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No mention as yet of reintroducing a scrappage scheme. Instead of parting with your combustion-engined vehicle for next to nothing, you will be paying extra taxes so that the Government can buy your car from you.
http://c8.alamy.com/comp/C42NJ1/battery-recycling-container-in-public-shopping-area-C42NJ1.jpg
There are two issues with electric cars right now. 1) Range, and 2) ease of charging.
Range depends on battery technology, which has been improving at a very slow rate as far as I can tell. The next big thing is always "5-10 years away".
Currently Mercedes quote 120 miles as the range for this car, but this is like the traditional MPG values from the car manufacturers, to be taken with a pinch of salt.
As standard we get about 75-80 miles range. And in special "extra charge" mode, you can get about 100 miles. But we suffer extreme "range anxiety" if we get down to the last 10 miles or so. It seems that for a normal charge, 100% charge actually only charges to 80% of the battery's capacity. This is because it's apparently bad for the battery to charge to a true 100%. Pressing the extra charge mode button before charging allows you to get the true 100% but at the cost of shortening the battery life somewhat.
Ease of charging is another thing altogether. Some cars use so-called "Rapid charging" which I think can take about half an hour to get you to about 80%. My car does not support this and will take 5-7 hours depending on how run down it is.
I live 60 miles north of London and a day trip there requires planning and charging for several hours. I recently dropped my daughter at Heathrow airport and had to hang around for 4 hours while the car charged in the short-term car park. At least the charging is free there apart from the parking cost, which is probably less than the fuel I would have needed in my old car. But it's a pain.
The charging networks are a nightmare, there are several disparate ones that need various smartphone apps or RFID cards to make them work. There are several types of incompatible connector. Often a charging post will be out of service and you might not know until you get there. Chargers are irregularly spread around the country and may already be in use or the parking space blocked by an ICE (internal combustion engine) car. In the short term we need the charging networks to switch to using PAYG via bank card. If TFL can do it, why not? And more posts, and better reliability.
In the longer term we are going to need something to make longer journeys viable without many stops for charging. I think that unless battery technology improves by a huge factor, and allows a charge in a few minutes, the only realistic way to do it is to have swappable batteries that the equivalent of petrol stations will provide - take out the old and put in the new fully charged one in a few moments.
I keep banging on about hydrogen fuel cells. You can fill up in a few minutes like with a conventional car. [For those who like the roar of a V8 you could potentially run one on hydrogen as well and just get water vapour out of the tail pipe].
Battery powered cars will play a part. For two car families, they will make sense as a second car. If all your driving is short journeys they may also make sense as your only car, but for anyone who does long journeys, fuel cells look more promising than batteries at the moment.
They would also solve the problems around supply and demand on the grid. You generate the hydrogen when there is surplus solar/wind - which is a good way of storing it. With battery cars, everyone would be plugging in at the same time after the evening rush hour when there won't be any solar for most of the year. It's going to cause all kinds of headaches for the electricity companies.
There are two fuel cell cars currently on the market in the UK from Toyota and Hyundai, with a version of the Honda Clarity due soon. The government needs to start pushing the creation of a network of hydrogen filling stations.
I can see the logic in a lecky car for short runs. I have a 10 mile round trip each day for work. I don't need to run a diesel Mondeo to do that, and in fact I'd be perfectly happy with a lecky car as long as it was warm, and dry, and got me there and back reliably.
Fuel cells - why haven't they made an impact yet?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/25/new-diesel-petrol-cars-banned-uk-roads-2040-government-unveils/
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
EDIT - COST!
I knew it!
I wonder if my earlier analogy of Betamax Vs VHS will apply - fuel cell Vs batteries? I read that Elon Musk said they're a non-starter right now, and there's issues with hydrogen storage. There are parallels to be drawn with the battery issues, there.
A fuel cell would, as would a hybrid. In the meantime, I shall continue to cause thousands of deaths by driving my 5.5 litre gas guzzling polluting monster.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!