From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
“The moment for electric cars is now,” proclaimed the website of rental start-up Onto.
“Once you get behind the steering wheel and feel what they’re capable of, we know there’s no going back.”
The Warwick-based company matched words with actions, amassing one of Britain’s biggest EV-only fleets with 7,000 cars overall.
Instead of leasing or selling the vehicles, customers were offered “hassle-free subscriptions” that included a car, insurance, maintenance and even charging from £359 a month.
Yet today customers are greeted with another message, explaining that Onto Holdings Limited was placed into administration in September.
According to accounts for the first seven months of 2023, Onto was forced to write down the value of its EV fleet by £21m – more than its total revenues for the same period.
Administrators for Onto blamed the company’s collapse on a “steep fall” in the value of electric cars, rising interest rates and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on drivers’ disposable income. It was unable to secure additional funding from its shareholders as a result, administrators Teneo added.
Onto is far from alone in having suffered these challenges.
Second-hand EV prices plunged across the board last year, as manufacturers including Tesla slashed prices and a wave of ex-lease and rental vehicles flooded the market.
As experts have pointed out, this has long been predicted and it is generally good for consumers, the vast majority of whom only buy used cars.
But the trend has also dealt a blow to others – namely, companies and early adopters who paid higher prices and will now recoup less of their investment.
For the moment, used EV prices are stabilising again as the bargains available stoke strong demand, says Marc Palmer, head of insights at Auto Trader.
But with competition in the new car market intensifying, there are fears Chinese brands will seek to undercut their European rivals by slashing prices further – causing further ructions for second-hand sellers.
“That is the big question – ‘will the Chinese come in more cheaply?’”, says Palmer.
“We think they could, because they sell their cars more cheaply in China than they do in Europe. So they’ve got the ability to start more aggressive pricing.
“And if new cars become more affordable, then prices of used cars will probably need to come down a bit to make sure they still provide value for consumers.”
That could make more grim reading for existing EV owners, who have already been clobbered in the past year.
Based on figures for December, Auto Trader found that an EV costing £50,000 is currently expected to lose about £24,000 of its value after just three years on the road, significantly more than the typical £17,000 reduction seen with petrol cars.
Some of the worst-hit cars include the Renault ZOE, which has shed 56pc of its value on average and now sells for £7,700, according to separate data from Motorway.co.uk. Meanwhile, the Volkswagen ID3 fell by 41pc and the Nissan Leaf lost 40pc.
Much of the turmoil last year was a result of large numbers of cars being offloaded at the same time by fleet owners such car rental firms and leasing companies. These businesses often bulk-buy vehicles at a discount, hold them for up to two years and then make a profit by selling them on.
Previously supply chain problems had kept the EV market relatively tight, helping to keep prices high. But last year the influx of supply from fleet sellers was not matched by demand, sending prices plummeting at “unsustainable” levels, Auto Trader found.
This is what fatally wounded Onto, which blamed its massive impairment on “the market downturn in the residual value of EVs”.
Eventually, lower prices triggered record demand for used EVs as drivers scrambled to snap up huge bargains. For the full year, used EV car sales rocketed 91pc higher to 118,973, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
However, with more than 800,000 EVs registered between 2020 and 2023, Auto Trader has warned that the rollercoaster for prices may not yet be over.
Some of this volatility is also down to other factors as well, such as the small (but growing) size of the used EV market. According to the SMMT, EV sales only represent 1.6pc of the used car total.
But Alex Buttle, co-founder of Motorway, says second-hand values are being dented by adjacent issues as well, such as sky-high insurance premiums and the Government’s decision to delay a ban on the sale of new petrol cars from 2030 to 2035.
“If the demand isn’t there, prices naturally come down,” he adds.
Richard Peberdy, UK head of automotive at KPMG, says the resulting hit to prices has presented upsides for consumers but is harder to swallow for manufacturers and dealers. He adds this presents “a significant challenge when it comes to reassuring consumers about the onward value of new EVs”.
This seems to be another desperate attempt by the motoring press to puff up the EV industry, while glossing over the problems.
Mr Peberdy does not appear to understand the laws of supply and demand! “Presents upsides”? The reason why second hand prices are so low is that there is very little demand for them. So why is this an upside for a buyer for whom an EV offers so little value?
