[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.]