That has to be by far the most balanced commentary on EVs vs ICEs I've come across in quite some time. James May is just so fair-minded, eloquent, and comprehensive in his thinking. I find this topic uneccessaily fraught and littered with ideologues on both sides of the 'debate'. This really is the most sensible discussion I've heard on the topic for quite some time.

Very well-reasoned comments. I’ve owned an EV for almost 5 years now and if anyone ever asks me if they should get one I always say, “It depends what you need it for.” I’m fortunate enough to have a driveway and 99% of my journeys are shorter than my car’s range. An EV makes sense for me but not for everyone of course.

Very well said.. He sums it up so well... "the ambition is way ahead of the technology"

Former CTO of an EV charging company here: James hit it on the head. Most people would be happy to own a quieter, more responsive vehicle that is cheaper to run. However, it's only cheaper for people with home charging who don't have to rely on public charging. There are some real elitist 'fanboys' when it comes to EVs, they don't seem to understand that spending up to 2 hours in a queue for a public charger because you aren't lucky enough to have charging at home and at work just isn't a practical way to live. Try telling your boss, your customers or your patients that you will be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours depending if you can charge your car.

very real and balanced talk. May was always the most honest and sensible one.

James is spot on. I’ve had 3 EV’s and own both EV and Gas/Petrol cars. When we drive around town the EV is great. When we take a trip we take a gas car. Very common sense talk.

I think changing the term from range anxiety to charging anxiety is the perfect description of what's going on. It's the uncertainty of so many things when you need to recharge that's the real issue. 1: You have to hope that the charging stations are perfectly lined up for your trip. If they aren't then you are needlessly charging too often and wasting time. 2: Every charging session can be a wildly different experience because there are many factors at play. EVs charge at different rates depending on the current state of charge so you often don't receive the maximum charging speeds that are quoted by manufacturers. The charging curve is also heavily dependent upon the temperature of your battery which is negatively affected by both hot and cold temperatures. You really need to live in a California like climate to have the goldilocks conditions required to charge at maximum efficiency. Even still, most EV buyers don't know anything about charging curves and will pull into a 350kw charger in a vehicle that can only accept 50kw and effectively block up the station. 3: You are also dependent on the reliability of the charging station itself which varies wildly depending on who operates it. Non-supercharger networks are notorious for being having problems with even being able to start a charging session. Constant payment failures, handshake failures with the car, and full-on outages are not uncommon at all. It would be ridiculous to an ICE driver to be required to have an app to fill up at a Shell station or whetever but that is often required at EV charging stations. Even the Tesla supercharger network, which is by far the best in the world, is unable to provide the full power that the car is able to accept if the station is full because the chargers share power and only have so much that can be provided in total at one time. 4: Home charging alleviates much of this, but you are then dealing with charging that takes many hours to complete. What happens when you get home from work and with a relatively low battery that you plug into your level 2 charger that will finish charging 8 hours from now and you suddenly have an emergency of any kind that requires more range than is currently available? Are you supposed to drive to the nearest fast charger and hope it works and still sit there for 15 minutes to be able to reach your destination? 5: Fast charging continues to get more and more expensive. It is not uncommon for fast charging to be an insignificant savings over gas and yet you don't get the benefit of a 4-minute fill up. I'm an early adopter type that understands the cons of this and might be willing to deal with it for the pros of an EV, but there is no way that any of this is ready for the mainstream yet. As James mentioned, the adoption rate of EVs far exceeds the buildout of the infrastructure necessary to service it. This is a market that needs to be allowed to mature naturally, but emissions standards and tax credits are creating a problem that is going to hit hard in the near future.

I do find other benefits with EV: 1. Electricity is cheaper than gasoline, so charging is more affordable in terms of money. 2. Unlike gas station, you can have a charging network at home. 3. Avg driving on a daily basis is around 20 miles, so 300+ miles range car should be sufficient. However, for people living on rent/apartment, achieving this convenience is challenging. Home ownership is a requirement. For long distance drives, I don't really mind taking around half hour extra because for most such journeys I'm not in a hurry. So yes, charging infrastructure is a necessity, but it can be compensated by home chargers so you don't occupy public chargers.

It is so rare to hear an intelligent discussion on both the strengths and current weaknesses of EV’s. Bravo.

