and being a great way to cut your personal carbon footprint.
There were a few respondents who saw that electric cars could be a fad or fashionable thing to do at a certain time. GoinGreen have sold a number of their G-Wiz to celebrities like Jonathan Ross and Kristin Scott Thomas. The same can be said of the Toyota Prius, which has the celebrity interest of people such as Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz. A celebrity, using green cars like the G-Wiz and Toyota Prius, is a good way to raise their profile, but it could also have a negative impact if they were to stop using them suddenly. For celebrities, an electric or hybrid car is almost a fashion accessory. Most of the people spoken to did not really have an opinion on the matter. For the benefit of those interviewees that thought that by driving an electric car the user becomes some sort of 'hippy' or 'nerd' it is important for electric cars to get some good press and association with 'cool' and 'popular' people. One aspect of celebrities purchasing these cars is that they can afford the high price point of new developments and stop early adopters getting their hands on them. The Tesla Roadster is so popular that there is a long waiting list for the few cars that are coming out of their factory. The first few cars are likely to end up in the hands of the directors of the company, employees and then the rich and famous.
Poor press was a common theme throughout the interviews and people could not even remember where they had got their information. They often advised me that they had “heard bad things” about electric cars.
It was noted that half of the people interviewed understood that electric cars were a lot quieter than cars with internal combustion engines. Most of these respondents saw this as a good thing, resulting in less noise pollution. Cities and roadsides would be a much nicer place for pedestrians to be. Some respondents, on the other hand, saw the fact that electric cars being quieter would become a safety issue. They pointed out that any pedestrians crossing roads, children and other road users are more aware of their surroundings when they can hear vehicles approaching them or going past at speed. Interviews with the Campus Estates Services at Loughborough University revealed how students tend to just walk out in front of the electric vehicles that are used around campus (Citroen Berlingos), as they cannot be heard approaching. This is especially dangerous when a lot of students tend to be listening to music through earphones as they walk around campus.
In terms of re-charging EVs, the majority of those interviewed were entirely unaware that it was just as easy to recharge an electric car as it was a mobile phone. It is as though people imagined places, similar to petrol stations, where you go to charge your car. Whilst this could be a possibility in the future, with super-fast charging times it really is a lot easier at the moment. People were surprised to hear that they could just plug their car in at home. The interviewees also did not know that it could take anywhere between four and eight hours to charge their car, which would put some of them off but when it was explained that this could be done overnight and cost even less, this generated more interest.
If electric cars were adopted on a larger scale, there would be no problem accommodating an electric vehicle re-charging infrastructure because it is essentially already in place. In most areas of the world, and particularly the UK, electricity is already distributed via a grid system, thus electricity is easily made available by simply routing electricity via cables. Charging points could be very easily placed on streets, in car parks or at specially built charging points all over the UK, in the same fashion that London councils have done already. Once the battery technology is fully developed it will be possible to provide a 'fast-charge', making it possible to re-charge mid journey, significantly increasing range. It is possible that this re-charging infrastructure could link with public transport, again extending the range of the EV. An example could be if there were spaces to park and charge an electric car at a train or bus station, providing links with public transport. Our need to travel, by means other than on foot, seems to be increasing. This is resulting in growing numbers of petrol-powered cars. This increase of ICE cars would mean that more petrol stations would need to be built, to cope with the higher demand. The same scenario is also true of hydrogen fuel cell cars. Apart from the fact that hydrogen fuel cell cars are substantially more expensive than electric cars at the moment, an expensive infrastructure for re-fuelling hydrogen fuel cells would need developing simultaneously (Paine, 2006).
The car industry in the UK, and indeed all over the world, does not comprise solely of brand new vehicles. Last year, there were 7,487,544 used car sales in Great Britain alone (SMMT, 2007). Considering the fact that there are only around 2000 electric cars on the road at the moment, there is only going to be a small number of used ones, if any. Evidently, a vast number of people prefer to purchase used cars. This may be so that they do not lose a large percentage of a cars worth in depreciation from brand new. There are not that many second hand electric vehicles around because there just has not been any brand new ones sold in the same numbers as cars with internal combustion engines. It would seem sensible to assume that once electric cars are adopted on a larger scale, that more second hand models would be available, and then perhaps more people would buy. The depreciation of electric cars is somewhat unknown currently, as they have not been around for a very long time at all. This is one question that will be answered over time.
After the questionnaires and interviews about their knowledge of electric cars, the respondents were briefly informed the benefits. They were then asked if they might re-consider buying an electric car in the future. This is perhaps the most interesting piece of data collected, in terms of this study, as after finding out more information and having their concerns and fears satisfied, over 70% of them advised that they would either definitely consider buying an electric car or would certainly take them into account when they are looking at their next car. 23% of the respondents advised that it was not likely that they would do the same and the remaining 5% either did not care about the benefits or would definitely rule out the possibility of purchasing an electric car based on performance issues. This is promising information for the future of the electric car industry and the environment.
It would seem that there are in reality a number of factors that need a deal of development in order to make exclusively electric vehicles both desirable and suitable for the mass market. The technology associated with electric vehicles is advancing now, however slowly, making electric vehicles more commercially viable only with time.
The research contained within this paper shows that with enough information, people are willing to consider the alternatives to petrol and diesel powered cars, despite the currently limited performance. If the price is right then there is no doubt that electric vehicles could be adopted on a large scale. People know about the environmental benefits of electric vehicles and some even understand that they can save or even make money with an EV. They just do not seem to be entirely aware about what electric cars there are, where they can obtain one and what to do with them. Only 20% of the people quizzed knew that there were such cars as the Tesla Roadster, and their perceptions of electric cars were that they are slow and sluggish, hard to maintain and don't look as aesthetically appealing as petrol-powered cars.
The research data may have been constrained in some ways, since the majority of people that were spoken with did not live in London. The research shows that people from all over the country would consider an electric car if it performed as well as their existing cars. The research could also be considered to be invalid due to the age range that was questioned. The respondents were mostly very young (17-22 years old). This, again, could be considered to be a positive thing, as this is the next wave of car buyers. If they are willing to move to alternatively propelled vehicles then there is hope for the UK. If the same study were to be conducted again, or extended, It would include a larger number of older respondents and also respondents that live in large cities such as London and Manchester.
What is known is that change must happen soon if we want to maintain our current lifestyles. Romm (2004, p162) writer of The Hype About Hydrogen, expressed this pessimism, when he wrote that “if the actions of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden and record levels of oil imports couldn't induce lawmakers, automakers and the general public to embrace EXISTING vehicle energy efficiency technologies...I cannot imagine what fearful events must happen before the nation will be motivated to embrace [alternatively propelled vehicles]”. The next few years are hopefully going to be a stimulating time in the electric car industry.