[bausson]

A push for electric vehicles in Europe is a really good thing, but I'm not sure the market is exactly ready.

On the other hand, Tesla has better getting their supercharger network ready before the sales catch up, the other way around would be bad for the brand. And seeing supercharger on the roadside when going to fill one's tank can get people thinking, given gas price.

[patrickk]

> Tesla has better getting their supercharger network ready before the sales catch up..

Given the fact that average distances in Europe tend to be shorter will likely mean the majority of EV owners (e.g. commuters) will simply charge up at home and rarely need to use a supercharger. Having a supercharger nearby sweetens the deal.

Also, petrol prices are so much higher here, so the economic case for owning an EV is even stronger. For example, where I live it's about €1.49/liter of petrol, which is something in the region of $8.20/US Gallon if I'm doing the conversions correctly. So the payback period would be quicker over here (versus regular new car), plus there's likely to be tax incentives to purchase EVs also. Another plus would be strong support instead of the situation with the dealer network in the US.

I hope Tesla can hit their goal of a low cost EV (€30k-40k), they would dominate the budget car market so quickly if they can deliver at that price, and decent build quality. It would force the big european car makers to complete, which would bring great competition in the lower priced EV segment.

[pjc50]

The EU manufacturers have an eye on this market; you have the Leaf (made in Sunderland UK, as others have pointed out), the Renault Zoe, Vauxhall Ampera (rebadged Chevy Volt), BMW i3.

However, I wouldn't describe E30k as "budget"! I might be tempted by an ex-dealer secondhand Leaf at £10-£15k: http://www.autotrader.co.uk/used-cars/nissan/leaf

[shiftpgdn]

Much of the public infrastructure in the UK is paid for based on gasoline(petrol) excise taxes. Before tax you actually pay about the same as Americans per gallon of gas. I wonder how the government will handle people switching to EVs and effectively dodging the tax.

[jdahlin]

Public infrastructure needs to be financed somehow and it would make most sense to do so based on usage of them. Energy tax, vehicle purchase tax or tolls are the three main options to do that as far as I can see.

Combustion taxes makes sense if it's only used by transportation means, but that is not the case of electric energy. You could tax at the plug/socket level, but that's probably something that will be easy to tamper with.

There could always be something fancy such as remotely tracking the vehicles, but that will open a can of privacy worms.

The only viable option is to do tolls. Not necessarily representative of actual use, but a good enough approximation of use.

[brc]

EV owners will get an extra road usage charge. It's the model already seen in some US states.

What is funny is that much of the benefit of an EV is effectively they are a rolling tax-avoidance scheme - in many cases you actually get subsidised for the purchase. The cost-to-run figures rely heavily on the lack of taxation to work out better - and this is even more so in highly-taxing regions like most European countries.

This is obviously not sustainable once larger volumes of vehicles start to appear on the road.

Of course it would make me happy if EVs became popular and avoided getting loaded down with all the other taxes that vehicles currently attract. Because then it would raise the question why all transportation is taxed so heavily.

I know I am dreaming, though. EVs will end up just as taxed as every other vehicle on the road.

[chris_mahan]

Maybe they'll tax tires/tyres.

[InclinedPlane]

Eh, it's probably fine for now for EV owners to get a break on infrastructure costs since they are a minority and there are several helpful positive externalities from EV ownership as an offset. If EVs start to make up a lot of the market then taxation can switch to a different model (licensing/mileage based, perhaps, or simply out of the general fund).

[arethuza]

The European car makers are already competing in the low cost EV market - e.g. a BMW i3 is available from £25K or so and has been getting pretty good reviews.

[There are other low cost models from Smart, Renault, Peugeot/Citroen etc.]

[toomuchtodo]

I would argue Europe is a better market than the US because the distances are shorter (how much of Western Europe can fit in Texas?), so there would be less of a range anxiety discussion.

[bausson]

Shorter distances is a good argument, but there also others differences which aren't advantage.

Most of my observations are from France, since it's where I live, but it should be correct for Germany, Spain, UK at least.

Plus :

* shorter distances

* higher gas price in EU than US

Minus :

* people usually commute by public transportation. In big cities, they don't even own a car. There is no place to park it, and it's kinda useless, since it take longer to go somewhere by car than by public transport.

* For medium distance (100~1000 km), people use both car and train. It's maybe 50/50, depending on the need of car at destination. You are always more independent by car, but by train you arrive quicker, and rested (a good rail network helping).

* On the 'social' side of things, the car ownership is not a thing the way it is in america (or is it a generation thing / Hollywood exaggeration, I don't know). European young adult buy a car when they need one, not as soon as possible to show they can support themselves.

[toomuchtodo]

I agree with all you points.

RE: "* On the 'social' side of things, the car ownership is not a thing the way it is in america (or is it a generation thing / Hollywood exaggeration, I don't know). European young adult buy a car when they need one, not as soon as possible to show they can support themselves."

This used to be the case, but both car ownership and young adults obtaining driver's licenses has been on the decline for the last decade.

EDIT: LINKS! Because data.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/10/end-car-own...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/young-ameri...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/sunday-review/the-end-of-c...

[erikpukinskis]

None of those are EV specific, they are just reasons the car market in Europe would be small. Rather than speculate about all the causes I thought I would just look it up:

In 2013, there were 12 million¹ vehicles registered in the EU out of 733 million people. And in the U.S. there were 15 million² sales out of 315 million people.

So it looks like Europe is buying cars at about a third the rate of Americans.

¹ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/business/international/car...

² http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/03/news/companies/car-sales/

[bausson]

Just to get your numbers straight: EU => 507 million people.

Also, when you look graph ², you can wonder how much of that is due to recession.

(found at random via google search, so I don't know how trustable it is, but seems legit. : http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html )

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

² http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzzddTbQ7Mg/TtfoT07ehTI/AAAAAAAALe... (via ³)

³ http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011_12_01_archive.html

Nonetheless, your point is still valid, European buy less car per person.

[codfrantic]

>how much of Western Europe can fit in Texas?

Texas is roughly similar size as France.

http://mapfight.appspot.com/texas-vs-fr/texas-us-france-size...

[Shivetya]

by that token Europe doesn't necessarily need an electric car with the same range possibilities as the Tesla S. The real issue is, how large is the market for hundred thousand dollar electrics? I would think they need to keep jumping into markets because demand cannot be that great or sustaining at those price points.

Many luxury buyers have no interest whatsoever in electrics. buyers of Rolls are one such type of buyer. When Rolls trotted out an all electric and took it across the world owners of existing Rolls were not interested. Europe does produce quite a few 100k cars but they tend to be performance exotics, last I checked the main market is much further down stream and for much much smaller cars than the S (which is big even in the US)

[grecy]

> but I'm not sure the market is exactly ready.

Eh, the market wasn't ready for a very expensive SSD-only laptop, or a $500 touch-only phone, or a bigger phone called a tablet.

The market "not being ready" didn't hurt any of those things... Skate to where the puck is going, not where it is now.

[kiiski]

Didn't hurt? Perhaps, but it didn't do much good to them either. Just look at Nokia who had a touch only phone in 2004 (7710) and a tablet in 2005 (770). Those techs only succeeded years later with iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).

[visakanv]

"Skate to where the puck is going" is a very succinct way of communicating that! Love it, gonna use it from now on. Thanks!

[InclinedPlane]

The biggest constraint in Europe, and a lot of urban areas in the US, is likely having a driveway/garage. Not being able to charge a car overnight is a big deal for EVs.

[codfrantic]

In the Netherlands an EV will come with a charger at street level if there isn't allready one available within 500 meters or something. Some cars come with two, one at home and one at your office...