Quentin Willson says poor EV sales due to “myths and misinformation”

Written by Ben Pile on June 7, 2024. Posted in Current News

According to former motoring journalist, now Net Zero lobbyist Quentin Willson, slow consumer take-up of EVs is due to “myths and misinformation”

Concerns about fires, battery degradation, range, charging and servicing costs are all groundless, the former Top Gear host claims, or easily fixable by policy.

“By 2035, if we enact the right policies and the right information for consumers, it will be achievable,” he claimed, alluding to the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars by that year.

His comments – evidence given to a recent Select Committee on Transport session – appear to be driven by ‘green’ ideology and funding from the usual Green Blob suspects.

The session aimed to hear from witnesses speaking about the “health of the EV market”, and the postponment of the ban on petrol and diesel (Internal Combustion Engine or ICE) cars from 2030 to 2035 – known as the ‘ZEV mandate’ (Zero Emission Vehicle).

The Committee heard from a handful of industry representatives and journalists, whose mostly anti-ICE, pro-EV claims largely consisted of over-confident statements about EV performance, and whinges about there being insufficient “support” for the sector and EV owners by way of “incentives” and charging infrastructure.

It is tragic to see representatives of automotive industries apparently completely comfortable with the idea of markets for new products being created by government diktat and subsidy regimes, not the merits of those products. (You can watch the entire session here.)

But it is the comments of journalist-turned-campaigner Willson that epitomise the ocean of nonsense surrounding this policy agenda. The Government has committed to abolishing ICE cars, and the law requires manufacturers and retailers to increase the number of of EVs they sell as a percentage of total sales and reduce the percentage of ICE vehicles.

According to the ZEV mandate’s targets, by just 2028, 52 percent of new cars will have to be EVs, rising to 80 percent by 2030, before their complete prohibition in 2035.

But people just aren’t buying them.

As with most climate/Net Zero policies, public buy-in to Westminster’s radical environmentalism turns out to be an afterthought. The wheeling out of a tired motoring celeb, long since eclipsed by former co-host Jeremy Clarkson, to try to counter the looming crisis, represents the political Establishment’s and the Blob’s increasing desperation.

According to Willson:

“Misinformation is really putting people off… They read this torrent of stuff from Right-wing and vested interests… All we hear are the voices from the anti-EV narrative… we don’t hear from the million-plus people who are driving these cars every day about their experiences.”

EV fires account for far fewer car fires than ICE cars, he claims. And battery performance on older cars is far better than expected – battery degradation isn’t as bad as feared.

“As a Government, you need to do something about this,” he told MPs. (Ban the Daily Sceptic?) “Misinformation is destabilising consumer demand, is destabilising industrial policy and is destabilising the industry.”

Though he may have a point that some fears have been exaggerated, EV car fires are noteworthy because they are uncontrollable once they start, not because EVs are more likely to self-combust.

And battery degradation may be less of a problem than previously thought, but cars that need recharging are necessarily far more limited, and therefore have less utility, than ICE cars.

But Willson’s greatest error is his dependence on the fashionable motif in authoritarian circles: ‘misinformation’.

The reason most people aren’t convinced by electric cars isn’t because they’ve been misinformed, but because they have eyes, and ears, and, behind and between them, brains with which to process the simple facts conveyed through them.

Those simple facts are:

• EVs are more expensive than normal cars;
• EVs are harder to charge than normal cars are to fill with fuel;
• EVs are more likely to leave you stranded;
• EVs lose their value rapidly; and
• EV battery failures can be catastrophic.

Put even more simply: petrol and diesel cars are more versatile and enduring than EVs.

The only way these simple facts haven’t resulted in the collapse of the EV market is an extraordinary subsidy scheme. Though recent headlines have claimed that the EV sector is booming, private purchases account for less than one in five EV sales.

The rest are ‘fleet’ sales – company cars. Net Zero tax rules allow employees to write-off the cost of leasing an EV against income tax. Thus, an NHS manager on a salary of £150,000 can, with no deposit, lease a £110,000 Mercedes EQS for £750 per month, to transport them from the commuter belt to Central London.

Into the bargain, EVs don’t have to pay the Congestion Charge, resulting in around £3,500 of further subsidy for the one percent. And charging points at workplaces are eligible for £850 of grants.

“London is now full of them,” Willson pointed out. Well, of course it is.