And the market is going to get worse, much worse. Note these statements in the article:
- used EV car sales rocketed 91pc higher to 118,973
- more than 800,000 EVs registered between 2020 and 2023
- EV sales only represent 1.6pc of the used car total.
Then add in the fact that EV registrations totalled 267,000 in 2022 and 314,000 last year. So this year we may well see more than 200,000 coming on to the second hand market, and more still next year.
There is no reason why demand for second hand EVs will increase from last year’s level, and if it does not prices really will collapse.
While this may benefit buyers, it will be absolutely disastrous for those who have bought new, not to mention fleet and leasing companies. As the article suggests, many may be forced to keep their EVs much longer than they had planned, as they simply won’t be able to afford to buy new again.
There is one further thought. Second hand buyers tend to be less well off; as such they often won’t have off street parking. So what use is an EV to them, however low the price?
“Mr Peberdy does not appear to understand the laws of supply and demand! “Presents upsides”? The reason why second hand prices are so low is that there is very little demand for them.”
The reason why they are so low is that the prices of new cars has come down. It isn’t a lack of demand for EVs, it is a natural preference for new ones. From the article
“And if new cars become more affordable, then prices of used cars will probably need to come down a bit to make sure they still provide value for consumers.”
Very little demand? From the article
“used EV car sales rocketed 91pc higher to 118,973”
And from Paul
“Then add in the fact that EV registrations totalled 267,000 in 2022 and 314,000 last year.”
Yes, add that in. EVs aren’t doing badly.
According to statista
https://www.statista.com/statistics/200002/international-car-sales-since-1990/
Global sales of ICE vehicles was…
2020 – 63.8M
2021 – 66.7M
2022 – 67.2M
2023 – 70.8M
Total – 268.5M just a wee bit more than the poultry 800,000 EVs over the same time period
Even just US…
2020 – 14.57M
2021 – 15.06M
2022 – 13.75M
2023 – 15.5M
Total – 57.88M still dwarfs the dismal EV sales of 800,000 in the same time span
Mid December the total EV sales increase was 61% if they skyrocketed up to 91%
WOW that’s a market share increase of 3% instead of 2.2%. Certainly NOT worth tooting a horn over though
Prices of second-hand ICE cars are currently very strong, at least in the UK, unlike those of EV’s.
There are very few things in this world which are certain, but Nick Stokes always being wrong is one of them.
Nick is like a lot of climate advocates, he has bought the whole Party Line. Lots of the elements are independent. You can for instance perfectly consistently believe there is a climate crisis but also not think wind and solar can deliver electricity for an industrial society. But you will rarely find any advocate who dissents from any element of the package.
The key elements of the package appear to be:
— a developing climate crisis, emergency, whatever
— wind and solar for electricity
— EVs and heat pumps for transport and heating
— Net Zero for the West but a free ride for others
— the Hockey Stick
— increasing bad weather caused by global warming
Its like you would never find a loyal Party member who would say that actually he was not sure about Bukharin’s guilt…
Thanks for this Michel.
This situation of climate scientists not sticking to their lane has perplexed me from the outset.
It’s for electrical, fuels and other energy generation & distribution engineers to come up with “best practise” solutions in these disciplines.
IIRC, it was the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that first glommed on to the global warming > climate change opportunity.
So that’s the lane all today’s legions of “climate scientists” and bureaucrats started in, but in a very short time thereafter, they promoted themselves into being electrical grids experts, nuclear fission & fusion experts, chemistry experts, automotive experts, HVAC experts, geologists, biologists, flood mitigation experts, forestry management experts, and most recently –
PTSD psychology experts.
(oh, did I mention diseases pandemics causes and controls?)
“268.5M just a wee bit more than the poultry 800,000 EVs over the same time period”
You are comparing global ICE with UK EVs.
The UK, has about 32M ICEs.
Ok UK then (A country facing EV mandates)
2020 – 1.63M
2021 – 800K
2022 – 1.61M
2023 – 1.9M
Total – 5.94M vs the 800,000 still dismal 13% of total sales over 4 years
“800,000 EVs” all queueing to recharge. 😒
All being mandated to be plugged in overnight to back-up the grid
The problem is, EVs and ICE cars are not the same product, but the climate activists pretend they are. They do not meet the same need. They cost more to start with, up to twice as much. They cost, at least in the UK, as much to refuel at public charge points as ICE cars. Often more. Then their range is lower. Then their time to refuel is between 5 and 10 times as long. This makes the longer refuel time worse. Then they cost more to insure. And if in a slight accident are a write-off. And are now becoming restricted in where they can park.
