Many weeks ago, someone in the real estate industry mentioned casually that with all the car companies moving into Electric Vehicle (EV), this means that the landed homes will continue to be popular. It may be even more popular because of this EV trend. Well, I personally think EV will become more and more popular, especially if all the car companies are also producing them. I mean if we as consumers do not have a choice of non-EV, of course we will have to buy the EV.
As for the assertion that landed homes becoming more and more popular because of EV, well, it will always be popular, with or without the EV. Let me tell give you 4 reasons why.
#1 Better NOT just have the charger at home I am not sure about you but I drive interstate quite frequently (pre-COVID). Some of the places I go to are landed and some of the places I go to are not. They may be malls, hotels, they may be some tourist spot and they may just be plain outdoor hiking spots. It means EV owners MUST have access to charging facility WHEN they need it and NOT just when they are home, safely. Or having to queue up hours for a charging facility because everyone drives an EV and the hotel have just 3 charging car parks? Or, we could limit all these EV owners to just the range since by then, the range could easily be 500, 600 or 700km?
#2 Those petrol stations need to survive, too. Assuming every car sold is now EV. Well, the owners of petrol cars would still be around for at least 10-15 years after the last petrol car was sold. it means that they will continue to pump petrol BUT the petrol stations also realise that instead of having their whole station catering to 20 cars for fuel, half of the station could be converted to quick charging facilities. Any EV owner could now just drive to any station, have a quick recharge of 15-20 minutes for their EV and at the same time maybe a cup of coffee too from the store in the station? This meant there is NO NEED to always be so reliant on home charger…
#3 Charging will soon be needed by the 600,000 EV owners (just in Malaysia, just for 1 year) On a yearly basis, Malaysians buy around 600,000 cars, mostly petrol ones currently. In the future, perhaps every single car sold would be and EV. So, we are talking about 600,000 EVs every year. I am not sure about you but I seriously do not think Malaysia builds enough landed properties for all these new EV owners. I mean, this is just for one year. What about year 2, 3, 4 and beyond? Or do we want to limit the sale of EVs to only landed home owners? 😛
#4 The business model may be swapping and not a quick charge at the station One day, the batteries for these EVs are not going to be as expensive as today. Just look at the smartphone batteries for a clue. The prices continue to become lower. When the batteries become cheap enough, some businesses may be able to buy enough them, charge all of them at the same time and charge EV owners a monthly rental instead. For example, when the battery is down to the last 20% power, the EV owner could drive in to a centre (maybe that petrol station), the operator brings out a fully charged battery, swaps it with ours and we could drive out in minutes.
Anyway, the earliest some car manufacturers are going to shift fully to producing EVs would probably be 2030 or later. Everything will continue to evolve. Just remember that not many countries would tell their people to stop using their current car and switch over to EV immediately. Any government doing that will soon be out of the government. It will be a phase, a gradual one. the whole industry will continue to change to cater to the huge number of new EVs. Switching from building high-rise to building just landed homes is not one of the main options even if landed homes would still be popular whether with or without EV. Happy buying one.
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