The so-called Salary Sacrifice scheme allows the wealthiest people to obtain subsidised luxury vehicles so that their commutes to the capital are comfortable and guilt-free, while leaving their SUVs on the drive for weekends, holidays and trips to the grandparents – or for their wives to do the school run to Brighton College.

It is the benighted rest of the population that depends on second-hand petrol and diesel cars, the latter being forced off the road by ‘green’ schemes such as London’s hated Ulez and other CAZs throughout the country.

Yet, Willson and his colleagues demand more incentives. “There is no financial incentive for consumers to change their behaviour,” he admits. “They will not change their behaviour for environmental reasons, they will only change their behaviour for fiscal reasons.”

And this is why the Net Zero ‘transition’ had to be led by top-down policy, rather than bottom-up choices being offered to consumers through the market. The abolition of the ICE car is authoritarian.

It is the result of special interest lobbying, not by consumer or voter demand. And that inevitably leads to irrational absurdities, such as subsidising executives’ commutes from Gerrards Cross to London, to the tune of tens of thousands each year.

Willson’s new campaigning organisation, FairCharge, aims to “harness the tremendous environmental, economic and social benefits of the electric revolution”. But there is no “electric revolution”.

If there was, it would not require Blob outfits as its vanguard and PR front – it would have its own dynamic and growth. And the fact of Willson’s project being merely a Green Blob front organisation is further betrayed by its broader climate policy interventions.

“We also want to see… the price of electricity decoupled from gas – urgently,” claims the website. This is a Green Blob false talking point – a factoid – from 2022, which occurred as European natural gas prices spiked at €340 per MWh.

Since gas prices determine the price of electricity before renewable subsidies are applied, ‘green’ campaigners argued that ‘decoupling’ the price of electricity from the price of gas would lead to lower bills.

But the gas price today is just a tenth of that spike, meaning that power from gas is again far cheaper than electricity from wind and solar farms.

And that’s the problem. Willson, whose stock-in-trade was either approvingly or disparagingly reproducing manufacturers’ specifications to a camera, is unable to offer any substantive perspective, merely recycling Green Blob talking points.

On Twitter, climate sceptics were quick to observe that the same organisation that funds virtually every think tank prmoting Net Zero, coincidentally also fund Willson’s pro-EV outfit.

Practically every single ‘green’ ‘civil society’ organisation is funded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Even the ‘think tank’ that produced Rishi Sunak’s election-saving miracle policy of compulsory National Service; Onward, is ECF-funded.

From XR, through every Labour, Lib-Dem, Conservative-aligned think tank, trade unions and university research organisations, the ECF pump tens of millions each year into seemingly ‘independent’ organisations to align commentary on the Net Zero agenda as a condition of funding.

It’s the same funding that enabled UK100 to lobby for Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and Clean Air Zones throughout the country. It’s the same funding that supports the Conservative Environment Network caucus of MPs, of which Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Clair Coutinho, is a member.

And it’s the same ECF that funds the CarbonBrief outfit that produced the ridiculous “wind power is nine times cheaper than gas” lie that still animates Westminster Net Zero narratives.

‘Misinformation’ is the Blob’s vernacular for the unauthorised views or debates that occur outside of that sphere. The concept has been developed by the Blob to protect itself from democracy, debate and criticism.

When the Green Blob pumps out dubious claims about the benefits of Net Zero, it’s called ‘campaigning’.

None of this would matter, and Willson would remain a D-list s’leb, had the Government and generations of MPs let people decide for themselves how, and how fast, if at all, to get to Net Zero.

But the only controversy about the abolition of ICE cars as far as Westminster is concerned is about the date by which new sales are banned – 2030 or 2035 – not what principles govern policymaking in general, and the authoritarian, manifestly anti-car policies, including the ZEV mandate and CAZs in particular.

Of course, industry representatives will tell politicians that they can help meet political targets if they and their extremely wealthy customers are subsidised.

But where are the representatives of the millions who drive petrol and diesel cars far beyond the lifetimes that any battery manufacturer can provide a warranty for?

Where are the representatives of the millions who buy decade-old bangers for the price of a week’s wages, rather than top-of-the-range luxury models?

And where is the defence of economic freedom and its relationship with mobility?

Not in Westminster. And not from lobbying fronts like Willson’s, that’s for sure.

See more here dailysceptic.org

Header image: Alchetron.com

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