Electric car pitfalls

SIR – Mark Scott (Letters, January 17) may well be right about the efficiency of electric cars in turning stored battery power into movement. However, he takes no account of the huge inefficiencies in the electricity generating processes and in transmission to the home.

He also neglects to mention that there is a loss of energy in transmission from plug to battery. John Hay-heddle (Letters, January 15) is correct in his evaluation of electric cars being less efficient than those that are diesel-powered.

Describing electric cars as pollution-free is also fallacious. Electricity generation is certainly not, nor are the processes that are used to build all of the generating capacity in the first place. Peter Lee

Liverpool