Rather than forcing people through legislation to go electric I feel the change should have been market driven, if people can see there is genuinely a cost benefit to running an EV then they will do so. The majority of people may like the idea but commonsense when living on a shoestring means they are not a viable alternative.
Arguably there is a time and a place for legislation and enforced change where people may not make the change. Historically there are always people who will want to pay less and have no concern or consideration for the impact that has on themselves or the people around them.
Going back 30 years, realistically the general public would not be going out and demanding to buy their new car with a catalytic convertor. But the government stepped in and created laws to force automakers to make their cars more environmentally friendly.
Then Euro2, Euro3, Euro 4, 5 and 6 have all been a progression on the drive towards a cleaner future. Again though, no one is going to their local car dealership and demanding to have a Euro 6 car over a Euro 5 car, they just bought the car they liked and assumed that what came out of the exhaust would meet the standards of what ever is required at that moment in time.
The push towards Electrification is the beginnings of Euro 7 where its likely tail pipe emissions will be extremely low or even zero tail pipe emissions as a requirement. If governments didn't push these things people would just keep on buying what is available.
As is usually the case therefore the wealthy who can afford to buy the latest cars will do so and then sell them on later, with the improvement in environmental impact improving as the years go by.
I think the main issue is that the change to electric cars is no just another tweak to the existing technology but a paradigm shift from one technology to another, and with it comes a massive increase in price.
Normal families who previously might get a new car every 3 - 4 years, on a household income of £30-40k now are facing their Average family electric car being £30K + to buy and if they're a two car family then they are facing spending £60k+ on two cars, when in a 3 year period they might own those cars there total income might be only be £90 - 120k at a time when wages are not going up and the price of living has gone up. In the past they may have bought a new ford focus for £18k, Now to keep buying new cars every few years they would need to spend half, or more of their total household income just to keep buying cars.
Many are therefore switching to the used car market which is partly what caused the explosion in used car prices, This however is collapsing now as people are just moving to a make do and mend approach.
You would have to be very foolish to buy a new car right now and then keep switching cars every few years as you are just burning money. Many people myself included and I know other people on this forum have bought new or nearly new cars a few years back and are now just holding on to them, looking after them and not selling them, as this is the most cost effective way to maintain a car.
So while I can see why the government(s) are pushing the change to electric cars, The cost of electric cars compared to their petrol and diesel counterparts, the cost of living going up, the cost of all cars going up and the stagnation of wages, make this the worst possible time to be doing it.
Environmentally we really do need to make these changes, but they are pulling the finances of the general public in too many directions for the man on the street to keep up.
Nobody needed legislation to make us buy smartphones or 4K TVs which in many cases started off (and still are) multiples of what we used to pay for a phone
