Former Transport Secretary States “Buy Electric”

Auto Express has covered the comments made by Philip Hammond regarding the increasing fuel prices. His educated (cough) suggestion was “People should look to new technologies. Electric cars are very cheap to run and allow motorists to drive guilt free.”

Now, as everyone who is a regular reader of this blog will know, I’m not against any form of new technology. In fact, as a consumer, the more options you have the better life is. However, when it comes to buying a car, I could opt for a second hand diesel, say a VW Golf 1.9 TDI which I could buy at a very reasonable price of £6,000. Or I could do as the (former) transport secretary suggests and pay £30,000 for a new Nissan Leaf. I use this as the example as it won ‘Car of the Year 2011’ in the World Car Awards.

Now, even with the government ‘incentive’ of £5,000 off, I’ll still be paying £25,000 for a car that will be base spec, has an extremely limited range that’s significantly reduced by anything approaching enjoyable driving and a technology that’s flawed in that the precious batteries (made from hard to mine precious metals) have to be replaced at significant cost!

Perhaps the biggest reason Mr Hammond’s statement annoys me in the extreme is that it’s almost suggesting that everyone can afford to make the move, they are just choosing not to due to plain pig-headedness. Not everyone is on MP money. I know very few people that can afford to go out and sink £25,000 into a car that isn’t really suitable for every type of journey they will require it for.

Mr Hammond also stated ““The increase in fuel prices is a function of global oil prices, it’s not driven by policy.” I’ve written about this before and it’s palpable nonsense. It’s also extremely trite for a former transport secretary to say, when WE ALL KNOW that around 60%+ of the markup of the fuel you buy is tax and duty. It is not controlled by prices.

This is a good example of ministers having their heads in the clouds on their well above average salaries whilst the rest of us are galled by what they come up with.

Read the rest of the article at Auto Express.