Touring: ‘Average EV driver is highly educated and wealthy’

According to the mobility organization Touring,  the average EV driver in Belgium is highly educated, has a higher-than-average income, and has a private parking spot for his car.

Touring has realized the latest European Alternative Fuels Observatory (EAFO) survey in Belgium in cooperation with the Brussels VUB University and interrogated 1,356 Belgian drivers. 96 of them drove a BEV, 1,440 an ICE car.

Fairly obvious

These results could be expected. As the majority of BEVs in Belgium at the moment are company cars, one can expect that the drivers are more highly educated, have a higher-than-average income, and own a house where they can charge the car.

Employees who are entitled to a company car fit perfectly into these categories. Almost 40% of BEV drivers use their car for the company, while only 6% of ICE car drivers do so. EV drivers also drive longer distances, almost 20,000 km per year, compared to 13,400 km for petrol or diesel car drivers.

Touring’s recommendations

According to Touring, the results of the survey in Belgium show that the BEV market is rather unequal. BEV drivers are wealthier, more highly educated, and more often entitled to have a company car. They had fewer problems with the energy transition.

According to Touring, the problem is that 2035 (the banning of all new ICE cars in Europe) is not so far away and that there is a long way to go to persuade the majority of car drivers/owners to switch to electric.

As most future governments in Belgium are still under negotiation, Touring asks politicians to take these results into account in their future mobility plans.

“If this problem isn’t tackled as soon as possible, we create a situation of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, and a car will become the privilege of the happy few,” warns Touring. “We must absolutely avoid this scenario, the car being an essential part of the mobility mix in this country.’

Touring’s communication director, Joost Kaesemans: “The survey confirms what we thought. The resistance against EV driving has disappeared, but more practical problems have taken over.”

“The price remains the biggest hurdle. BEVs are still too expensive, and electric cars haven’t appeared yet in large quantities on the second-hand market. This market is almost double the new one, but second-hand electric cars, for the moment, have the disadvantage that they are more rapidly outdated (range, charging speed, battery condition). We see that many second-hand BEVs are still exported from the country.”

Kaesemans pleads for more incentives: “Belgium is a leading country in Europe towards electrification thanks to the tax incentives for company cars, but when one looks at Norway, there are more possibilities to accelerate the pace. Measures like free parking, free use of ferries, and free use of bus lanes for EVs really can make a difference, more than temporary ‘straw fires’ like a buying incentive limited in time.”

Observations

Mobility Club Touring is rightly pointing at attractive incentives in Norway, for example. In a congested driver environment like Belgium, these measures can really make a difference in persuading the hesitant buyer. An additional advantage is that they don’t cost too much, considering this country’s financial situation.

Where Touring stays mute is the role the traditional car manufacturers have been playing. Initially, they were inert and had to be awakened by Tesla and the Chinese. Then, they began to develop EVs that weren’t affordable for an average driver but made a lot of money per unit sold.

Now, this pool of wealthy early adopters is drying up, so there’s panic all over the place.  The solution is nevertheless relatively simple: car manufacturers must produce affordable electric cars.

As the battery is still a major factor in an EV’s pricing, size matters. Future (solid-state) batteries will offer more capacity for less volume and, eventually, cost, but there is absolutely no reason why the average electric car should have a range of more than 500 km and lug along a battery that weighs accordingly.

If the authorities have one priority goal in this, it is to provide decent and rapid charging infrastructure everywhere and for everyone. And traditional car manufacturers are most urgently asked to provide high-tech but also affordable EVs as soon as possible. If they can’t or won’t do it, the Chinese and others will.