> Happy to drive an EV but the price points need to come waaaay down.
Not much chance of that, for a few reasons.
1. Not until we nationalise, or at least drastically rationalise the electricity markets... Currently, the way the electricity market works in the UK is utterly broken by free-market-capitalism gone-mad. There are about 15 different "markets" in the system, all designed as sticking-plasters to try to solve particular issues, because economists can only solve problems by inventing a new market, it seems.
2. Not until the price of electricity is decoupled from the price of gas... In the main "day ahead" and "half hour" markets, there is an auction system whereby electricity generators bid for a price per MWh, and they are asked by National Grid to spin up and start generating in the order of the price they bid, but everyone receives the same price as the most expensive generator that was needed per day / per half-hour. That's why the price of electricity is so inextricably linked to the price of gas. But the wind-farm operators don't want to change it, because they are making a bloody killing this way.
3. Not until we build more transmission capacity. Currently the 400kV transmission system is bottlenecked in a few places, such as the Scottish border. This means that even if there is a surplus of Wind power, we still have to switch on expensive CCGTs, OCGTs or Interconnector links to keep the lights on in London and the South East. That means expensive bills for us and trebles all round for the generators.
4. Not until we build more distribution capacity. The various substations and low-voltage cables that bring electricity to homes and businesses are the most inefficient part of the system, due to their low voltage (and associated I^2R losses), and are currently stretched to breaking point. The cable under your street typically carries 240V 400A, or 415V (3 phase 240V) 800A if you're lucky. An EV charger needs to charge at the very least at 10A (2kW, so 24h to reach 50kWh charge), but 40A if you want a 6 hour "fast-ish" charge. If everyone on the street had an EV, that 400A cable would be starting to overheat very quickly, especially if people are running heat pumps, showers, fan heaters, electric cookers etc. as well. One way to solve this would be to have US-style 11kV-230V transformers on every other telegraph pole, but that would probably be considered unsightly by the good townsfolk of Royal Tunbridge Wells, and so they will simply get into their spare petrol Porsche SUVs instead when the lights go off.
Oh yeah, and it also turns out that Lithium and Cobalt for Batteries, Copper for motors and busbars, and Neodymium for magnets, are all finite resources, so the price per EV doesn't have the same economy of scale as the economists thought it would. If anything, the more EVs there are, the more expensive they will get. Oops.
