‘Will the National Grid come under pressure with a mass recharging of cars after the rush hour?’

Really? You’re kidding me’, Jeremy Clarkson might say. Perhaps with some slightly more colourful language thrown in. That’s how I feel he will have greeted the recent news that by 2040 we’ll no longer be able to buy a new diesel or petrol car, only electric. And if he were also given cold meat instead of a hot meal on the day of that announcement, you might have needed a very fast electric car to move to a safe distance!

It is also proposed that extra taxes will be imposed on the most polluting diesel vehicles as soon as 2020. Don’t worry though, that’s not 20 past eight this evening, so if you don’t fancy paying extra, you still have two and a half years to replace the diesel car that you might previously have been encouraged to purchase, because it was said to be cheaper to run and hold its value better!

However, at present one rarely sees more than two adjacent charging points at any one time, so where exactly will we be charging these electric cars, and what will we do with ourselves while we wait for them to charge up? Will petrol stations offer electric charging points instead of fuel pumps, or will they only sell food and drink and just be renamed stations, which will confuse the issue when a train pulls in to one and blocks off the night pay window on your way home from work? Surely the National Grid would also come under immense pressure with a mass switch-on of recharging after the rush hour?

Obviously, poor air quality is the biggest environmental risk to public health in this country, and if you’re an asthma sufferer, I sympathise with you greatly. There’s nothing worse than breathing in a mouthful of toxic waste from the exhaust of an old taxi. But, in truth, who won’t miss that incredible roar of the five-litre Jaguar F-Type exhaust and the thrill of winding down a country road with the windows down, listening to the car rather than the radio? And that’s coming from someone who has made his living from being on that radio!

We’re already taxed heavily – and rightly so –for having fuel-guzzling, rip-roaring large-engine cars, so shouldn’t we still be allowed to choose that option rather than being forced into an electric one. Especially since (at the current point in their development) they’re usually more expensive to buy than their fuelled equivalents? The only electric cars I like the look of are the sporty BMW i8 (a hybrid) and the Tesla Roadster, both of which look feisty enough to fuel some excitement, at least.

I’m running out of charge now

(I did warn you) and I can’t see anywhere to plug in, so I’ll wrap up by mentioning that despite all my fears, all is not lost for me and old motoring journalists. If, like me, you love the roar of the exhaust from a petrolfuelled sports car, when 2040 arrives we could always Bluetooth that sound through our car stereos to remember the good old days – even when we’re stationary and looking for a power point to charge our new car!

This week’s columnist:

Television presenter and DJ

Pat Sharp