He’s such a well-spoken, well-reasoned human. What a legend. Always with mindful and pertinent insight. I especially love listening to him discuss history. He’s got a passion for learning and teaching. In another life, he’d have made a brilliant Professor.

That was both extremely sensible and enjoyable! Thanks James.

Im considering getting one because I live in a small island that makes sense. My commute is short, but gas prices are just so out of control. What used to be $50 a month is now $120 a month.

Very sensible conversation from a person that knows what there talking about

A lot of common sense there as ever from James May.

Totally agree. I drive a 2023 Model Y LR in rural US, love it. The real challenge is grid issues in the near future.

Totally agree about the battery technology hurdle. That said, the new Hondas and Toyotas with hybrid tech are appealing to me more than ever before.

Love listenening to James and he's always quite sensible. One other significant con that James may not have mentiond because he's rich: it's currently difficult or impossible for people who live in aparment buildings in large cities and park on the street to charge their vehicles (and not pay the significantly higher cost of using public chargers).

This was a very intelligent discussion about EV's.

I've now done 54,000 miles in my MG, it's a joy to drive and has saved me well over £5000 in fuel.

Yeah in terms of the fast charging issue, I definitely agree that on a good day it can turn out that you didn't need any extra time at all because by the time you've been to the bathroom, bought some snacks, and sat down for a meal your car is ready to go. The problem is, having experienced this firsthand, you have no flexibility and every stop has to be a "chill here for 30-45 minutes" stop instead of a "get in get out get on the road'" stop. This can be a real pain on the way _home_ from a road trip in a way it's not on the way _to_ a road trip. I had an electric car for 4 years and I too am boring enough to have timed this. If we were going on a 6 hour drive and the car expected 1 hour of charging stops it seemed like every time we would wind up taking not 7 hours but 8 or 9. Where was all this time going? Well, I found in general the charging stops did take exactly as long as advertised by the car's computer, the problem was traffic. That's not the electric car's fault, is it? Well, it kind of is. Traffic gets worse later in the day. So it seems likely I got stuck in some traffic jams that I would have sailed right past with a petrol car. The other issue is that merely getting off and on the road takes a surprising amount of time. I've since switched back to gasoline. Recently we took a road trip for the solar eclipse. I took a peek at the ETA before and after we stopped for gas. It slipped by THIRTY MINUTES, even though it doesn't take thirty minutes to fill a gas tank. So a thirty minute charging stop could easily take you over 45 minutes, even though the car is only plugged in for thirty of those. This is to say nothing of situations where you have to queue up and wait to charge. That never happened to me, but it's a common sight on holiday weekends in places where EVs are super popular like California,

The recharge anxiety is so true, I was recently given a Tesla Model Y rental as I was in a couple different cities for work. Holy damn it was genuinely frightening trying to find a charger, let alone a fast one, that was actually working with less than 10% charge left in the battery. I must say I really enjoyed driving it and really would consider owning one, but if/when you’re on a tight schedule and need a quick and reliable way of “topping up” the car in a pinch, at the moment it’s not a good way to go

His opinion is more positive, and more nuanced, than the title would suggest IMO.

The current electrical grid can't not handle the demand of everyone using an EV!

It occurs to me he’s quite right about the range anxiety being recharging anxiety. My car had a broken fuel gauge, so I don’t like to go more than about 200 miles without filling up. I’m not particularly worried about this though as it takes 2 minutes to fill up

James May is such a smart man. Refreshing to hear someone speak rationally about the pros and cons of EVs.

Toyota was heavily criticized for sticking with hybrids for so long, and now everyone is realizing that hybrids are very sensible. At least here in the northeast US, some dealers are struggling to sell their electric cars now.

One point you didn’t mention is the average UK driver drives less than 20 miles a day , so charging maybe once a week doesn’t take any of your time it’s done overnight while you’re asleep and cars ready to go next day. There are perhaps not for everyone, but technologies Always advancing range will increase.

He nailed it. I’m not anti electric car, im just anti everything that currently comes with an electric car. I know three long term electric car owners that are going back to standard fuel as they are increasingly finding it very difficult to charge in a reasonable time when on a longer journey, not because of the charge time but because of the lack of serviceable charging points and the demand for them. I’m not a national grid and infrastructure expert but I wonder how much the infrastructure will have too change to not just cope with the sheer quantity of people charging their cars, but the current/amperage demand. And how is a street full of terraced houses with no off road parking going to charge their car? Or a block of flats?

