Are you ready for an electric car? From range anxiety, to Tesla’s boom, and how to buy at 40% off

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2020

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Would you swap your car for an electric one? If the government gets it way, soon many more of us will have to.

The proposed ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars was dragged forward by five years to 2035 this week – and hybrid cars were bundled into the showroom clear-out too.

If that sticks, this means that by 2030 – just a decade from now – it’s highly likely the vast majority of cars being sold new will be pure electric.

For a modern world that has been shaped by the internal combustion-engined motor car that’s quite the change.

On this week’s podcast, we deliver an electric car special. Simon Lambert, Georgie Frost and Lee Boyce look at the logic behind banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars, whether the move can be pulled off and why hybrids are now also on the naughty list.

Charging infrastructure, range anxiety and questions over their lifecycle environmental costs are issues flagged by electric car sceptics, are they right?

Meanwhile, the thing holding many people back from buying them, argues Simon, is cost. Second hand supply of electric cars is thin and choice is limited; and while the pipeline of new models is picking up dramatically, they remain pricey compared to a standard petrol car.

But there could be a game-changer in the form of a salary sacrifice perk combined with a change to benefit-in-kind rules, so should you be badgering your boss to sign the company up so that you can buy a new electric car at 32% or 42% off?

Fittingly, this week the great Tesla adventure tale delivered another riveting chapter. In the first two days of the week, shares rocketed more than 35 per cent and have doubled since the start of 2020. Can Elon Musk’s stock heading for the moon be justified in any way?

Also, on this week’s show we talk about the 5 per cent interest offered by Zeuk – and our exclusive on the Financial Conduct Authority hitting back at adverts.

And finally, why did Lee Boyce take his wife and daughter out to lunch with a set of scales to eat a watermelon steak?

Transcript

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0:00.0	This Is Money's podcast is brought to you in partnership with the financial services compensation scheme.
0:04.9	Check your financial products at FSCS protected at fscs.org.uk forward slash This is Money.
0:11.5	Welcome to This Is Money. I'm Georgie Frost. And alongside me and editor Simon Lambert today is assistant editor Lee Boyce.
0:18.8	And today we're talking green cars.
0:22.1	Will Boris's plans to ban new hybrids as well as petrol and diesel from 2035 help or hinder
0:29.2	Britain's drive to go electric?
0:31.9	Well, if you're interested in getting in on the action, though, Simon reveals a tax break
0:35.7	that could save you a whopping 40% on the new electric car
0:39.3	and we ask if Tesla is heading for a crash. Also as OffGem reveals plans to ban all gas
0:46.7	boilers, we reveal a cautionary tale of a green energy deal gone badly wrong. The team have
0:53.2	uncovered another worrying advert on the London
0:55.7	Underground, so just who and what is Zook? And would you pay 48p for a gram of watermelon
1:02.8	meat? Lee Boyce investigates and over the gaining steps today. With all the latest breaking
1:08.4	money news, just go to this ismoney. money.com. UK or download the app at first.
1:13.4	Boris Johnson's decision.
1:15.2	To bring forward the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars
1:18.5	by five years to 2035, isn't it exactly surprising?
1:23.2	But what might be more so for some is the inclusion of hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles in that marketed until now as green models.
1:33.2	Manufacturers have invested rather heavily in their development and many UK motorists have already fought out premium to buy one.
1:40.9	But it doesn't stop there, the government's tech advisory body last year also called for this
1:46.0	to be followed up by banning privately owned vehicles from the road altogether. So why the inclusion
1:52.0	though of the hybrid and is it the right move as part of the long-term bid for us to be carbon
	...

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