Bentley no longer expects to sell only electric cars by 2030 – IT Pro – News

More pillars … yes, but where will we get the power? In Belgium there is already a plan to shut down in case of a power shortage. In the Netherlands they already want to turn off charging stations during certain hours.

Improve the electrical network. The grid operator in my region has announced that in the next 10 years, all transformer houses will be upgraded, that a quarter of all streets will be demolished to strengthen power lines, etc. Politics is behind the truth, as always. Things must go wrong first and then after a long discussion they take action. But it is the only way.

Here in Belgium, as an individual you can install 1 charging station, and that’s for 1 phase. A 3-phase connection will cost you a lot of money and you can pay a higher rate for that amount. So like there are 6 people opposite here and they have 6 cars… If everyone goes home empty-handed, one can go to work tomorrow or you have to go to a public station and pay twice what you would pay at home. A company can have a maximum of 4 fast charging stations with a limit of 22 kW, provided that no one in the area already has this. The city is overwhelming here. And I worked part time for a company that helps people keep their ships green. So I’m talking about experience and not just that.

I get that and it’s burying your head in the sand. The grid can’t handle it, so we’ll reduce consumption (unintentionally enabling fuel connections), rather than deal with a bottleneck. But it doesn’t matter if you can drive an electric car or not, it works well for most people, but bad policy seems to make it technically impossible.

So you still have a level of competence here in Belgium. For those who don’t know. Your peak energy consumption will be recorded every 15 minutes. So you pay extra tax for that. You may have drawn a maximum of 3500 watts for the whole month and 7500 watts once, then you will pay for 7500 watts. Oh, so you don’t charge in the evening, because your heat pump is on and your induction oven is on, because you still want to eat hot food. Therefore, you should spread everything throughout the day. Good, but the fire brigade strongly advises against turning on appliances (especially power users) when you are not at home or asleep.

It’s great if you cook on the stove, while you heat your home with a heat pump and turn on the TV. On Tuesday I noticed a huge 6kW peak in my power consumption when I let my induction hob put 3 pans on. So I can only do that once a month in Belgium? How does that affect people? You don’t want to run electricity, I understand that, but cooking with electricity is also a nightmare. 1 burner and oven at the same time is already too much, not to mention the 100W standby consumption in your whole house.

(…) Lack of power, “uncomfortable” to use, low level of driving because it depends on the weather, high cost price, payment stress. Will you convince people to buy an EV?

See why I said elsewhere that I don’t understand the Dutch government that will tax EVs 100% based on car tax from 2026. In the Netherlands we pay based on the weight of the car, which means that an electric car with a heavy battery will soon be more expensive to own than petrol car. If you don’t drive much, that’s a loss.

And then the government here wants you to make your home more energy efficient, which is not a bad thing in itself. But if you have trouble saving something, you can’t make that investment. Cars have also become more expensive in recent years. The 2nd hand market has also become more expensive. And there are many people who keep pretending that everything is “kaat koed” as Di Rupo puts it here, but in reality it is very little. And then we all have to buy a car that is 10-15k more expensive?

You don’t have to do anything. That is the first thing people have to get used to. It’s also not “normal” to drive a brand new car I think electric cars are still too expensive, I don’t have 25-30k left for a 2nd hand EV with a mid range Saab on LPG from a quarter of a century old, but if I replace it, I’ll have to decide between a hybrid ( wa-plug-in) or a slightly older (cheaper) car with a regular petrol engine I’m leaning towards as a temporary solution until 2nd hand EVs give me what I’m looking for.

If people are considering a new one, it will be a petrol because most can’t afford the extra 10-15k. That is the truth. And then we can count ourselves lucky that houses here cost much less than in Holland and we don’t have that extra tax (I think it’s BPM) and a new car.

There is currently no BPM on an electric car in the Netherlands. An additional tax applies if you also want to use a privately rented commercial vehicle and the rate is lower for EVs than for petrol cars (16% vs 25% I believe). But most Dutch people don’t have a company rental car, so they buy a used one for what you say 10-15k and then EV is still a very distant class. But that’s not the problem: our electricity grid is also overloaded, so if everyone used EVs in abundance, we’d have a big problem. Add to this the fact that migration in general produces only a small amount of production compared to agriculture and industry and the question is why all the trends seem to go there.

(…)

The only way to get people in line here is if the EV/Hybrid drops below the price of gasoline.

That step will come naturally. Gasoline is not cheap, 2 euros per liter is already quite normal. I’m lucky enough to live on the border with Germany, so €1.75-1.80 per liter is quite possible. Electricity has of course also increased significantly due to the war in Ukraine, but I expect that the decrease that has already started for a while will continue moderately. Especially if we can store it well, say, 10 years, we will produce electricity in abundance. But it requires investment and foresight from policy makers.

There should be a public survey in Belgium with a simple question: the next car EV, hybrid, gasoline. Then I am sure you will clearly see that no one is looking for an EV/Hybrid. I also know this from the sales statistics of several service providers and rental companies. And no, these are not empty claims. This is just the truth here

But the sad thing is that those people would want an EV, if the infrastructure was there for it and it also made financial sense. The will is there, as is the technology, but because of bad policies it is not a viable option. And I’m not talking about the price of EVs being too high yet, because that’s understandable since there are no 20 year old EVs for people with poor pockets, but 20k EVs vs. a 20k petrol car makes all the difference in the world in terms of what you get in return.