"charge anxiety" is spot on. Imagine a scenario where you can only "practically" charge your phone at home...this would be a pain to say the least. The EV industry definitely needs some catching up but I I think it's heading in the right direction.

I've waited in line 15-20 minutes to refill the tank on my car before. Imagine how long the wait would be if everybody had EVs even with 30 minute charge times. Only 24 hours in a day.

I am 100% with James. Eletric has it place, but it's not ready for everyone right now.

Way to solve this problem in robotaxi era: On a long trip, you have a chain of robotaxies. First takes you as long as the battery lasts, then the next fully charged car waits for you and continues the trip. Cars charge alone, and people don't own cars.

A very balanced consideration, I thought. I agree with Mr May pretty much 100%. I'm off to fuel up my V8 now though...

Worst thing about this is not infrastructure or time to charge, it is idiocracy of having to download an app and register and do all kind of fiddling for each charging point, and the pain in the ass of not being able to download the app if you’re using the car abroad (ex. Rent a car) because your phone’s app store is in different country than the one you’re in. It only, and only, makes sense if you’re using the car in the city and you have your own charger at home connected to a residential battery storage which is connected to solar panels, which all together costs more than the car and you just can’t justify the price. It literally nothing makes sense.

I own a Honda Accord hybrid which utilizes gasoline and a battery in a seamless manner. Close to 50 mph in a full size sedan with ample power. This is the way to go

I work at a bmw dealership as a (pretty good) salesman. BMW is pushing us to sell BEVs and they are astonishingly good. Atm about half of my sales are either hybrids or bevs. But once that guy comes round who drives 30.000km or more per year… I don’t even mention them and we go straight to the glorious 3 litre diesel.

Try charging outside of the Tesla network. Utilisation has increased so much that you often find 20 minute waiting times to charge your car for 20 minutes to do 200 miles. (If you have something that charges at over 200kwh)

Imagine logic and reasoning taking center stage. Well done boys. If only politicians could come to anything close to this 🏛️😯🏛️🏛️

The battery life, power generation, and infrastructure are major obstacles that unless fully solved, it is still decades away. Throwing away a car every 3 years because of the battery will not do.

I wonder how many people saying this actually used an EV on toad trips. We have a diesel Mercedes and a Tesla model 3. I take the Tesla for road-trips whenever I can. I’ve been to Paris, Prag, regularly between Hamburg and Munich. 0 problems

Unsurprisingly, a very balanced and accurate discussion about the advantages and drawbacks of both. I've owned an EV, Tesla Model 3 and it was as an interesting experience. I enjoyed it in a lot of ways, was frustrated by many things covered here. Comically enough, when I let go of the EV, I purchased a full size truck with a V8.

the average working person is not driving more than 150miles daily. With a charger either at their home or apartment complex, I'd say EVs are pretty chill and make his thoughts on mileage a moot point for the working class. He is a different person living a very different life than most of the people in the world, so it makes sense that he'd want more mileage and fast recharge to do as he pleases. Technology will get better and eventually suit his needs but that time isn't now

Pure sense. Governments please listen.

To charge 50kw battery in 3 mins would take 740amps at 600v, which would necessitate a cable about the size of your leg, multiplied by the number of charging points at any one site, times by the number of sites within range of one transformer i.e. not possible currently

I am just awaiting arrival of my first EV, and have found it quite the minefield researching to see if it would work ok for me. It is eally nice to see a conversation without entrenched views from each side or another. The only reason I'm getting an EV, is that the majority of my miles are done within a ~30m radius, and I am able to have a charger fitted at home. Were my travel habits as they were prior to 2018, involving the majority of them being done on the motorway. I'd be getting another ICE.

I think the potential for EV infrastructure is huge, though. You can literally put a charger anywhere where there is electricity running. The infrastructure is so much easier to put into place than petrol infrastructure. A petrol station requires a significant amount of land and underground storage, it requires transporting fuel across the world by ship and trucks. ICE vehicles themselves are inefficient as well as the fuel, you just have trillions of dollars of investment and subsidies and 100+ years of infrastructure that has overcome these inefficiencies. I agree with May that at the moment for a lot of people it is probably not feasible to buy an EV for a number of reasons but this is early days yet in the overall scheme of things.

The car-and-charger model has obvious benefits in individual autonomy and freedom, but it still feels like a lot of places should be ramping up electric public transit, rather than electric private vehicles. (Rural areas are hopeless for both models, of course.)

