To save you reading the rest of this here is the main point; if, as seems likely, there is a major breakthrough in battery technology in the next couple of years any car bought now is going to have a resale value in four years measured in  peanuts.

Research into improved batteries is now a hot item, after years of little activity on this front money is pouring into the field and reported breakthroughs happening almost weekly from Stanfords silicon nanowire lithium ion ba to battery to St Andrews air fueled battery not forgetting the mysterious EEStor super capacitor. This all suggests that radical improvements are in the offing and that cars with ranges of 300 miles plus are possible and likely.

Now, those who don’t know me might expect a long discourse on how great this might be from the point of climate change, I’m afraid not, what does excite me is the over whelming fun that electric vehicles will bring. The main thing to notice is that an electric motor that can drive a car briskly is about the size of a melon. It requires little cooling, has no exhaust, few moving parts and has almost no vibration. Compare that to a current car; a huge engine consisting of hundreds of moving parts shaking the car to an early grave. Add to this nightmare regular servicing, parts that require replacement, especially the exhaust, and you begin to wonder why anyone would ever buy such a millstone!

Take the internal combustion engine out of the car and the the possibilty emerges of cars that could be built to last decades, cheaper to run (even with the higher taxes required to compensate for the lack of petrol tax), be much simpler to manufacture opening up car manufacturing to a much greater range of suppliers.

But it’s not just about the utilitarian aspect of car transport that could improve, the fashion aspect could leap forward, imagine a basic car chassis that could have the body work replaced as whim took you, imagine the huge varity of body shapes that could appear released from the tyranny of huge engine/exhaust/liquid fuel tank.

Now back to my original point; if the electric revolution happens the resale value of your car will disappear. To put it bluntly; people buying a new car now are taking a gamble AGAINST a scientific and production technology breakthrough in batteries. I wish you luck with that one!