An older couple living in the country with a driveway, and whose main use is for days out, to the supermarket, to the nearby market town every so often, they probably work fine. Never more than 100 miles a day, and overnight charging is not a problem. On very cold days they just stay in, so heating and range are not an issue. If they can get a decent used one with a battery not impaired by fast charging and at a reasonable price, you can see that makes sense.
Anyone using their car for work, or long commutes, or any freeway driving, forget it. Then you have to really pay through the nose for added range, and if you live in a city you have to rely on public chargers. It makes no sense.
If Western governments succeed in making EVs universal the collateral consequences for economy and society will be huge – though they have not so far been quantified by any of the advocates. People will travel less, car ownership and use will fall. It will be back to the early 1950s in the UK, when car ownership was a real luxury. The consequences will ripple through the whole economy. CO2 emissions and climate will not be affected in the least, however.
I don’t think the fall in prices in the UK is due to the fall in new prices. It seems to be people just don’t want them. And I suspect many will still just not want them when they are the only alternative.
Yes, in the 50s, it was shank’s pony, or the bus. With an occasional excursion to the countryside, taking hours to get there, hours to get back, with just a few moments at your destination.
The real question is, suppose we do restrict available cars to those which are only really suitable for a rural runabout, how big is the market for such a product, at current prices?
I suspect rather small. You can get most things delivered now, you can readily get taxis in most rural locations. Is a local runabout really a cost effective purchase?
I suspect the answer is not much. But we are going to find out.
I live in the UK, and have a motorhome. Every year we go away, and stay on sites in ‘rural’ locations. Alas, taxis don’t operate where demand is very small.
Taxis are difficult to camp in too.
There’s also the consideration of replacing all ICE cars with EV equivalent. Current UK registrations have 41.8M vehicle registrations of which 800K are EV. This means that 41M Non EVs need to be replaced.
If ALL the copper being mined went purely to EV motors and wiring And associated charging infrastructure it would take more than 50 years to replace every ICE vehicle (Car Bus Truck Semi) with EV equivalent (to do so in 10 years would require a 10fold increase in global copper production), and this allows for no other nation to do likewise.
Then there is the issue with … Where will ALL that Lithium come from to make the required 1/2 tonne battery packs for cars, 1.5 tonne battery packs for busses or the 5 – 7 tonne battery packs for Semis? And all just for the UK!
UK new car sales vary but seem to be roughly 2 million a year on average.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-records-best-year-new-car-sales-since-pandemic-smmt-2024-01-05/
When the Labour Party get in, probably in November, they plan on reinstating the total ban on pure ICE cars starting 2030.
So the first question is what new car sales will look like, when the only car you can legally buy new is EV. Before Sunak lowered the restrictions it was previously going to be possible to buy a hybrid until 2035. Labour being even more idiotically green than the Conservatives may introduce a flat ban of all ICE cars including hybrids from 2030.
Its quite likely that new car sales will fall off a cliff whenever the absolute ban takes effect.
Thing is, you can stop people buying the cars they want, but you cannot force them to buy the ones they don’t want or cannot afford.
The second question is how long its going to take to convert all the current installed base to pure electrics. If its 42 million, and we are replacing them at the rate of 2 million a year, or maybe quite a bit less… well, its going to take quite a while before that makes much contribution to saving the planet! And a modern gasoline car will last 20 years at least. So no-one is going to have to buy a shiny new EV.
You can easily imagine new car sales falling in half. Or even more.
“Likely that new car sales will fall off a cliff”, a double whammy, because, as of this year, if manufacturers don’t meet their EV sales target, they get fined £14,000/car. So, for every car they don’t sell, they’ll need to recoup that fine, from the sale of a new ICE car. And of course, nobody, will buy an inflated costly ICE vehicle.
Another thing, EVs go through tires at a fast rate, in some cases 5 times or more faster than conventional vehicles.
