Powering through problems with regard to moving to an all-electric car society

All the interest currently focused on our future need to use all-electric cars (your report, 27 July) consistently ignores the main drawback faced by these cars – their unpredictable range. The distance that an electric car will travel on one charge depends on a whole raft of factors.

These are mainly: the driving conditions, the time of day or night, the air temperature, the number of passengers, the driving style, the topography of the journey and the road surface, among other things.

Despite the competing escalating, and sometimes fanciful, claims of the car manufacturers they all know that battery technology still has a long way to go before electric cars are finally fit for service.

PETER LAIDLAW Bramdean Rise, Edinburgh I have recently contributed, in The Scotsman 200 features, to the debate about replacement of fossil fuels with electric power in road vehicles.

I notice that the debate has now recently received greater publicity, perhaps fuelled by recent news from certain car manufacturers that electric cars will be produced as a major purchase option.

There are many issues to be discussed and resolved before all road vehicles are powered by sources other than those derived from fossil fuels, and big changes to lifestyles will have evolved by the time these changes have come to pass.

My immediate concern is for our experts to separate the wood from the trees so that the general population can be informed and be able to make a valued judgement as to the proper way forward.

One of the top problems needing to be addressed is the amount of additional electric power needed to provide this conversion. Without access to all the necessary data I am not able to make an assessment for this figure, however, I am convinced that there is no way alternative renewable energy will make up the projected shortfall within the timescales quoted, if ever.

The only solution to this problem will be the construction, in the next ten years or so, of several nuclear power stations. Direct conversion of solar energy to electric power is a castle in the air – but so was the invention of electricity and its use by Michael Faraday in the early 18th century! BRIAN BROTHERSTON

Links Road Longniddry, East Lothian Using my electric toothbrush this morning I felt a sense of guilt. What would happen if everyone had such a device. Where would the electricity to charge them all come from? Then I learned that by 2040 all cars must be electric. So where on earth would the electricity to charge them come from? I was beginning to panic.

But of course, I realised that if millions of electric cars were to be compulsory, the government must be on top of the situation, and many new power stations will be being built to cope. What a relief! MALCOLM PARKIN Gamekeepers Road Kinnesswood, Kinross