It’s been a few years since various electric sedans started receiving rave reviews, in particular, of course, the Tesla range.

Not only were they putting in good performance numbers, but things like their range and reload times seemed to indicate they were practical. Thus, there was no need to think about making a trip of 500 kilometers in several stages and over several days, to recharge or change the battery.

Go back say 5 years and everyone predicted that by now, we would all be deafened by the silence of our highways as everything changed to a quiet hum. The strange combustion engine car would be viewed with disgust or sympathy and we would all have clean air around us as a benefit as well.

However, it has not happened. Why is that?

The price rears its ugly head

Some of the most admired electric cars, and those that are often the most attractive in terms of range and performance, remain very expensive.

Some models retail for around $100 thousand dollars. Even for the big companies and prestigious limo rental companies, these are prices that will make anyone blink when reading those ads.

True, there are also more modest cars. That’s good news, but then things start to get complicated in terms of battery ‘issues’ (rented, owned, life expectancy, swap periods), etc. Some commentators have observed that it takes a PhD in mathematics to try to calculate how much the ‘bottom line’ is and when you get there, it’s suddenly smaller because it doesn’t look that ‘small’ in terms of price.

Performance

For much of the mass market, performance is a secondary issue. Yes, you can drool over the Tesla-S and other brands so prestigious that they can hit 60 mph before you even get in the car, but in reality, such performance is completely irrelevant in most driving environments, whether urban or suburban. .

Joe’s audience may get excited about the performance numbers of a Ferrari, but that doesn’t mean they will (or can) buy one.

What the typical buyer wants to know in terms of electric car performance is:

• Will this vehicle get over steep hills?

• How will you handle traffic jams in terms of power consumption?

• What is its autonomy before needing a recharge?

• How long will it take to recharge?

Now surprisingly, while these questions aren’t exactly rocket science, firm numbers aren’t easy to find when looking at a lot of electric car ads. When you see them, things start to sound awfully like the “old days” for electric vehicles.

Complete tables of data begin to appear. For example, figures indicating a car’s range before recharging is 250 miles/400 km may not sound too impressive. They certainly sound like a less impressive loss again (bordering on fear) when attached to little warnings saying things like “it can be less in winter“. Many ordinary buyers will want to leave home in bad weather knowing that they will get there, not leave in a”lets wait and see what happens” base.

Too many of the EV numbers are fluid on the edge of the ethereal and there are too many qualifiers. Another example is recharge times, which often cite a multiplicity of options depending on what your power source is. Some seem reasonable at, say, 3 hours, but then you realize you don’t know what the special charger is referring to. Others sound comically unrealistic like “21 hours out of a normal socket“.

Try explaining to your boss that you will be late tomorrow because your car will be charging!

complications

One final observation related to the inhibitors in the mass adoption of electric cars is that some of the advertising websites are almost incomprehensible.

The typical mass market new car buyer wants to see clear options stating “Model X = $.” Sure, we all understand that some things are configurable, such as motor size, color scheme, etc., plus they will all have price implications.

However, what people probably don’t want to think about is that when they go to your showroom they will need to bring a QC, an engineer, a statistician and an accountant with them to interpret all the various options related to batteries, performance variables, recharge fees and so on.

Until EVs become cheaper, advertising and pricing are easier to understand, and, above all, their charging rates improve, their uptake is likely to be limited to niche market segments.