You might be wondering why I’m writing a post about Electric Vehicles, popularly referred to as EVs, having just received my lastest diesel company car.

Joe Simpson has written a post over here about Renault’s advertising of its strategy to move towards affordable and usable electric cars in the next couple of years, and others have commented on the cleverness or otherwise of Renault’s campaign.

However, my concern comes from the short sentence that is seemingly overlooked,

Renault – and Ghosn – are under fire in the French press for focusing too much on these electric models that are still two years away, and hurting sales of the current range.

The potential move towards EVs is a step-change in cars, the first significant change in the basic fundamentals of the personal automobile in perhaps one hundred years. It’s a different technology, which will require a different national infrastructure to provide charging points instead of petrol stations, and it’s an infrastructure that will probably be completely independent of the current one. This is not like adding a separate diesel nozzle to existing petrol pumps. In the immediate future you’re not going to recharge an electric car in the five or so minutes it takes to refuel your current vehicle.

Where am I going with this?

This could be the CD to the turntable, the DVD player to the VHS video but with the car. It’s the same end – you travel at your own time and speed – but in a completely different format, and with a significantly larger cost to the end-user.

So, if Renault (and others) are successful with their electric vehicles what’s going to happen to the market for petrol and diesel cars? Who’s going to buy a current model knowing that they’ll be facing something like 100% depreciation in two to five years?

If EVs take off, the market for petrol and diesel vehicles is likely to crash very quickly in the same way that VHS recorders did. This will potentially leave countries with massive fleets of unwanted cars as the populace move to EVs. How will the car manufacturers manage the transition?

I have an old turntable in the loft. Occasionally I drag it out, plug it in and listen to some vinyl LPs. Is this what’s going to happen to the car in its current form? Will some of us have their current (or next) car stashed in their garage, and bring it out for the odd drive, revelling in the past and the memories that go with it? If so, I’ll be swapping the Insignia for a nice V6 Capri. And maybe a classic V8 Range Rover. Best chat to MrsG-T about building that triple garage I guess.

Which car would you choose to keep?