The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Lithium ion technology can’t compete
Sir, – I read with interest the correspondence for and against electric vehicles.
As a retired engineer who worked in companies which made battery packs for a variety of uses, I do have some knowledge of battery technology.
The first rechargeable batteries were Ni-cad, or Nickel Cadmium, which were efficient up to a point, then came Nickel Metal Hydride, (more efficient), now we have Li-ion, (Lithium Ion) even more efficient, although they can be a mite unstable, vis-a-vis one of the Samsung phone models.
Notwithstanding all this, I cannot believe that at present, electric vehicles are a 100% replacement for the internal combustion engine.
The battery in an electric vehicle will lose charge when not being used. There is no doubt in my mind that during the recent cold spell it would not be possible to use the in-car heater for 10–12 hours while stuck in a snowdrift.
Great advances have been made in petrol and diesel technology since the days of Otto Benz and Gottlieb Daimler.
I can remember diesel engines not so long ago, churning away, at the least bit of cold, using Ki-gas to encourage them to fire up.
I own a diesel car and even in minus temperatures, a few seconds after switching on, the engine fires up.
As far as pollution is concerned, my car, having a “Euro 6” engine, also has an additional 17-litre tank of a liquid called Ad-blu.
This is mostly a substance called urea. It reacts with the noxious nitrous oxide exhaust gases, and turns them into harmless nitrogen and water.
Instead of giving £5,000 grants to owners of electric vehicles, with no thought to whether windfarms will cope with the added demand, funding should be made available to further develop the tried-andtested, existing petrol and diesel technology, to make them even more efficient than the current, unstable Lithium Ion technology. D. M. Clark. Keptie Road, Arbroath.