Yep, every 15-20,000 miles 4 – 80,000 mile tires are used up and need replacing
And that’s the synthetic rubber made from Oil not natural latex which doesn’t last but about 5,000 miles in an EV
Nick,
What do you mean by “the prices of new cars has come down”?
Surely, if the price of new electric cars has come down, would that not help to increase EV sales?
Geoff S
I rarely agree with Nick, but calling him Shirley wasn’t very nice.
(sorry couldn’t resist)
Have you bought your own battery car yet, Stokes?
Nick is out in central Victoria somewhere. A bit south of Wangaratta.
He may have a small EV for local shopping… ie the equivalent of a golf cart….
… but if he wants to go anywhere it will be by a large petrol or diesel SUV, work ute or similar.
Unless he uses a big V8, and many country boys do.
Ah. Nick is now an expert on the second-hand car market as well. He’s quite a polymath isn’t he?
Polymath or pollymouth? He seems to Parrott the narrative quite well.
In Nick’s defense, a good internet search can give anyone almost the same data the experts use.
Just reading the article is often sufficient.
Why are you impressed with a large percentage increase (91%) of a small number of sales? 60K to 120K is not a big deal.
That reminds me of a placard, that I saw on a news item, about people protesting over their low wages.
It said “10% of nothing, is still nothing, we want 20%”
The headline here describes that 91% increase as “a crashing second-hand market
“.
Depreciation of second hand EV’S is DISASTROUS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfrwsQHjym0
Why do you get everything wrong, Stokes? Are you lying or simply too lazy and opinionated to inform yourself?
Nick, I think you’re going to have to take an L on EVs, at least. The market is collapsing despite subsidy on top of subsidy.
Their value used depends a lot on the state of the battery. For many of us, whether we share your religious faith that OMG, the world is on FIRE or not, we wouldn’t buy an EV used even if it cost $1.
Nick’s one intellectual skill is his ability to skim an article to find something, anything, no matter how irrelevant, that can be spun to support the position he has taken.
Used ICE vehicle prices have a long tail, ie, as the years go by the price drops ever more slowly. That’s because many old ICE vehicles can be kept going economically. But with old EVs, I suspect that the price will fall off a cliif because the value of the car is so closely tied to the life left in the very expensive battery.
We have been taxed and bullied into EVs long before the technology is ready. Technology may yet save them, but in the meantime schadenfreude is perfect – be happy to see the industry go down in flames (almost literally!) it’s what rent-seekers deserve.
In Cuba, they are still driving ICE cars from 50 years ago and they do just fine with them.
That certainly sounds very similar to a fraud case in New York that I’ve been reading about recently.
Pushing a technology before it’s time . This is not an ecologically sustainable vehicle. The pollution is eliminated, it’s just moved to a different place. Mining the materials to build batteries causes as much or more pollution than an internal combustion engine.
Also, the stuff that produces the electricity is not all pollution free.
Did a quick search of this company on the corporate filings on a UK government website and from their October 2023 financial statement, it appears they are in debt about 2 billion pounds if I’m reading it correctly.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10479888/filing-history
EV’s are a poor investment considering this and Ford’s losses for 2023.
Losing 50 percent of value in three years is an issue, but for buyers like me who like to buy 3-year lease trade-ins and drive them for 3 years, BEV isn’t an option. A $48,000 car depreciating $8,000 per year the first three years to ($24K), and $6,000 per year for the 2nd three years to ($6K) and $2,000 per year during the 3rd three years to ($0k), is pricy. $0K because people buying 9-year-old cars don’t have garages and/or don’t want a car that may come up with a dead $15,000 battery in a couple years.
New BEV’s are for the top 10% earners, 3-year-old BEV’s for the next 15%, and an even worse investment for everyone else. The fad is fading. Give it up. Gasoline at $4/gal, makes the cost, complexity, and weight of a hybrid economical, but BEV’s are like ethanol, wind, solar, and grid scale battery storage, “less than wise” (to honor Quora’s request for politeness).
If you told me the battery in your car was 9 years old I wouldn’t touch it – I’d figure it had been clinging to life by its fingernails for the last year or so. Honestly the battery life is far lower than advertised – you don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Tesla extended warranty (out to 8 years) doesn’t cover the battery?