Britain has, like in so many other things, fallen badly behind with its charging network.

Like James May we have both. We have a Tesla Model 3, a Volvo C40 electric and a little petrol Hyundai i10. The real world range of the three cars is 270 miles, 210 miles and 430 miles respectively. This makes the little Hyundai much more relaxing to drive as you simply don’t have to “think” about range. We do drive the Tesla to the Alps a few times a year and at best I would describe that experience as “OK” but at worst a “massive ballache”. When the French farmers recently blockaded the highways we were stuck in solid traffic through back roads and nearly ran out of battery in the Tesla. We limped into a supercharger station on 1% battery remaining. Anxiety levels were through the roof. So much so that we have decided to replace the Tesla with a diesel or a hybrid when its lease ends.

I remember having severe range anxiety in the past , late on a Sunday afternoon in rural Wales, there were no open petrol stations to be found. It was perhaps my fault for not planning ahead. An advantage of EV chargers is that the majority are available 24/7, and easily found. Things change all of the time.

I don't use my car too often, but when I do I mostly drive longer distances, like Switzerland to Netherlands and back etc, so an EV would not make much sense. If I needed a car for "just around town and nearby villages" I guess I would opt for an EV.

Good to see you James! Miss you and your crew from back in the Top Gear days. Cheers!

If the majority of your journeys are within the range of an electric car then they make sense - however if you do a lot of long distances or cannot charge at home then they are almost impossible to justify currently. Why not let people make their own mind up what suits them and then let the technology catch up over time.

Brilliant James! I could listen to this guy for hours on any subject

EV makes sense for an around town car and people with home chargers. But also there is no reason all cars should not be hybrids right now

James is right that the issue is not EVs themselves, it's the battery technology right now. Electric motors make total sense. Henry Ford said that if he's just asked people what they want, they'd have said 'faster horses'. It's the same problem.

The biggest issue with EVs is charging them at home if you live in flats or a row of terraces and you have to park the car in the road. I nearly tripped over a cable that had been left across the path at night.

Glad to hear a balanced voice. On my third EV now. Yes, range is still an issue. I feel batteries need to improve to store about 50% more for the same price. I don’t mind the charging time, but yes more charging stations would be nice in some areas.

Great commentary. In my opinion, an electric car only makes sense is if your a homeowner with a garage and have a fast charger wired in so you can charge anytime your at home and your daily driving habits are within 50% the range of your car.

Totally agree with James, the real problem with EVs is the time it takes to recharge them rather than their range or lack of.

Guy i work with has an electric Peugeot, he only lives two miles from work and has a charging point at home so works well for him, it's a 2020 (i think ?), recently the equivalent of the engine management light came on, said "charging system error", took it to the dealer, fault was some kind of charging module, bill for repair was £3000, and it was just out of warranty (or the warranty didn't cover the part/repair ?), he kicked off as the car had done less that 8000 miles, after a bit of arguing Peugeot agreed to repair it as "good will", apparently though it's becoming a common issue. As these cars are becoming a bit older the massive repair bills will start to come in.

What he's leaving out is that your home becomes a charging station. MOST of your charging is done at home, much like charging your phone. The infrastructure is right on par with the EV adoption. And now that most of the other OEMs are adopting Teslas charging standard, the infrastructure will necessarily grow with EV production.

But if we dont start using EVs now, how do we improve the technology in the future? Look how long it's taken to refine the internal combustion engine roughly 120 years.

Something i've noticed is that rich people don't tend to talk about the cost. I know i'm missing something because whenever i look it up i get the answer "EV batteries last around 10 years and it costs £7-9k to replace them", i've heard of battery subscription services and apparently some manufacturers have a warranty on their batteries for 7-10 years, but screw buying a 2nd hand EV if you have to replace the battery in 2 years. I've probably spent around £2k on repairs for my 2004 Polo.

James said his diesel Polo will easily 450 miles on a tank. I've hired a diesel Skoda Fabia which had a 1450 engine that was about 6/7 years old from a local firm that rents out older cars and that easily did roughly 650 miles on a tank. I've got a heavy right foot and the first time I hired one it covered 850+ miles in six days, around the West country, hardly any on a motorway and averaged 69 mpg! When my present lease is finished on my Skoda Kamiq 1.0, nice as it is, I'm going for an older diesel car.

