Will you be driving an electric car in 10 years?

There’s all this talk about electric cars, but are they really a viable alternative to fuel-burning cars, especially in South Africa?

Here we give you the facts about electric cars, so you can bust cluelessness and be the best informed at the next shisa nyama.

Why the fuss now?

Last week the UK joined France in its decision to ban the sale of fuel-burning cars from 2040. Though this ban is unlikely be decreed in South Africa any time soon, it does force car-makers to evaluate and adjust their product line-up. This means the development of ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) models will take a back seat to their electric counterparts and this will certainly affect what’s available in our showrooms.

Volvo and Maserati – to name just two – announced last month that soon all their cars will have some form of electric propulsion. This means you won’t be able to buy a new Volvo powered by an ICE only. In other words, all Volvos will either be hybrid or electric.

The Californian all-electric car company Tesla also made headlines days ago when it revealed and handed over to the first examples of its “mass-market” Model 3 to owners in the US a few days ago.

All these factors got people talking electric cars like never before.

Much faster than you might think

One of the enduring myths about electric cars is that they are slow. But to expect similar performance from a Tesla Model S than from an electric golf-cart is to expect a Mercedes-AMG E 63 and a petrol golf cart to have similar acceleration. The Tesla Model S P100D can sprint from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.6 seconds in “Ludicrous Mode”. That’s almost a second faster than the E AMG. The downside is its $140 000 (R1.86m) price tag, but it’s still a relative performance bargain.

Even the modest Tesla Model 3 will complete the 0-100 km/h dash in under 6 seconds. It’s on sale in the US for $35 000 (R463 000) and up, and competes with the BMW 3-Series and other compact luxury sedans.

Will I run out of juice?

This is the facet of electric cars that South Africans are probably most concerned about and rightly so. We cover large distance here. A daily commute of 100 km is nothing out of the ordinary and being stranded can put you in danger, not to mention the inconvenience.

The Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 (the one with battery power only) have a realistic range of just over 110 km, but to buy one new you’ll have to fork out over half a million. These numbers don’t make financial or practical sense yet. You’ll have to drive it for about 3-5 years before the money saved on the low cost of electric propulsion justifies the initial expense.

But these are examples of the first wave of electric cars. The next wave will see a range increase of approximately 75 to 125 km. The next generation will match small petrol cars for range. Also, you can buy a used Leaf in good nick for around R370 000.

Hopefully load-shedding is a thing of the past, now that we know it was a manufactured emergency. So charging your car at home shouldn’t be a concern any longer. It’s also worth remembering that people who travel short distances daily might not even require charging every night. Public charging stations and power outlets at places of work also reduce range anxiety.

Only for the rich?

Cheaper electric cars are coming. In the UK motorists can buy a Renault Zoe, a hatchback similar to the Nissan Leaf, for just £14 254 (R248 000). This excludes leasing the battery at £59 per month. For perspective, a Renault Clio 1.2 Dynamique, with a puny 56 kW engine, sells for £14 945 (R260 000) in 

the UK. This means a UK resident can buy the superior and more advanced Zoe for less than the underpowered Clio. What an owner saves in fuel costs can go towards or fully subsidise the battery lease of £59 per month. Bear in mind that the Zoe is this cheap thanks to the UK government’s subsidy of between £2 500 and £4 500 per plug-in hybrid or electric car. But even if governments do not subsidise electric cars, economies of scale and rapid technological advancement will see a steady decrease in cost.

So will you be driving one?

In ten years there will be a bigger choice of electric cars in Mzanzi and their range per charge could be around 350 km. On average they will be more affordable than the Leaf and BMW i3 too, as production is ramped up across the world.

At this time a full charge from a plug at home takes up to 9 hours, but expect to see advancement from Toyota in the field of solid-state batteries that could be charged in mere seconds.

The most likely adoption of electric cars in SA will be by two-car families, where the man might drive a smaller electric and the woman drives a bigger petrol car. The latter will also be the holiday car for long trips. In the end it will depend on personal circumstances, but if you’re an early adopter, you’ll probably own one.