Is the country ready to embrace the electric car?

sir – Stanford University’s report predicting the rise of electric cars (Business, May 15) misses three important areas of concern.

First, the necessary quantum leap in battery technology has not yet been achieved, and there is no guarantee that it will be achieved in the near future. Secondly, governments will surely seek to replace fuel duty and this will make running an electric vehicle as expensive as a petrol car today.

Finally, charging an electric vehicle requires a very large power supply. A complete, costly rewiring of our streets would therefore be necessary. This would take years. Charles Pugh

London SW10 sir – The prediction from Professor Tony Seba of Stanford that petrol cars will be unavailable within eight years is overeager, probably to the tune of several decades.

Nevertheless, the world must shift to battery electric cars and other options, such as hydrogen-electric.

Shell has developed a charging system that can help local power grids cope with the influx of electric cars. This is important, since plugging one in is not like plugging in an iron; it is more like plugging in another house. We will also soon start installing charging posts on Shell forecourts across the country. Sinead Lynch

Chairman, Shell UK

London SE1

Raring to go: two prototype electric vehicles are put through their paces in London, 1966