Only electric cars by 2040? This plan hasn’t been thought through
SIR – The Government plans to outlaw new diesel and petrol cars by 2040 – and it hasn’t even spoken to the car manufacturers.
The Government can have little knowledge of whether what it is about to enact is feasible in manufacturing terms, let alone whether there will be the capability of generating enough electricity to charge all the vehicles.
Technology will need to develop much more before it’s feasible. Crucially, is the United Kingdom planning to do this alone?
This project needs careful planning, which clearly it hasn’t had. Ron Gammons
Letchworth, Hertfordshire
SIR – Driving a diesel car about 4,000 miles annually in non-urban situations, I feel victimised by the government plans to tax diesel drivers.
I will be taxed for urban pollution, to which I do not contribute, and also taxed to subsidise the investment needed to meet the extra electrical demand to power electric cars.
It seems counter-intuitive to me that ministers are adopting the idea of electric cars, which have heavy, short-range, short-working-life batteries containing expensive strategic materials that are in short supply from overseas,.
Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, must have remarkable foresight if he is sure that internal combustion engine designers will not be able to produce extremely clean and efficient engines before the closure of the 23-year window he has set. J R Ball
Hale, Cheshire
SIR – Under the new electric regime a trip to Dorset from my home in Nottinghamshire will become a two-day odyssey. Looking at the figures in yesterday’s Telegraph, if I’m driving a Nissan Leaf, it will mean an overnight stop and 15-hour recharge. On arrival, I will have no car for 15 hours while I recharge it again.
I don’t like to ask, but as usual with all matters green, have they thought it through? Philip H Adwick
Caunton, Nottinghamshire
SIR – It would be more cost effective to use the extra electricity generation to manufacture liquid hydrogen for use as the primary fuel for cars. Peter Clegg
Oldham, Lancashire
SIR – Assuming a modest 10,000 miles a year, at 40 miles per gallon, a car’s annual fuel costs are about £1,100.
Leaving aside the expense of adapting household electricity supplies to cope with the recharging process, what would electric cars cost us, at today’s prices? Alan Thomas
Caerphilly, Glamorgan
SIR – What long-term effect on the environment will all the heavy metals used in battery manufacture have? Scott Charleston
Dunfermline, Fife