Dave Plowman (News) wrote:


Everyone and his dog announce an electric car every few years as 'the
technology is now here' Except that it's not, and is a long way off at an
economic price to replace the IC engine. And of course domestic
electricity isn't taxed unlike road fuels. So if it became the norm for
road use the price advantage would soon disappear.


I don't know. They'd have to apply duty to all electricity then - it's not
like you can stick a chemical marker on the electrons. I suspect duty on
all electricity would be a real vote killer.

I was wondering about the 70A charging mentioned earlier too. 63A would be
more convenient as there are plugs and sockets already available at this
rating. In theory the RECs should love this, if the car could be charged on
a timer overnight when other demands are low.

I've always suspected that an electric car could kick the nads off IC
engined types. Motor and control technology is already pretty polished -
problem has always been with storing enough electricity. Back in the 80's
someone developed a sodium battery that was supposed to be the answer. Then
there were batteries based on aluminium. This one does sound a bit more
hopeful as it is using mainstream technology - the residual problem 1 now
being cost - but we've seen many cases where that's sorted itself out
(early mobile phones were not cheap for example).

Problem 2 is infrastructure - for this to really take off, you need to have
top up points available, probably at roadside cafes or car parks. Not
insoluble.

Cheers

Tim