Progress often happens very slowly and all at once, with the fruits of decades of research and hard work only presenting itself years down the line.
Skilled electricians know this all too well as they build up their skills by undertaking educational courses, but they are only able to truly show what they have learned once they receive their certification in the end.
This is also being seen with the surge in interest in electric vehicle charging stations over the past few years, as electric vehicles have become more capable, have better range, have been able to charge quicker and, most recently, have started to fall substantially in price.
According to a survey by Cap HPI, published in Car Wow, the second-hand market for electric vehicles has fallen dramatically, with the prices of used EVs said to be 8.5 per cent lower than similar petrol or diesel cars.
This price drop has come from two directions. There was a surge from 2019 until 2024 in the sales of new EVs, and as new generations of battery technology and electric motors have entered the market, a lot of early adopters and people who bought in at the tail end of the 2010s are looking to buy something new.
A big part of this was the release of the Tesla Model 3 in 2017, which became the best-selling battery electric car from 2018 until 2020 and opened the door for a lot of people who baulked at the price of early adoption.
The Model 3 has since been superseded by the Model Y, the MG 4 and the Audi Q4 e-tron as far as car sales as of late 2023, but the surge in new EV sales has led to an increased number of used electric cars hitting the market in 2024.
As price is a huge conundrum for many people considering owning an EV, access to a wide range of cheaper EVs will inevitably increase sales, which in turn increases the demand for EV infrastructure such as charging stations at home.
The big advantage of EVs is that they are much cheaper to run, so the only major barriers in the way of adoption have been range anxiety and upfront cost.
Lowering the latter will help adoption, but the former may still be a concern for motorists, especially as a lot of people making the switch may not entirely understand how much wear has been placed on the battery, how much range has been lost since the car was new or the eight-year warranty for batteries.
For the most part, the cars being looked at are between three and four years old, with a lot of their initial range left, so if there are concerns about mileage between charges, this may only come in comparison to newer models with more advanced, high-capacity batteries.
There is still some way to go for some car buyers; it is difficult to find a truly practical model for less than £10,000, after all. However, there are much greater long-term prospects now for people in the market to make the switch to electric power for good.