I might be crazy but I thought there would need to be less charges than petrol stations since most people charge their car overnight at home and don't use the entire range in day on most days. Without owning an EV I think I would have to use a charger may 2-3 times a year.

I love James May's perspective on this, he isn't in either radicalized camp, he's being practical, pragmatic, modest, and honest. The challenge isn't the EV technology, or even really the lack of a supercharger network imo (although this is a current obstacle), the challenge is making batteries able to take power fast enough, and hold enough capacity to make it actually practically useful. On the climate side, the carbon emissions from having to produce the batteries is not an insignificant number either, and while I hear about new battery tech every day, the batteries in your average electric car being produced in 2024 are still just laptop batteries from 2010. I think if we want to solve for climate change we need people who reside in metropolitan areas to commit to a greater adoption of public transport, and for governments to commit to a greater expansion of public transport networks. This would lower the carbon emissions for personal transportation by more than 30% cumulatively (including the fossil fuel consumption, manufacturing emissions, etc etc), which is actually the single largest reduction we could hope for in less than 10 years. But, and I can't say this loud enough, you need to make public transport an option that's GOOD enough for people to actually WANT to use it. If you try to force people to use something that they don't want to use you'll just meet an endless barrage of resistance, including increasing the propensity for politicians to be elected simply on platforms of anti-progressiveness. No, you're much further ahead to address the issues public transport faces today, and eliminate the rationale for resisting use of public transport by making it more convenient, more practical, safer, and more available than it has been traditionally.

It comes to something when listening to a few minutes of carefully considered conversation is a rare and wonderful thing. Excellent interview.

Very reasonable and well reasoned description of the state of play at the moment. But I would add that battery technology is developing faster than has been previously assumed, which may point to a brighter/nearer future for BEVs. ...Though infrastructure (generation/distribution and recharging points) is lagging behind - so the large-battery requirement will persist for a while...

God forbid you ever have to tow anything with one long distances. Have to untrailer and then charge, wait, and then retrailer. Every 200 miles.

I agree with much of what he's said. I just purchased a 2016 Tesla S 90D. Stole it, really, but the range & charge times are a thing. What will make things so much better is when I get a charger in my home. That should solve most everything, as I think it does for most Tesla owners.

A very sensible interview. Clear explanation where the pain “sits”. As an EV driver, privately owned, I recognize the long loading times but then again I have all the time in the world so I don’t mind. On the other hand is driving an EV very comfortable and very economical. The Tesla Supercharger network is quit dense here on the mainland so not a problem at all. Charging at home with solarpanels is ofcourse free.

We barely scrape through most winters on our powergrid , there's no way the extra transmission infrastructure and electricity generation will be in place for 20 to 30 million EV cars! In a 100 years let alone 10 to 15 years time.

hundreds of thousands more chargers, job done

I think an under looked boon of electric cars is the ability to charge at home, which you typically never do with a gasoline vehicle. Once the home infrastructure becomes better, charging at night will be the majority of electricity consumed for BEVs. Which is great because the majority of power consumption is during the daylight.

I miss these guys shows! They were great, especially all the trips.

You forget one thing. You go to petrol stations all the time. You charge mostly at home. So you go to charge when you need to go more than 250 -300 miles. How often do you do that? Most people 3-4 times a year. The problem is not there for home chargers. So what we need is home chargers for those who live in apartment buildings.

I have recently purchased a tesla, I could finally afford one after approximately ten years after test driving one. Mine is a 2015 model s and I did not buy it for vacation travel or long-range travel, I have two Camaros for that. I bought it strictly for a city car and for a city car it seems far more advanced than anything else!!!!!! I agree with James May that for longer distance it is not fun to sit in a car for 20 to 50 minutes!!!!! I see some places becoming creative with supercharging locations, such as having drive in films, and different stores along with unique coffee shops and it seems that will be the way of the future until the battery situation is improved!!!!! The batteries have come a long way since the 70s, but they still have a long ways to go and in the mean time you might see routes where there are actually tourist attractions about every 100 miles with supercharging available!!!!!!!! I really liked watching your video, it was fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!

Completely fair and reasonable points. I love my Tesla, have a pretty short commute, and don’t road trip super often, so it works great for me. But he’s not wrong about the scaling up that the supercharger network needs. I do think most people overestimate how often they really need hundreds of miles of capacity. Most people only travel that far by car a few times a year. In those cases, it might make sense to just rent a gas car if you don’t want the inconvenience of charging.

