Buying an electric car? These are the challenges you may face

Electric vehicles are gradually taking over the global automobile industry. With the rising focus on cleaner powertrain technology, electric vehicles are facing incremental growth in demand and production across the world. Many internal combustion engine-powered car owners have been showing interest in buying electric vehicles. There are several reasons playing key roles behind this trend: high cost of petrol and diesel, lower overall cost of ownership for electric vehicles, increased awareness about vehicular emissions impact on the environment etc.

While electric vehicles certainly offer a wide range of advantages over their ICE counterparts, there are some challenges as well. Here are some of the key challenges an electric car owner can face.

Charging time and infrastructure

Charging time and infrastructure is one of the major concerns for electric car owners. An electric car takes a significantly longer time to be fully charged compared to what a petrol or diesel vehicle takes to be fully refuelled. While full tank refuelling an internal combustion engine-powered car takes hardly a minute, charging the battery of an electric car to 100 per cent takes about eight hours. Charging infrastructure is another concern for EV owners. While many electric car owners opt for home charging using the standard AC chargers, recharging the battery on roads as and when required is a major worry for them, as the number of charging infrastructure, especially the fast chargers is really low across the country, compared to the fast-growing fleet of electric vehicles.

Range anxiety

Range anxiety is very much real for electric vehicle owners. While the gradual growth of EV charging infrastructure and improving range on offer from the electric vehicle manufacturers in their respective products are alleviating the worry to some extent, the majority of electric car owners are still bothered about this. Only the high-end luxury electric cars come promising a generous range on a single charge, while the lower range of battery-powered cars come with an average of 250 km true range, which too drops significantly depending on various factors like driving behaviour, weight the vehicle carries, road condition etc.

Safety concern

Electric vehicles are much safer than their ICE counterparts when it comes to vulnerability to fire incidents. However, the fire intensity in electric vehicles is extremely high compared to the intensity of flame in a petrol or diesel car. In several incidents reported around the world over the last few years, it has been seen that EVs can catch fire too. Electric powertrain being a new technology still has many grey areas that should be addressed.

High sticker price

Electric vehicles offer significantly lower overall cost of ownership compared to their ICE counterparts, but the initial cost of the EVs is significantly higher than the petrol or diesel models. This remains a financial challenge for many buyers.