More Malaysians are talking about electric vehicle (EV) ownership without knowing what it really is about. This is not about buying a car with supercar acceleration and free energy. This is vehicle that needs to be charged using electricity (unless you have solar panels at your home and office) and the more you accelerate fast the more battery power you use up.
Then there is the long term cost of battery replacements which are no cheap. Yes, they can last more than 10 years on average and most people will and might sell their EV in 4-6 years of ownership, but do you think the next owner is going to pay you a premium for a used EV?
The chances are slim for you getting even 40% of your new EV value after 6 years of ownership. You would probably get 30-35% depending on your battery health check and the price of replacement batteries at the time of sale.
So, before you run out a buy an EV, think of the charging infrastructure, your access to cheap electricity to recharge your EV and how much you are willing to lose in value over the ownership period.
Statistics from the ACEA (European Association of Manufacturers) show that the electric car does not break through in low-income European countries. 80% of sales are in 6 countries only.
In Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden serve as an exception in the electric car market in Europe. These are the only countries where their market share exceeds 5% (including plug-in hybrids).
The so-called “rich” countries like Austria, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Switzerland have a rate between 2% and 5%, with an average of 3.5% exceeded only by those whose average income exceeds €42,000. For all the others, it is a much low figure.
For some countries, it is even close to 0 sales and ownership. For example, in Latvia, there were only 93 electric cars sold in 2018. Poland only had 0.2% electric car ownership, Slovakia a little higher at 0.3% and Greece also had just 0.3% ownership. ACEA sees a correlation with the level of income of their inhabitants, given the price of electric cars on the market and the subsidies that each country awards to them.
The market share of electric cars for the whole of the European Union sits at just 2%. And 80% of all electric cars sold on the continent are in only 6 countries with high income population.
Data: ACEA
