Electric cars plugged with no forethought

I AM worried about the following problems with electric cars:

1. If every car needs to charge overnight, consider that about 39% of Britain’s housing stock is either terrace or high-rise housing. If every car is electric, a street of 100 terrace houses will need 100 minimum charging points. Similarly, a high rise block could need a similar number. This makes no provision for visitors either, so unless a car can take a charge which will last at least a week there is infinite scope for chaos.

2. If every supplier offers a different connector to the others, there is going to be chaos in setting up charging points – or every car will need to be supplied with a multiple adaptor.

3. There are conditions under which electrical equipment becomes inert as for example when the air becomes ionised. However, there are strategic aspects to this, since a stratospheric nuclear burst would achieve this, and any all-electrical vehicle would die instantly. Petrol engines would also fail and only diesel and steam would work.

4. You can’t carry a spare gallon can of electricity.

5. Rescue vehicles will need a means of recharging the batteries of brokendown vehicles. In winter conditions this could be a dozen a day.

6. You are on the M1 in snow in January and in the mother of all traffic jams. After seven hours of trying to keep warm, you and a few hundred other drivers have no power to move anywhere. A motor bike carrying fuel can eventually reach all of you – but NOT if you are electric.

7. Electric cars are virtually silent. The noise of an approaching car has saved many a life. As a member of the Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) I have campaigned against quiet engines often enough – since the noise we make is often our shield against disaster.

I can envision other problems, but that’s just a few to start with. The enthusiasm with which the EV cause is being pursued makes me wonder – just who is profiting out of this? Bob Sunman Cardiff