I was idly perusing Skoda’s site, this week, and noted their disclaimer about their EVs. Their batteries had an 8 year, 100,000 miles warranty.
This was also part of their disclaimer.
“used vehicles with older batteries, will not reflect used vehicle performance in the real world”
I wonder how long it will be before we see class actions, like there has been over emissions etc?
I’d be interested in seeing some of the small print in the Skoda warranty – I’d be willing to bet that there are conditions (like fast charging) which invalidates that warranty.
Everything has been swept under the carpet in order for governments to be able to tout them as such a great idea – when the cheap glitter wears off and those governments are forced to back-track then we’ll see the legal cases for false advertising, etc starting!
Same in Oz if you paid $66000 AUD plus on road costs in 2019 for the first Standard Tesla M3 and now with 80,000kms on the clock you’re battling to get high $20k tradein for it-
2019 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus Auto (redbook.com.au)
The dealers aren’t enthusiastic to trade them in as slow sellers when there’s 500 used ones for sale by hopeful private sellers marking them down each month as they sit for months on Carsales-
Used, Demo and Near New Tesla Model 3 cars for sale in Australia – carsales.com.au
Now let’s suppose you managed to buy a l kitted 2019 Toyota RAV4 hybrid with AWD for $47.5k +ORC in 2019 you’d have no trouble getting it detailed and private selling for $38k-
2019 Toyota RAV4 Edge Auto AWD (redbook.com.au)
You think the word hasn’t got around and why they’re queuing up for Toyota hybrids?
Without government pressure for EVs as in the U.S. Toyota was able to sit back and make a clear-headed decision to go with hybrids rather than EVs.
“These businesses often bulk-buy vehicles at a discount, hold them for up to two years and then make a profit by selling them on.”
How does that work? A two year old car loses 25% of it’s value?
what is the price of a new car as it comes off the end of the production line?
If they follow the norm of most businesses, dealerships will buy a price $x and sell at price $2x
It gets ever more muddled as if the cars are ‘for business purposes’, they won’t be attracting all the ‘retail’ taxes that normal punters will paying, classically in the UK the dreaded ‘Value Added Tax’ at 20%
Plus the rental firms and big buyers will not be operating in the spot market as normal punters are: They will ask the manufacturer for ‘Y thousands’ of vehicles to be delivered in Z months/years time so the manufacturer can build the cars during off peak times and also. fish for big discounts from their suppliers.
(It’s where the supply of Russian Gas completely went wrong in Europe, if Europe had committed to fixed-price long-term deals (instead the Spot Market) there would *never* have been any problem)
e.g. Retail price £50,000
Nice work innit….
something is dreadfully wrong with EVs if, even with that amount of money splashing around, the big financial brains who’ve operated that system for decades still cannot get the feckless crates to work…
Even Mannian Mathematics would struggle to make a hokey kokey pokey stik out of that, let alone any money
They’re car rental businesses. For those 2 years the cars are being rented out, making a certain amount of profit – that profit and the resale value should exceed the original purchase value. If it doesn’t then you’re operating at a loss and have big problems.
That 25% loss in value is from the standard retail price. As was mentioned in your quote, because they buy in bulk and on a fixed schedule, they are able to negotiate substantial reductions from the retail price.
When they sell, they sell into the same used car market that the rest of us are dealing with.
In fact why wouldn’t you put your hand up for market desirable ICE cars and hybrids right now before they go up in Oz?
Warning Aussies face paying up to an extra $13,000 for popular car models under Albanese government plan (msn.com)
Even if you were thinking about a new Tesla now you may as well wait until the ICE have to haves cross subsidize your purchase with the new Regs from Mr Sneaky and Co.
How many times does socialism have to fail?
Every time!
Such is the nature of the beast.
China is doing great with socialism after the US moved its factories there.
Slave labor and very few environmental and worker safety regulations does tend to make one a cheap place to operate.
Electric cars that work and are fun?
https://uk.scalextric.com/
Or a milk float
Looking at the used market for, say, Nissan Leafs here in Hants UK there are some weird deals down among the ten year olds – single figure thousands £ but no discussion of remaining battery life? Approaching the point where the actual car is worth zero with new battery cost .
Looking at America, it appears that Ford, GM & Stellantis, have seen the light, and are either cutting back seriously on production, or stopping all together.
