This Week in EV: It's all going up
Tom Clarke
Strategy & Product Leader | EV Product Manager at Parkopedia | Founder, This Week in EV | Advisory Board Member | MBA, CMgr FCMI
This week we start in my day-to-day wheelhouse of EV insurance! According to an article in the Telegraph older drivers are paying more for insurance because they are driving electric cars. Insurance premiums are going up across the board, the links below show both Willis Towers Watson and Direct Line all talking about claims inflation which in turn leads to premium increases. It’s this claims inflation that is driving up the cost for not only EV insurance owners but petrol and diesel owners. Now within that EV insurance cohort there are some owners who will be paying more than they would be for an ICE equivalent but it will vary between manufacturer and model it's no secret that Tesla owners will be paying more than an ICE equivalent but a Renault Zoe driver won’t be. That said there is a lot more insurers need to do when it comes to EV’s and I’ll be the first to call that out but let's not mix up that with what are broader market conditions.
And it's not just insurance that is going up in price, used car prices for EV’s have been rising and with wait times for most new EV’s around a year some folks have started a side hustle flipping EV’s. Inside EV gives the example of one guy who has flipped three teslas whilst the first one he lost some money he made $4000 and $7000 on his second and third attempts. That’s nothing though compared to the person selling a Hummer EV 1 for a whooping $220,000 when it retails for $105,000 or the Rivian R1T owner trying to also sell theirs for $220,000 when it retails for $67,500. It seems those flippers who started in the sneaker scene have moved on to bigger prizes!
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Last but not least charging is also going up! The cost of using public charging has been going up and up the last 12 months, it wasn’t that long ago that you could get a rapid charge for less than 40p per KWH. This week Osprey Charging have announced they are increasing prices from 49p per kWh to 66p per kWh a stonking 35% increase. I’m a big fan of the osprey network as it’s always super reliable but the cost of using public charging networks is starting to get painful, to fully charge my VW ID 3 would now cost around £38, whilst its still cheaper than filling up a tank of fuel it’s catching it up. Osprey CEO Ian Johnston makes a serious point on the VAT rate though “We are actively lobbying the government, together with some of our charging network peers, to get the VAT rate for public charging reduced from 20% to 5% to match the home tariff.” If we are going to accelerate EV adoption it has to be for all not just those who are wealthy enough to live in a property with off street parking where they can charge their EV for cheaper than those who don’t have that luxury.
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