THE PEOPLE

London Electric Cars

Matthew Quilter’s enthusiasm is infectious. You get the impression his company will try anything to see if it works, and that he thinks the electric classic’s time has come. ‘The market is changing,’ he says. ‘We could do a conversion with a 40-miles range for maybe £15,000, which might be plenty for a local commute, but people want to be able to go further and faster.’ He uses bits from existing electric cars where possible, both to keep costs down and because it’s greener to recycle components. ‘Tesla, for example, uses lithium-ion batteries that have a lot of energy density, but are quite volatile, so you have to be careful. Both the Land-rover and the Morris Minor use lithium-ion phosphate batteries that are old-tech but cheap, because no-one wants them anymore.’