By Ross Williams
Alpha Contracts
NOPE, it’s an electric car with a range of nearly 300 miles, well 282 to be accurate!
You can take your pick from either the Kia e-Niro or the Hyundai Kona version. But – there’s always a but isn’t there – you will have to wait nearly 12 months to take delivery!
The challenge the manufacturer is facing is shortage of batteries. There is a good old fashioned bottleneck with demand far out stripping supply. Kia allocated 900 vehicles to the UK for 2019 and they all sold in less than a month.
The good news to be taken from that story is that there are now affordable electric cars with a proper range, the manufacturers are catching up with the real world expectations of their customers. Of course, every market in the world is changing to greener cars and vans and it seemed inevitable that the supply chain wouldn’t cope. The battery shortage is affecting manufacturers across the industry.
Fast forward 12 months and you have taken delivery of your nice new electric car, it’s parked on your drive and you can enjoy the benefit of charging from your domestic electricity supply. But what if you cannot have a charge point at your home? Perhaps you live in a location that has no off-road parking, or in an apartment block, for example. You will then need to use those charge points that are available for public use, and these aren’t found on every street corner. Some local councils are being proactive and installing public charge points but I expect that isn’t very high on our local councils to do list at the moment. However the situation is bound to improve and environmentally we have no choice but to go down this road.
Finally, this month a personal bugbear, the continued use of handheld mobiles phones by drivers. Despite serious penalties for doing so apparently in 2017 over one per cent of drivers were witnessed using a handheld mobile phone whilst at the wheel, both car and van drivers. (Department of Transport research). Eventually all vehicles will be equipped with Bluetooth and be able to facilitate ‘hands free’ phone calls but up until that point a very small percentage of the driving population are putting their own and other road users lives at risk. Please stop it!
If you need to upgrade your vehicle to one that has a Bluetooth facility then give the team at Alpha Contracts a (hands free) call and we’ll help you get mobile. Call the team on 01604 756620 for some pun free advice.
Safe motoring and stay off your phone!