The state holds the key to driving up electric car use

Cars are still the fastest rising cause of UK greenhouse gas emissions – producing 38m tonnes a year – and look set to increase their lead as road traffic continues to grow by 2% a year. Yet there is no policy in place to get cars off the road to contain or reverse the trend. But this does not mean that the government’s goal to cut emissions by 60% by 2050 is doomed. An obvious way out of the car impasse is to encourage a switch away from petrol-driven internal combustion engines to electric cars.

It has been well understood since the early 1990s that widespread adoption of plug-in electric drive technology could be practical. The only barrier to implementation was the lack of safe and affordable high-power batteries with a vehicle lifetime service rating. But now, as a result of materials innovations, high-power, long-life batteries that recharge in 10 minutes and can power electric plug-in vehicles and hybrids are being manufactured in the US.


Several electric cars are now coming off the production line. A Canadian company has produced an all-electric, five-passenger sports utility truck that has a 130-mile range and can cruise at motorway speeds with the air conditioner running. In the US, Phoenix Motorcars has announced it is to introduce a family version SUV that can reach 0-60mph in less than 10 seconds. Moreover, mile for mile, it could be far cheaper to drive electric cars than petrol. More striking still, the maintenance costs of battery electric vehicles are only a quarter of even the most durable regular engines.

So why are electric cars not taking the market by storm? Two obvious reasons are cost and a lack of government support, and – more insidiously – there has been resistance by the oil industry. In 1996, the California Air Resources Board required carmakers to offer electric cars for sale as part of an effort to reduce air pollution. The big companies, at great cost, began to produce electric cars in very small numbers. Some then sued the state of California to have this requirement repealed, and the federal government joined the lawsuit on their side – inexplicable until one recalls the close ties between George Bush and the oil industry. The US government won, and all production of electric cars stopped. Some carmakers even demanded that electric cars bought under lease should be returned. They then scrapped them.

Guardian