Very niche at the moment, a fashion statement to some? low volumes will mean high prices, its not just the lack of range putting people off.

People have been in fist fights over a parking space or filtering before now, whats going to be the situation when the present public space charging points have to cope with 10/20/1000 times as many electric cars on the road doing journeys, about the same time our leader's (all of 'em for years) lack of foresight and competence reaps it rewards when the lights start going out as power generation dips us back to 3 day week type shortages.

I suspect a lot of people are hanging back to see what happens anyway, for similar money you can get a Hybrid Toyota which is a competent proven long range vehicle that last many years, and that won't be worth threepence ha'penny at three years old either.

Is it not the same with all new technology? A new 4k tv comes out and its £4000.1-2 years down the line its £600.If they priced new stuff,cheap then no one would buy the old stuff first.

The need to recoup R&D costs, investments in new manufactuiring etc.

I am of the opinion prices of EV`s are not going to drop that much, as these cars become more reliable, there wont be any need to replace a car,only possibly the batteries occasionaly and any wear and tear parts

unless they make built in faults, or components with short lifespans the only people that will want a new car are the usual ones that want to or get fed up with it.

But that all depends on whether they are succesfull or not I`m not so sure they will be

Well look at all that copper cable. None of it is lightweight. Have you bought electric cable recently?

And there's a battery.

And an engine.

And a BIG electric motor/dynamo.

And lots of clever electronics..

"With simpler engine (motor) and lack of gearbox, they should be far cheaper."

The Prius has LOTS of gearbox parts..

Bigger battery...

They already have a government subsidy off the list price and are still not worth the money. If limited range is not a big enough problem do some mental arithmetic on the (annual) cost of batteries plus depreciation. No thank you!

The Sunbsidy is taken into account when the makers set the UK price. Take off the subsidy and prices would fall.

Rather like windfarms... No susbisdy = no windfarms.

Just a couple of points -

i) Worldwide fossil fuels are subsidised to $500 billion dollars per year.

ii) My electric car doesn't cost much after the subsidies.

You are talking coal.

I am not sure why we think electric car are in anyway new. Infact I think the first was made in 1832 or thereabouts, yes that's getting on for a 184 years ago.

Basically while the best battery can do something like 2Mj /kg of engery petrol is 44.4Mj/Kg. And those high every batter are mega toxic.

Therefore a 55 litre tank of petrol weighs in at 44kg and gives just under 2000Mj with batteries that would be 1000kg i.e. a metric ton.

The cost and life span of batteries are the real killers at at £500 per Kg of battery you are talking £500,000 (55l petrol equiv).

So basically in the next 184 years maybe all battery cars will be an option

OK show me your evidence and I'll show you mine.

If you think that the fossil fuel industry isn't subsidised you've not been researching what you're saying.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil...fcommuting and haven't noticed a significant change in my electric bill.

Was yours expensive to run or buy?

A lot of what they mention as a 'subsidy' is nothing of the sort in that article