Electric dreams

To some extent I would agree with George Shering (Letters 22 November). Some electric cars in the right hands are a good thing. The right hands would be those who are mainly urban drivers with home charge points and who drive only a short distance each day. The real problem would be extending usage to all drivers, noting that in Scotland we have about 2.5 million cars and vans.

Just ten minutes at a filling station provides me with two weeks’ average driving whereas domestic electrics at 12kw maximum would require a total ten hours for the same – tolerable if you have a usable garage ( how many do?) with a charging installation. Faster chargers at public points would only partially solve the problem but just imagine hundreds of thousands trying to simultaneously charge their cars on the way home from work or a charge point at each public parking space – and all these vehicles charging not in off-peak hours but during the day.

Electric vehicles, like wind turbines, will be good in manageable numbers but to simply replicate our current pattern of usage with electric vehicles instead of petrol/diesel within a decade or so to me seems wishful thinking. (DR) A MCCORMICK

Kirkland Road Terregles, Dumfries