British Volt factory - the end of the road?
is this the factory that never was?
This is just an artist's illustration
The British Volt factory looks set to close following a reported collapse of its share price in recent weeks - so is this the end of the road for the electric vehicles given that the Tesla concern is also now reportedly heavily discounting the ticket price of its cars?
An electric TFL Bus only a few years old - in a Barnsley Bus scrapyard
at over half a million quid to buy new - was this really good value for money?
Perhaps the issues of high inflation, the Ukraine War and cost of charging electric cars are contributory factors leading to people going 'cold' on the wonder machines that are heavily advertised to us as being 'the future' - they are clearly not it would seem and people are now waking up to the realities and pitfalls of owning an EV and avoiding them or getting out whilst they can still get a half decent price for them. And going back to Petrol and Diesel vehicles in many cases.
The primary 'schoolboy error' of the electric vehicle industry was that no one thought at the outset of this quest to establish a common charging plug and socket size, shape and format common to all.
This was the most egregious, inexcusable, avoidable and fundamental error.
The recent christmas break led to many electric vehicle owners to make their pious journeys to visit relatives across Britain and finding a lack of chargers, a lack of chargers with the right plug for their car and a lack of the charger actually working has now come home to them.
A driver recently reported a day and half's journey time by EV from the Isle of White to the Lake district, thanks to having to recharge so often and having to leave a 50 mile reserve of battery power showing on the gauge in order that they might get to a charger that worked and that was available on their way. A 'normal' car would have had you there by early evening the same day, on the same tankful of fuel. Probably for less cost.
Many drivers are now waking up to the reality that their few years' old EV batteries are past their best and the cost of replacing the car at half as much again versus a 'normal' car are coming at the wrong time. Or if a battery can be changed, that it will cost around £10,000 plus to change it.
When you plug into a public charging point, they can charge you what they like for your charge and you are stuck with it, you can't just go to another garage or 'fill up from a can' as with a Petrol or Diesel car - if the electric car's car battery is that low your options are limited.
You've got the prospect of an up to 2 hours waiting time whilst charging takes place, rather than the 5 minutes to refuel at a garage for Petrol or Diesel fuel. A Jaguar battery charged at home can take a day and a half to charge off a 13 amp domestic supply.
Currently there are 39 electric vehicles to 1 charger. Not counting the fact that not all chargers fit all cars so it is no surprise to see many motorway charging points now empty as many drivers abandon EV's for long distance driving.
Tesla has a new EV Semi tractor unit, problem is unless you dump the trailer, the space for a charger bay would have to be 60+ feet to take the lorry. Then it takes time to charge, the whole EV thing is just becoming a joke.
Probably the full charge of a large EV car battery could now cost the equivalent of the domestic house consumption of electricity for 6 weeks in one go. They use a 60 amp plus charge circuit even when drawn from a domestic supply network via a special link to the mains supply.
The electric vehicle is good for the city and the ultra urban drive, but the interest is just not there nor is there the 'wallet' to indulge in this voltaic whimsy despite the flashy adverts trying to seduce us into the abandonment of the internal combustion engine.
I don't see that many EV's on the road, they are quite a rarity, 2 a day I counted. I view that they are over-hyped and the 'lots of people own them' line is just marketing guff, there are 32 million vehicles on the UK roads and the EV is not making the impacts on ownership that was predicted - perhaps partly why British Volt has not worked out?
The future is synthetic and Net Zero Petrols and Diesels, both viable and in production now. Motor manufacturers are being led up the garden path by governments and influencers who grasp the electric vehicle nettle with some sort of religious zeal. Battery ingredients are finite, the synthetic fuels are not.
The problem is that these people on the electric vehicle hobby horse often do not have the technical and/or practical knowledge of the realities of this sort of entity and are just rose tinted blind to them.
In the early 1900s there were many electric vehicles around but cheap gasoline and the development of the internal combustion engine led to the demise of ev's then.
Perhaps history will repeat itself again?
It is suggested that an Australian 'startup' Recharge has started to look at taking over British Volt, how far will that go if the British concern had no real firm orders? But if there are no firm orders, is that going to also fail?
The last information was that Recharge, the new interest was not investing in producing purely electric vehicle batteries at the yet to be built Volt factory - which is still a piece of rough ground - which is a telling situation - perhaps it was hoped they might produce battery cells for the electric car industry by an optimistic government?
The lack of real sales of these electric vehicles is likely due to customers waking up and seeing that these vehicles are not going to fulfil their transport solution. ICE engine ones will.
And with the rising costs of these cars, the charging and operation issues, the electric vehicle market is open to failure. sometime soon. People are hanging on to those old cars, they are the future.
