WHAT would make you switch from a conventional car to a pure聽electric one? Its design? Its聽eco-credentials? Or an end to the accursed 鈥渞ange anxiety鈥�?
Whatever the reason, it seems the tipping point is finally here. Jaguar鈥檚 I-Pace recently became the first fully electric car to win the European Car of the Year award. Tesla, led by Elon Musk, has just unveiled its compact SUV, the Model Y. Now James Bond is swapping his internal-combustion Aston Martin for an electric model, the Rapide-E, a move apparently inspired by the 鈥渢ree-hugger鈥� credentials of Cary Fukunaga, director of the next film.
That rather tabloidy pejorative is now redundant. You don鈥檛 need to be a member of Greenpeace to embrace an electric car. You don鈥檛 even need to be concerned about climate change. In 2019, the electric car has come of age.
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They are well designed and manufactured, they handle with the alacrity of their gas-guzzling equivalents, and of course emit zero emissions from the exhaust.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 need to be a member of Greenpeace or concerned about climate to聽embrace an electric car鈥�
Anxiety over their range and how the charging process works remain the biggest obstacles to聽uptake. But here too, the technology is at a crucial juncture, with Tesla leading the way.
There are 12,000 Tesla superchargers across the US, Europe and Asia, with 99 per cent of the US population now covered. There are 360 bays in 50 UK locations, and Tesla is just rolling out its ultra-fast V3 supercharging tech. The company鈥檚 cars now also聽know when you are heading to a charging site and heat the聽battery to the optimum temperature for charging. Tesla says this cuts the average charge time by 25 per cent. Fully charged, most electric cars now have a range of about 500 kilometres.
Meanwhile, Italian design legend Pininfarina has unveiled its first car, the Battista, which promises F1-levels of performance and a supercar look. Its electric architecture is licensed from a Croatian start-up, Rimac. The company鈥檚 founder Mate Rimac has the same irrepressible urge to聽change the world as Musk. 鈥淚聽wanted to make cars generally better and more exciting by electrifying them,鈥� says Rimac. 鈥淚聽could see the potential and I couldn鈥檛 understand why no one else could.鈥� Well, we do now.
