Why I'm going Electric...

Like many others I have been watching the emergence of the Electric Vehicle with some interest, not least due to my obsession with Elon Musk, but up until very recently I had totally dismissed the idea of personal adoption in the short term, instead choosing to watch from afar. My rationale for this dismissal was multi-faceted, I like the sound and drama of an engine, I like the convenience of fuel stations, I like the certainty of well-trodden paths, I don’t like being an early adopter of new tech, and I have a general issue with anything that is totally reliant on battery power. Batteries tend to run out at the most inconvenient moments, they degrade over time, and generally speaking I see them as a hassle I just don't need!

Such was my view that EV for me was some point in the distant future, only three months ago I was negotiating a deal on a new BMW M6, moving away from the comfort of my Range Rover and back to satisfying my petrol-head needs with a performance car. As fate would have it, I wasn’t able to negotiate the deal I wanted and the moment passed, so I decided that I would stick with the Range Rover and reassess at some point in the future. But then I had a dramatic change of heart!

Firstly, my current main client is a strong advocate of promoting a cleaner greener world, and it’s finally registered with me that this is really important. Like many people of my generation, I’ve been slow to truly take this seriously, but I’m now fully on board with it (much to the delight of my children), so this was the primary catalyst of my decision to go electric.

Secondly, I have spoken with a number of friends recently who have adopted EV and every one of them is a total convert and swears they could never go back, I have never known such a consistently positive endorsement of any type of car.

And finally, the tax breaks available when purchasing an EV as a Pool Car or a Company Car mean that electric vehicles can make some financial sense, which I don’t think they necessarily do otherwise because of the higher purchase price relative to traditional combustion engine cars. I will cover the tax breaks and financial aspects of purchasing an EV as a private vehicle, a company car, and a pool car in a future blog, as this could be a key consideration for many company car drivers and companies.

It’s fair to say that I have rushed into this decision and I have a huge amount of apprehension based on the immature infrastructure and my lifestyle which is not (on the surface at least) best suited to running an EV at this point. But sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, and if I’d given this decision due consideration, I know that I would have struggled to make a positive decision. Sometimes things don’t make sense on paper, but you instinctively know it’s the right thing to do, and that absolutely applies in this case.

The fight against climate change is super important and accepting a level of inconvenience seems like a small price to pay for what could make a big difference.