The government encouraged diesel. The effect was a whole load of people who didn't benefit from diesel bought diesel cars anyway. The used market for diesels was healthy and depreciation on diesels lower. The effect was diesels became even more attractive.
Some diesels were not very good. Some were very good. I'd say that a 3 litre turbo diesel combined with a modern automatic was (is?) one of the best drive trains ever in terms of economy, performance, pliability.
EVs on the other hand have even stronger 'incentives' in the current market - yet unlike diesels are failing.
That suggests that if you eliminate the market rigging by the government that diesels in the 2000's had more merit from a customer perspective than EVs have at the moment.
So yes - in your words 'there's a reason why the used market was always filled with MB/Audi/BMW' and it was because these vehicles were *preferred*.
And if it was not for current government market rigging - they probably still would be.
Maybe manufacturers should wake up to this and make better (or better value) EVs. (If Tesla sold the S at the sort of prices people were discussing / hoping for on these forums for 10 to 12 years ago then the roads would be full of them - but that didn't happen).
To be fair the examples you are giving regarding diesels existed in much simpler times.
Back then it was just a choice of diesel or petrol, both ‘ICE cars’ - just which flavour of juice they used.
None of this question of infrastructure, charging, range anxiety etc.
ICE vs. electric is quite a bit different. In general comparatively, like-for-like, they cost quite a lot more (with diesels there wasn’t a significant cost difference)
Aside from this, people are naturally sceptical of change, coupled with the fact that many technophobes are looking for reasons *not* to try one (including a twenty plus page long thread on a fire in a car park that probably wasn’t caused by an EV), with the sorts of reasons cited such as needing a range of 300 miles that has to be able to drive at a constant 85mph with a 5 minute maximum recharge (refuel!) time - totally ignoring any of the merits of possible ownership in 95% of circumstances.
Creosoted fences lasted longer than fences stained with modern products, and I’m sure Irn-Bru tasted better before the recipe was changed. Die hard petrol heads will miss the soundtrack of their beloved petrol-burning engines and many will find it hard to change at first and look for any reason to justify this.
Sometimes you have to move with the times, ICE cars are on the way out and EVs are taking over even if the uptakes seems a little slower than initially expected.
Yes there will always be examples where current EVs don’t suit a particular individual but I’m sure most people could use one everyday if they wanted to
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