20 November

In the inevitable transition to electric cars, the existing industry throws up one fake scare campaign after another. Like ‘they all catch fire, or ‘range anxiety’. Or now, ‘they have no resale value’. One of the most interesting things about all cars, of any type, is that there’s a secondhand ‘market’ at all. You don’t find a similar market for most other consumer goods. If you understand why that is, it tells you a lot about car culture. More than any other reason, it’s likely because cars are so expensive, relative to income. You pay a fair chunk of an annual wage, on a new car. Could they be cheaper? Almost certainly yes, and with EVs we’re going to find out how much less, as once battery technology matures there’s nothing left in an EV that is all that expensive to make. The fact that the price of a car relative to income hasn’t shifted much over so many decades tells you somebody is being gouged here. You.