Joepie. According to a survey of 1,700 motorists by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and the Electric Driving Association (VER), 93% of plug drivers want to continue driving electrically. Curious what is left of that happiness after the first Siberian winter week in years. Either way the enthusiasm shows when reading it National EV and driver survey a little less unconditional than the glowing loyalty figures suggest.
Nice research by the way. It nicely marks the line between benefit hunters and idealists. You can read, for example, that a majority of business EV drivers vote VVD, while private drivers tend towards GroenLinks and D66. That financial opportunism of the liberal pool is immediately the potential Achilles heel of the success story. The most frequently mentioned reason for purchase is the cost advantage before ‘the environment’. For 18% of the respondents, a higher addition is a reason to stop using electric vehicles. A lot.
I also have my questions about the representativeness of the respondents. No less than 91% are men, incomes are two to three times the average average, people in their fifties are the most strongly represented. That is not a cross section of the Dutch population. In the first place, they will be people with a slightly more regulated existence than the twenties with a wild nightlife and an erratic mobility pattern at inconsequential hours. Charging at home will not be a matter of course for this group either, while 74% of the respondents in the RVO survey indicate that they have their own driveway. Secondly, I miss the opinion of the woman who has to load up in the pouring rain at one of god and everyone’s abandoned Fastned location at 11 p.m.
The 93% figure can therefore be considered a few things, especially if you look at the answers to this question: ‘Which aspects of your electric car turned out to be a lot after purchase? more negative than you expected beforehand? ‘ No less than 46% mention the range, 42% the ‘possibility to go on holiday’, 36% the purchase costs, 35% ‘availability of charging stations’ and 17% the ‘charging yourself’. It is precisely the factors that can quickly and thoroughly undermine a positive attitude.
The respondents’ first-class tools are also biased. The majority will be driven by Tesla Model 3, followed by the Nissan Leaf and the Kia e-Niro. The Teslas will positively influence the final picture with their long range and effective supercharger network. In the survey, it is black and white: the greater the reach, the greater the satisfaction.
I am not saying that the opinion about electric driving is a time bomb, but that the perception of the plug-in car could still turn sharply. As the survey indicates, most respondents have only been driving electric since 2019 and 2020. They are starters with the uninhibited optimism of beginners. And all are very satisfied with the addition or that four grand purchase subsidy, of course. In the meantime, the trade has to work suspiciously hard to convince Jan public. The way I see dealers and importers from VW to Peugeot stunting in the 12% era with bonuses and temporarily reduced private lease rates suggests that reality is a little less rosy than the power paradise of the research statistics.
This is no race, no matter how you hear everyone rattling about the advance of the plug car. And then the average middle class still has to get in, or else the entrepreneur with his van. This weekend, the editor-in-chief of de Volkskrant jumped on my old hobbyhorse that low incomes always pay the highest price for the energy transition. About the plan of thirty cities to close their doors to combustion engine freight transport in four years, he writes: “Many parcel deliverers who have to be in the city every day are being squeezed out. They drive around in cheap vans and barely have time to go to the bathroom. Clients give them little room to invest. To encourage them to switch to electric, a compensation of up to five thousand euros is available. That will not be enough for everyone. ” To which I add; if that is the case, they will always have to find a free fast-charging station in the city, as long as parcel deliverers spied by Big Brother have the time to do so. What if you can only top up your bus full of crucial items three hundred meters from your job site? These days, plumbers all over the country are driving from here to here to repair burst pipes and roof leaks. Try that with an e-bus that can last less than 200 kilometers in winter.
Do not let government and politics focus solely on that 93%. Look at the 7% who no longer feel like it and at the group for whom electric driving is not yet an option. You have no use for applause. You learn from the bastards.