Electric car: the Paris-province divide

By dint of saying that thermal cars will disappear in the medium term, the message is starting to imprint itself on people's minds. According to an Ifop poll carried out for OVO Energy France, which is a supplier of green electricity, we can see how unfortunately they are on the wrong track. If the will of Brussels is indeed to eliminate in 2040 the new thermal car from the "show rooms", 66% of the French people questioned believe it firmly and are preparing to define a new strategy for individual travel. But which ?

The timetable is not very clear to them and conditions the current transactions in free fall. Semiconductors have a good back, there are also semi-consumers who are hesitant about what to do. Who holds the correct martingale? Nobody knows, and if the need were imperative, a change of vehicle made in the year would lead them to 41% towards a combustion engine and only 15% towards electric.

There are several good reasons for this, starting with distrust of these new motors and their batteries. One in five French people fear being ridiculous at the wheel, compared to the 64% who currently use a gasoline or diesel vehicle on a daily basis. The transition is not assured while the respondents consider the electric as "expensive, binding, bobo, gadget, have you seen me". In order. And despite significant purchase aid, the cost of acquisition and holding with variable geometry deters 36% of them, while 39% consider the autonomy too short and 24% the number of terminals available insufficient.

Risky first aid

And again, these are the responses of respondents who are uninformed on the subject. For example, only 20% mentioned the difficulty of repairing these vehicles and they avoided the complexity of first aid in the event of an accident. No question either about the residual value of the vehicle with, on occasion, an effective capacity of the batteries difficult to assess. When we know that they represent more than a third of the value of a new vehicle, the consumer is right to be wary, unless he opts for long-term rental.

And end-of-life recycling is perplexing since one in two respondents sees no environmental advantage in driving electric rather than thermal. However, 86% of them believe that France must reduce its CO ₂ emissions, under the impetus of COP26 and the effects of the dirigiste policy carried out in Brussels.

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Like the wired telephone, whose initial equipment stage could be erased by the deployment of GSM, which is also less expensive, it is quite the opposite that happens for the electric vehicle, which must refuel at a terminal physics with his wire on his paw.

Since CO ₂ is a global problem giving rise to geolocated solutions only in rich countries, there will necessarily be a divide with developing countries. This territorial gap is found, more nuanced however, in France, where the Paris-province divide appears once again clearly.

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In the provinces, the resistance of diesel

Thus, if 78% of the inhabitants of rural municipalities have a good image of cars with diesel engines, it is 84% ​​for cars with petrol engines. Electric is lagging behind with only 50% positive image against 60% in the Paris area. The public transport offer, although imperfect after the Autolib' fiasco, favors the idea of ​​electric in Paris, even if a growing community advocates the elimination of all cars in the city center.

The survey, limited to a sample of 1,007 people, is not fully representative since 12% of respondents do not have a driving license or never drive. We can assume that they live in the Paris conurbation, where only 19% of inhabitants use their car every day, compared to 45% in provincial urban communities and 66% in rural municipalities. It is easy to understand that the mobility problems are not the same everywhere and that the “boboized” Parisian model cannot be extended to the whole territory.

Moreover, it is in the provinces that we find the oldest cars, users being conservative by necessity, since all members of the family must, sooner or later, be motorized to ensure their social autonomy. In this context, which puts the theory of the legislator at a distance from the reality on the ground, no less than 73% of French people think that there is social and political pressure in favor of electric conversion. But if they absolutely had to give in to it in 2022, 32% of them would buy a hybrid vehicle and… a thermal one for 41% of diehards.