Revving up a

Electric vehicles (EVs) are on the tipping point of mass take-up. Wondering whether now’s the time to join the revolution or if it’s more environmentally friendly to run your existing petrol or diesel car into the ground? We asked the experts

The motoring journalist and former Top Gear presenter has long been a champion of EVs and is also an ambassador for FairCharge, a campaign to make electric vehicles accessible to all.

What was the catalyst for your interest in EVs?

The Damascene moment came in 1996 when I was in Los Angeles filming Top Gear. We were doing a piece on a new electric car made by General Motors called the EV1. I was driving down Sunset Boulevard in this red and slinky silent projectile thinking: this is the future.

I’ve been driving an EV every day for the last nine years and I now drive a Tesla. I've done 20,000 miles in six months. I’ve been to France and back in it and use it to commute up and down the M40. It's blameless.

Is it more eco friendly to switch from a petrol or diesel car to an EV, or to run an existing car into the ground?

Quentin Willson

Drives: Tesla Model 3

The environmental benefits of electric cars far, far outweigh petrol and diesel, but you've got to weigh it up because the outright cost of an EV is obviously greater.

If you think you may as well run your old car for the next ten years, because by then EVs will be cheaper, well, that may not be the case. The price of repairs is astronomical and getting an older car through its MOT can be a major issue.

The whole-life cost of an EV is at parity with petrol and diesel cars because the secondhand value of EVs has gone up remarkably. You could buy a Tesla now, drive it for a year and then sell it for virtually what you paid for it.

If people are pondering whether it’s the right time to switch, given the current spectre of 200p, 300p or even 400p a litre for fuel, now would seem to be a good time. The only problem is finding a secondhand EV because they're quite limited. You might also have to wait a while if you want to buy a new EV, due to a crisis in the supply of semiconductors. But do it now as demand is only going to go one way.

Have EVs passed the tipping point?

We've seen an exponential rise in EV registrations monthon-month. I believe they were 22% of the entire market in February 2022, and I remember a time when they were 1%, so it really is happening.

How can it be better to build a whole new car than keep one that’s already been manufactured?

There is an argument that the carbon embedded in the car has probably been paid back because it was made ten or 15 years ago, but that doesn’t count the emissions. If you’re driving a diesel they’re pretty bad – and petrol isn’t much better. Every time you turn that engine on, it’s putting stuff into the air that’s not good for the environment or for air quality. So you can take the argument about carbon to a certain point, but you can’t extrapolate it to air quality. And that’s one of the most pressing considerations with 36,000 people dying prematurely from respiratory diseases each year in the UK.

Could a new EV be technologically redundant in three years’ time?

They are getting better: the ranges are increasing and if you change your car every three years you’re not going to fall much behind. You’ll never be marooned with an electric car because the price you’ll get when you sell it will be so high. I ran a little Nissan LEAF for three years and when I sold it to a dealer it only cost me £200 in depreciation across those three years. And all that time it wasn’t producing any emissions from a tailpipe.

Electric cars aren’t for everybody but, as they get cheaper (which they will) and more familiar, I think most people will want to change simply because they’re also quiet. There is a serenity to electric cars that we haven’t really researched: you’re more calm, less stressed and you stop to charge, which means the whole journey is far less intense.

Do you think rising energy prices will lead to greater uptake of EVs?

There are gloomy pundits saying we could be looking at $250 for a barrel of oil by the summer. Doubling the cost of oil means doubling the cost of fuel, which means doubling the amount of money you have to spend every week to fill your car, and that will seriously affect people’s disposable income.

The best thing we can do for this generation, the next generation and the generation after is to manage energy transition from dirty, polluting fossil fuels to sustainable, renewable, low-carbon electricity.

The RAC has embraced the EV revolution. It’s created a mobile charging system for rescuing stranded EVs and is the first national breakdown organisation to put an EV into use to attend breakdowns.

Is now the moment for consumers to jump on the EV bandwagon?

There’s no question: electric is coming.

By 2030 you won’t be able to buy a new petrol or diesel vehicle. There are already lots of EVs on the road: just over 400,000 pure EVs have been registered for use since 2010 – and many more plug-in hybrids.

It’s because of this that we’ve been conscious of needing to lead the way in EV breakdown technology. Working in partnership with a company