We’re not ready for electric cars

MANY people may not have realised it but, in the next three or four years, there is going to be a massive change to electric and, in many cases, autonomous vehicles that will drive themselves.

Tesla and General Motors are there already. Nissan on our own doorstep has announced that 13,000 people have already pre-ordered the Leaf, with its single pedal serving as an accelerator and a brake. All Volvo cars will be electric or hybrid in 2019. The leading motor manufacturers together with Dyson and Apple are retooling their assembly lines and preparing their adverts and press releases to get a share of the new marketplace.

Is the UK getting ready for this? The AA has said that eight out of 10 car owners will not buy a new car if there is no easily accessible charging point. In last year’s budget the Chancellor made £400m available to local authorities to help install them.

Only Portsmouth, Cambridge, Luton, Kettering and Kensington & Chelsea have taken advantage of it.

This will be a great opportunity to remove from our streets vehicles, especially older ones, emitting toxic carcinogenic fumes that kill 40,000 people annually. And it may reduce accidents dramatically. Less work for the overstretched NHS.

But a third of homes in England don’t have off-street parking – in many parts of Newcastle, especially Jesmond and Gosforth, streets are lined with cars alongside houses built before there were cars and garages. No one living there will be able to use a domestic power supply to charge a new car.

It will be bad news for them, and motor manufacturers too, if urban planners still regard cycle lanes as the priority. The challenge is there for the city council to make Newcastle Britain’s first electric city. Will they rise to it? ALAN SHARE