An introduction to Electric Vehicles (EVs) - the coming evolution

There's a change coming and you may or may not be aware of it. It will affect cars, bicycles, motorbikes, buses, coaches, vans, lorries, trains, planes, houses, businesses and everyone who uses them.
It's called 'electrification' and battery technological advances have enabled this to happen. But although this began over 10 years ago in earnest it is only really in the last 5 or so years that people have begun to get some idea of what is to come.

Tesla Model X

Names and phrases such as Prius, Tesla, Solar Panels, Renewable Energy and Green Energy have become accepted and established. However, the vast majority of people are unaware of the size of the change that is taking place and will come to impact upon all of us in one way or another, sooner or later. 

My background is the motor trade. I am, or was a petrol head and for almost 30 years worked first of all in retail and then a further 10 years consulting on contracts for some of the biggest motor manufacturers in the world. I love cars.It's no exaggeration to say that I have driven hundreds if not thousands of cars during that time. Some were awful most were pretty good and a few were exceptional. During those 30 odd years and up until recently I was a sworn petrol head and ICE lover - Internal Combustion Engine. A rumbling V8 or a screaming V12 engine was what I loved and still follow F1 passionately - until...

Fiat 500 e

About a year ago I stumbled across a video on YouTube about a small West Coast American garage who were converting petrol cars into electric cars. They chose not just any old cars to convert. They chose 'classic cars'. That ubiquitous phrase that encompasses a very broad range of old interesting cars. That video got me thinking because the converted vehicles were better in almost every respect. Faster, lighter, more reliable and easier to keep and maintain. The downsides were few but quite significant - they sounded quite different, it was quite expensive to convert them and it took forever to re-charge the batteries. I thought it would never catch on.

Scroll forward a few weeks and I found there was a small garage in Wales producing classic cars converted to electric power. This company, Electric Classic Cars, was converting cars such as old VW Beetles, and Camper vans as well as Porsche 911's and a Ferrari 308. They went like stink! I was totally impressed and it dawned on me watching the various videos they had made that here might be a way to preserve old classic cars. After all, arguably the most expensive part of a classic car to maintain is the engine. All the smelly oily bits. They wear out, they need tuning and servicing and they often need replacing. With electric vehicles (EV's) you get none of this. (more on this later)

Harley Davidson LiveWire

I therefore decided to research the viability of EV's. Luckily with Facebook (FB), Pinterest (P), Instagram (IG) and YouTube (YT) research is pretty easy these days. Oh, and did I mention Podcasts (PC) What became apparent very soon, thanks to YT channels such as the Fully Charged Show created and run by Robert Llewellyn, was how huge, established and expanding the electric car scene was. I had no idea.

Forthcoming posts will attempt to explore and explain some of the mystery and confusion surrounding the imminent transition to electric powered vehicles.