It’s rare I find myself agreeing with right-wing commentator Mike Hosking but the Newstalkzb talk show host makes a very good point in a recent opinion piece on electric cars.
“While the media remains abuzz at the potential of electric cars, driverless cars, and electric driverless cars that fly, are we actually buying these cars. No we are not.
“EV sales,” he continued,” remain below one percent.”
So, “are we still buying cars?” Mike askes, before immediately answering his own question.
“Oh yes, my word we are. We are heading for our sixth year in a row of record sales. We’ve never bought, never owned, more cars.”
There’s more of course, much more, but if you take away the bluster and focus on the facts the man the liberals love to hate has got a point.
While – literally – millions of dollars are being spent promoting Electric and Hybrid Electric Vehicles and the use thereof, your average, everyday Kiwi is buying a petrol SUV or diesel ute.
They are buying them in unprecedented numbers as well. As David Crawford, Chief Executive Officer of the Motor Industry Association said in his monthly market report covering a quite remarkable month, October 2018.
“Registration of 16,670 vehicles for the month of October is not only the strongest month of October ever,’ he said “but also sets a new monthly record for any month of the year ever. The previously single strongest month was June 2017 when there were 15,985 new vehicles registered, with October 2018 coming in 7.3 percent higher (1,140 units).”
Look, I’m neither anti EVs, HEVS and/or PHEVs per se, nor am I one of these Luddites unwilling to accept anything new or different.
As an Editor of long-standing, however, my BS-detector runs 24/7 and so well-honed is its associated ‘something’s-not-quite-right-here’ alarm that my head rings every time another ‘Electric Cars Are Our Future’ press release arrives in my in-box.
The problem here is two-fold.
On the one hand – and despite the hype – the EV ‘industry is in its infancy, and what ‘cars’ are available are largely horrendously expensive (any Tesla) or second-hand hand-me-downs based on superseded technology.
On the other hand is a news media which – it would appear – has lost its critical faculties. When I started out in the media game, news outlets prided themselves in their ability to sort the chaff (puffery, quackery and junk science) from the wheat (quantifiable, sustainable news of real value to readers/listeners/viewers etc).
These days? Not so!
I have to laugh, in fact, when I see a story in The NZ Herald, or on TV1 or TV3, based on a press release which might have crossed my desk (and more often than not ended up in the deleted file) a week or so before.
Don’t get me wrong. One day I might indeed drive (even buy) an EV. I already rate Mitsubishi’s PHEV as my favourite version of the local importer’s Outlander line for instance. And that’s with an effective electric-only range (between charges) of a miniscule 50-or-so kms.
What’s needed to get me onside, however, is way less ‘talkie’ and a hell of a lot more ‘walkie.’
When for instance someone (whether it is Ford, Apple or Dyson I doesn’t matter) can build and sell me a vehicle which I can use (and abuse) like my current (pardon the pun) Nissan Terrano I’ll look at it.
But it will have to……let’s see, be able to commute, tow my heavy old Skyline drifter, go up hill, down dale, and through door sill level rivers off-road as well as handle every imaginable surface on-road, all with a ‘between fills or charges or whatever’ range of at least 300kms and cost of under $150 to fill its tanks or battery arrays or whatever………….to the brim.
Right now the reality for me and most Kiwis however is…….either a petrol SUV or a diesel ute, and or be perfectly frank with you, I don’t see this changing any time soon.
Because as Mike Hoskings says;
“No matter how hard the media, the spin doctors, and the environmentalists tell us that EVs are here and the future, they're not. For every EV we buy, we buy 64 utes.”
On which point all I can say is; “Your honour, I rest my case!”
To read the full story in the NZ4WD Annual go to Zinio.com (December 11) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.
