Dr. Peter Mock:

A consultancy in the UK called Element Energy conducted a study for the European Consumer Organisation, BEUC, which is the most recent and best quality research that I know of. What it shows, based on a lot of surveys, is that in most European countries consumers actually have a pretty positive attitude towards EVs. Their attitude is different from what it used to be. Based on the assumption that the framework conditions are the same, that is, that the cost, range and comfort of the vehicles are equal, people would be positively inclined towards EVs. In the UK the attitude is a little less positive, if I remember correctly, whereas in Germany, people tend to be quite open to electric cars.

Of course, the framework conditions are not equal yet. EVs tend to be more pricey if one looks at theshowroom costs and their range is lower than that of combustion engine cars. Those are the main hurdles - cost and range anxiety. It is a very complex issue but it has a lot to do with educating consumers. My personal experience, as well as that of a lot of the people I talk to, is that once people have an electric car or get a chance to drive one, they realise that typically they do not need that range. There are exceptions, of course, for example, people living in a rural area will have a lot of driving to do. That is different but for the majority of people, especially in urban areas, the range is really not an issue. I have an electric car and I charge it every week at most, or even every two weeks. Charging is really not an issue for me. Even if I did not have a charging point at home, it would be fine for me. However, before I purchased that electric car, I certainly wondered a lot about the range. I had concerns about the range but I no longer have them. That is why a lot of this is about education. There is research going on in this area and the Element Energy study is the best one to which I can refer committee members.