"Electric car range figures need to be accurate" - 2023 wish list

As buyers make the switch to electric power, Mike Rutherford believes that a lack of real-world honesty could come back to haunt carmakers

Opinion - battery range honesty

Even an old cynic is occasionally forced to give credit where it’s due. So here goes: most of the all-new models in the showrooms, the latest ICE and EV tech, the driving pleasure bit, the reliability and crash safety standards – they’re all pretty much spot on these days. 

But the fresh-from-the-factory product represents only about half of the car buying/owning/driving equation. The other 50 per cent is about the numbers – and increasingly, they don’t stack up. Crippling price hikes; punishing 20 per cent VAT; some forecourts still selling diesel at £2-plus a litre; rip-off electricity prices at public chargepoints – wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.  

But the figures that could come back to haunt car makers understandably petrified of Dieselgate-like litigation are those relating to the claimed range of their respective EVs. My experiences over many years confirm that when a manufacturer quotes a headline range of, say, 300 miles, it knows deep down that the real-world number is nearer 200.

My proposed, desperately simple standard is for all sellers to publish the headline/official WLTP range numbers minus 30 per cent ‘TAH’. It stands for Truth And Honesty, qualities that the EV world can’t get enough of during this even slower and trickier-than-expected exodus from ICE cars to pure electric.

Unsure how WLTP tests are conducted? We explain all...

Chief columnist

Mike was one of the founding fathers of Auto Express in 1988. He's been motoring editor on four tabloid newspapers - London Evening News, The Sun, News of the World & Daily Mirror. He was also a weekly columnist on the Daily Telegraph, The Independent and The Sunday Times. 

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