He touched on an important point, EVs are OK as a second car for rich people.

In Switzerland they are putting chargers in village car parks and rest stops on freeways, not just fuel stations but the ones with just toilets so you are never more than a few kilometres from a charger. It sounds as though Britain is wedded to the old fashioned fuel station model but chargers don’t need large underground tanks which need refilling, all you need is to be near a power line.

Wow, as an EV owner, I completely agree with much of this. Especially the charge whilst you eat bollocks, I want to eat where I want, not where there is a charger. If you are constant long distance driver and road tripper, they don't work that well. Where they DO work well is most peoples everyday lives where you always charge at home. Battery size is hard, I think 60kWh on a medium sized car is probably the best compromise.

Yes. I agree. Small light EVs. 150 mile range. Quick re-charge. AND.........proper recyclability of the batteries!!! Oh dear.

I like the idea of electric cars. It will take some getting used to. I don't like government forcing transition numbers and dates on industry and society. The transition from horse to gasoline automobiles involved finding the way amongst diesel, steam and electric. It involved the development of technology and harvesting resources like steel, lumber, oil, and rubber. Very little of that was done by government dictates. It was driven by people saying "We want this", AND business saying "This is what we can do." Furthermore it all took decades to develop.

My friend has a model s 2016. And they have many times been stressed on it having low battery. If you forget to plug it in at nigh it can really cause an issue. The closest super charger is 40 to an hour from their house depending on traffic.

With current technology I think EV is better for majority of personal car use case. I’ve had a Model 3 for 5 years. I drive 20,000 miles a year. I have charged entirely at home except for 2 times in those 5 years and one of those trips was 2000 miles when I first got it just to “try” supercharging.

I am retired now but I used to work away from home - sometimes over 900 miles from home - and if I had to rely on current EVs a one day trip would probably have been 3 days long. It isn't practical at all.

I am on my fourth plug in car. 98% of my charging is at home. We’re putting 40k+ miles on our model 3 per year without issue.

4:40 - I cannot fill up my gas tank at home though... Unless I have a barrel...

The problem is we can't just wait until EV's and charging stations are perfected. If we did that with everything then nothing advances. This is no different than any other technology. People need to start using it and it will improve with time.

Yeah he's spot on. We'd be fine with an EV for 95% of our driving, SO nipping to the shops and work. Me going to the climbing gym 3x a week. We'd probably only have to charge once a week, if that. I could even do the slightly longer visits to my dad's care home in an EV without having to fret about charging at his end. But a few times a year we go further afield and then the recharging thing would suck. At the moment the etiquette for phone charging is that you can visit someone and plug in your phone - but for an EV? That's pushing hospitality - or you have to start trying to figure out the cost - or find a charging station. The car ends up being a pariah, especially if your journey to or from can't be done in one go. Hydrogen makes the only sense really because it copied the existing model of petrol and diesel cars. And, the truth is, we do so little mileage in our petrol car that the payback in reduced costs if we bought any newer car - whether it was a more efficient petrol or diesel or an EV would take at least 10 years probably closer to 20 to realise. The environmental impact from buying a newer car is going to be of that order too before it breaks even with using petrol - unless you have really high mileage per year - and we're around 5k. I've seen people a decade or so ago on youtube, like a salesman or something who more or less showed that his fuel savings made his EV free - it paid for a brand new nissan leaf - but that's not typical and would certainly not count for us. For similar reasons it would make no sense for us to own 2 cars and have the EV for some journeys - it would all be making our environmental impact much bigger than keeping our existing car - and not really saving us any money for 10-20 years. The same was true of our old TV, it wasn't efficient, but when a new TV was £1k then it made no sense to buy a more efficient one until the old one broke and you had no choice - although to be fair TVs have dropped significantly too in price which has made it easier to be greener and break even on running costs. But EVs costs are actually rising not falling. Thus, there's no point us getting a newer car or one that's EV no matter how much it appeared to be cheaper to run day to day, or better for the environment - it's not, not unless someone gave us the EV for free. Which is what British gas did with our boiler, they decided making our running costs more efficient was worth the government paying to replace our boiler. Unless Ford or the Government decide that us using an electric car is worth them providing one and they provide it, we'd get no real saving making it worthwhile. Eventually, of course, we'll have to buy a newer car anyway, but it's difficult to see at the moment that that car would be an EV. Not the least the used cost of them is higher, there's a big question over the battery when you buy used, the insurance is now higher - the recharging issue on long journeys would be a big stumbling block We'd get a small petrol car - and really, in the scheme of things, our low mileage, small car, one car, is dwarfed by some of our neighbours who have a drive with 3 or 4 cars, SUVs, they're flying off on holidays 2 or 3x times a year, maybe have 2 or 3 pets. If one of them bought an EV it would probably just increase their footprint and certainly wouldn't make it lower than ours with a small petrol car.

