Viability of electric cars

Madam, – There have been a number of letters recently proposing hydrogen for transportation (“Highly charged motoring debate”, Archibald A. Lawrie, Letters, August 15, and “Hydrogen is the future of energy”, Harry Key, Letters, August 19).

However, their main aim seems to be to disparage battery electric cars. I won’t disparage hydrogen.

Hydrogen itself is not the source of energy, and the suggested use of fuel cells simply means this supplies the electricity rather than a battery.

We still need energy to either produce the hydrogen or charge the batteries, and we would still be driving electric cars.

The difference is in the infrastructure used to get things to the end consumer. Hydrogen is a viable means to do this. We can replicate our existing fuel infrastructure.

The thing is, we already have a battery electric car we can just plug in at home or work (currently free). Very convenient. And that’s sufficient for almost everybody’s daily needs. Our car has cost us less to buy and run than a similar fossil car.

There is significant progress for long trips.

Our current car has a real world range of about 150 miles, up from the previous one’s 100, but a Tesla Model 3 LR already has a real world range of about 300 miles, even at 70mph.

And, rapid chargers may still mostly be 50kW, but there are 350kW ones here in Scotland today.

There is a climate emergency, we need to change now.

Gordon Pay.

Eden Park, Cupar.