How long before business fleets have BEVs from mainstream manufacturers

la ultima guagua

There is a thread running on 'How long before we see 400km cars from mainstream manufacturers? ' which has got bogged down in toilet breaks, kids 'n stuff and has failed to address the main issue. Which is :

When will BEVs have enough range to be included in business fleets ?

As some of you may recall, 'Time is money'

While the self employed fanatic might, Business in general wont, tolerate employees hanging around public charge points.

Be it Sales or Field Service the cars need to be able to get through a day without charging

400kM must be at the very low end of what is required

When / how will this happen ?

Perhaps it will need some technological breakthrough ?

For example :

Heat pumps produce 3 - 5 times the amount of (heat) energy than they consume in electrical energy.

Perhaps there is some way to cheat the laws of thermodynamics and scavenge motive power from the atmosphere ?

KCross

Thats likely to happen relatively quickly because those type of cars tend to be the higher end price wise anyway (>€40k) so they are to some degree already available.

- Rumours of a BMW 3-Series BEV being announced at one of the upcoming motor shows
- Jaguar iPace
- Long range Tesla Model 3
- A whole host of other manufacturers have declared similar plans but that don't count for much.

In the meantime, Hybrid and Plugin Hybrid is where it will be at for business fleets at the lower end of the price bracket.
i.e. Don't expect to see a 400km affordable BEV Passat in the next 3yrs.

unkel

Rumours of zero BIK in the budget for company cars. The likes of Teslas will take off just like they did in the Netherlands a good few years ago. Model S (as a company car) worked out cheaper for both employer and employee than a BMW 5-series or Mercedes E-class. Once people realised that, the Teslas started selling like hotcakes.

Drive on any motorway in the Netherlands and you will see a Tesla every couple of minutes...

la ultima guagua

Well Unkel, I can just imagine how delighted SIMI would be at That :P

IIRC business can claim ACA on a lot of Eco stuff. Do you know what the present business accounting/taxation situation is on BEV cars ?

Casati

Zero BIK would basically be another massive subsidy, surely electric cars have a future even if the grants disappear and the free public charging comes with a charge?

unkel

Of course. But at the moment only 0.1% of cars in Ireland are EV and the government is paying massive emissions penalties to the EU. We need less diesels and more EVs, very quickly. And the only thing to do that is using massive carrots (and also massive sticks imho)

Shefwedfan

In the last few months Leaseplan have started to advertise the Zoe as an option for business customers. Before this Leaseplan did not have electric as an option. If Leaseplan start then the rest will follow

cros13

The CEO of merrion fleet has a Model S P90DL.

Really we're waiting on the BIK and for rules and schemes like the Diesel Rebate Scheme tilting things in favor of diesel to be removed.

It needs to be said that more of these higher priced EVs on the roads makes all EVs more attractive and brings things like charging infrastructure up government agendas.

The first thing on the list when ESB announced the charging fees was to get the Model S owners on the case... three of them were in meetings with government ministers the very next day.
Don't underestimate the effect that had on the CER pulling the rug from under ESB so quickly.

BoatMad

Really we're waiting on the BIK and for rules and schemes like the Diesel Rebate Scheme tilting things in favor of diesel to be removed.

hopefully the LEV taskforce recommendations to the Minister for Finance will provide for BIK relief this budget, but the fiscal space is very limited this year . so well see. ( its estimated to cost anywhere from 20 - 50 million depending on uptake )