So why aren’t the European makers doing the same?
Are they just meekly accepting, being bullied into producing unwanted vehicles? All for the sake of demon CO2?
The US auto manufacturers, less Tesla, are betting on TRUMP! winning in November.
We shall see.
🤞
Nikki Haley would be a much better choice as the GOP candidate.
Trump has been convicted by a jury of forcibly sexually assaulting a woman stranger in a dressing room by putting his finger where it should be and other vile acts and ordered to pay $US 5 million in damages plus $US 83 million for defaming her.
Judge orders Trump to pay $355 million for lying about his wealth and prohibits his companies from doing business in New York.
Trump is also facing 91 felony counts in 4 criminal cases.
Sure, multiple orgasms! 🙂
What that means is once you get somewhere and your battery runs out, there is no going back to where you started from.
Ah, the inscrutable point of no return 😊
What EV slowdown? Electric transition still booming in Massachusetts.Almost 64,000 battery-powered vehicles on the roads.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/16/business/ev-transition-massachusetts/
Wow, 1.3% of passenger vehicles!
Of course almost no trucks, tractors, trains, planes. The state will need to do so much more to save the planet!
Sustainability and green seem to be at odds with each other. “Single use cars” arent going to make the cut.
This seems to be another desperate attempt by the motoring press to puff up the EV industry, while glossing over the problems.
How could it be otherwise? The advertisers in the motoring press are in the automobile business, just as the advertising in cycling periodicals is dominated by bicycle manufacturers. Seldom see a discouraging word about any particular bike in a cycling magazine.
“Fluctuating demand is creating a heightened degree of uncertainty for buyers and sellers”
A very nuanced way of saying demand is plummeting because buyers are certain they want value for money while sellers are uncertain how to provide that with EV’s.
Not being familiar with the Renault ZOE referred to, out of curiosity I looked them up on auto trader to find the following – a 2022 model with only 21K miles asking just under £12K. On same page at bottom are listed some new ZOEs on sale for £27-28K, talk about depreciation, unbelievable!
If only there was a field of study dedicated to predicting this inevitable outcome.
In the US, the bulk of EV sales are in California and other left-leaning areas of the country. Sales depend heavily upon subsidies and most EV owners also have an ICE vehicle in the household they can use when needed.
What’s the situation like in the UK?
“…most EV owners also have an ICE vehicle in the household they can use when needed.”
“In the US”, so do most ICE owners (58% of households). EV’s make the best:
Second cars.Vehicles best for most of the day to day trips that comprise most of your car time and much of your car mileage.Now that we have our Bolt EUV, our diesel Colorado can be used for what it does best. Pulling our 21′ bed hitch RV trailer on extended camping trips and to summer in California, for 200+ mile trips, and for trips requiring heavy/bulky loads.
For most of our driving, the Bolt drives better (i.e. great), parks better, is more comfortable. Using non peak pricing, we pay ~$0.05/mile – a little over 1/4th of what we used to pay for the most economic diesel pickup on the market. I actually enjoy doing most of my own Colorado maintenance. In fact, I enjoy it almost as much as I enjoy the fact that Bolt EUV maintenance is essentially a non issue.
But for me, the best feature is that I probably won’t ever have to buy another vehicle. My average keep is for ~15 years, with a standard deviation of ~5 years. But if my Colorado went tits up, the new ones have bloated and I wouldn’t be able to functionally replace it with any other make of new, in the US. Our Bolt greatly reduces our chance of getting into that particular jackpot.
EVs make the best…
Door Stops
Garage Warmers
Golf Carts
Waste of $$$$$
Population Reduction Devices
Repair bill profits
Subsidy Mines
EVs make the worst…
Long distance travel option
Time savings refueling
Air travel option
Ocean Shipping option
Land Shipping option
Towing option
Cold weather vehicles
Once again the simple solution is to get the government out of the EV business. Remove the government and the EV market will suffer an immediate death.
Ban ICE vehicles and soon it will look like Cuba.
I’ll wager that executives at startup ONTO enjoyed substatial wages, bonuses and perks whilst the free money flowed in.
In Australia, the primary driver for ev’s is substantial goverment tax breaks and no stamp duty on ‘commercial’ sales … that is a BIG incentive.