I’ll wait on electric cars

I’ll admit it. I love the sound of an internal combustion engine sports car. The visceral feelings evoked from shifting, the smells and the rattles are transportive. Yet, this is not why I have no interest in electric cars.

I’m all for having a light touch on the planet. If electric cars are better for the planet with all things considered, I’m on board. It is still early days to know the full impact of moving to all electric vehicles. We have to consider things like:

• The damage from mining of rare elements for the batteries
• The burden on the power grid to charge the cars
• What to do with all the gas powered cars that will need to disposed of or recycled

I’ll get to my point. I’m holding off buying an electric car until the following:

• The battery life rate of change slows
• The infrastructure increases to match or exceed the petrol stations
• It becomes clear that electric cars are the replacement to gas engines.

I look at electric cars like mobile phones. Every few years the phones get so much better that the 3-4 year old phones are too far behind technology wise.

Let’s say you buy a car today that takes a long time to charge and has a range of 300 miles. In three years, the newer cars charge faster and go further on a charge. What is your car worth? Granted, most gas powered cars lose value. The problem with the early electric cars is how fast they will become dated as new technology comes on line.

For me, I’m gonna wait a while before I take the plunge. In the ideal world a subscription, versus buying, would entice me more. That way I can always move up to the latest cars every few years without having to take a bath on values.

In the meantime, I’ll keeping the joy of driving a manual transmission sports car alive. See you in my rear view mirror.