Are you ready for an electric car? From banning hybrids, to range anxiety, Tesla’s boom, and how to drive one at 40% off, This is Money’s podcast special
Would you swap your car for an electric one? If the government gets its way, soon many more of us will have to.
The proposed ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars was dragged forward by five years to 2035 this week – and hybrid cars were bundled into the showroom clear-out too.
If that sticks, this means that by 2030 – just a decade from now – it’s highly likely the vast majority of cars being sold new will be pure electric.
For a modern world that has been shaped by the internal combustion-engined motor car that’s quite the change.
On this week’s podcast, we have something of an electric car special. Simon Lambert, Georgie Frost and Lee Boyce look at the logic behind banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars, whether the move can be pulled off and why hybrids are now also on the naughty list.
Charging infrastructure, range anxiety and questions over their lifecycle environmental costs are issues flagged by electric car sceptics, are they right?
Meanwhile, the thing holding many people back from buying them, argues Simon, is cost. Second hand supply of electric cars is thin and choice is limited; and while the pipeline of new models is picking up dramatically, they remain pricey compared to a standard petrol car.
But there could be a game-changer in the form of a salary sacrifice perk combined with a change to benefit-in-kind rules, so should you be badgering your boss to sign the company up so that you can buy a new electric car at 32 per cent or 42 per cent off?
Fittingly, this week the great Tesla adventure tale delivered another riveting chapter. In the first two days of the week, shares rocketed more than 35 per cent and have doubled since the start of 2020.
Can Elon Musk’s stock heading for the moon and Tesla now being worth $132billion be justified in any way?
Tesla’s Model 3 is one of the benchmark electric cars but is Elon Musk’s firm’s rocketing share price really justified
Also, on this week’s show we talk about the 5 per cent interest offered by Zeuk – and our exclusive on the Financial Conduct Authority hitting back at adverts.
And finally, why did Lee Boyce take his wife and daughter out to lunch with a set of scales to eat a watermelon steak?
It’s all about his new Consumer Trends column, in which some Veganuary specials at TGI Fridays and Wagamama were put to the test.