As there's never going to be (on current rate of progress) Practical EV Farm/Plant/HGV's (Practical in Farm terms is 3-400hp CONSTANT Load, that can work harvest hours (18 hours min) and recharge in a field) what's going to power them?

I cannot speak for the UK or the US, but in France and all adjacent countries I have been driving very long distances (more than 1000 km) since 2018 with my model 3 without any inconvenience. A 15 or 20 minutes charge after more than 2 hours of high speed driving is just a 15 to 20 minutes welcomed break. And 95% of my charges are at home, so no waiting. So sure we need more home charging and more fast charging, but it is not a challenge at all compared to the benefits especially the reduction in CO2. Fighting climate change will be *far more difficult* in other domains, ground transportation is definitely the easy part of the job since we have alternatives. Finally, the end of ICE does not mean all ICE vehicles will be replaced by EVs. In cities, public transportation, bicycles, or even just walking are far better solutions. And between cities trains are just perfect. So from now to 2035 (probable ICE ban) and 2050 (net zero goal to meet the Paris agreement) we need more charge points (from 3 kW to 300 kW) but also more public transportation, more bike lanes, more walkable cities, more proximity shops and services, etc. Cars will be part of the equation, perfect for low density places, and they will all be electric with batteries, just because there is no zero emission alternative.

I rented a model 3 for a couple weeks to test it out. I sold cars for a living and worked for several major car companies so I know cars. The model 3 is a superior car in most ways and except for luxury, the car is not built tough enough, lots of rattling over bumps, hard ride but that will come with time. Overall it feels like a massive go kart. For charging it very cheap, like $3 overnight for 75% tank. The gas savings are substantial. Two things you would worry about, running out of battery then having to sit for 30m to charge(you'll have buyers remorse because fast charging is almost as expensive as gas, like $25 and 1 hour for 50% tank) and more importantly battery degradation. battery replacement is around 9-15k depending. Overall I would buy one for city use. I wouldn't recommend one for highway and long distance driving. Battery will just drain quickly. Own one and if you're going on a long trip rent a dinosaur ICE vehicle. I think that's the path.

I love my electric bicycle, I'm 56 and have a 9 mile commute. My car use was cut by 2/3rds. Are cars the best starting point for electric transportation?

In the Netherlands the power grid can't handle people charging their cars when they come home from work at the end of the day 😅

2:00 This is assuming no technological progress is made on charging. And this will probably happen as it already is, happening. But James has a fair point and it will probably take a while (understatement) before we get to a complete charge in 3 minutes. But what James forgets is that we are seeing a paradigm shift in when we provide our cars with energy. What I mean is, we're now slowly having more and more chargers at home, work, parking spots, etc. Basically anywhere where you will park a car. So if you charge your car regularly a bit, you don't need those 30 minute charging sessions. This obviously does not work on big trips, but those few big trips should not be an argument against EVs.

In the US, it feels weird. I think EVs are a great solution for the commuter. IF they made commuter EVs. They can be hyper efficient (see Aptera motors), get you back and forth without having to worry about recharging. And keep your costs way down. But instead, they're doing big trucks and SUV EVs.

The UK is not great at infrastructure, the need will outstrip the demand. What is not covered in this the non existent recycling at end of use or control of EVs in runaway burn.

I respect Mr May’s point about the need for MUCH more available charging. Much of that infrastructure needs to go where there is significant “dwell time”, i.e. places where people are spending significant time like restaurants, hotels, workplaces, and shopping centers. This can serve to reduce the demand on DC fast chargers and free them up for those who are traveling longer distances. EVs are already an order of magnitude better than they were even a decade ago. Range, charging speed, and cost have all improved considerably. There’s no reason to think this progress is going to halt now that there’s a valid market out there.