When I talk to people about the need to tackle global warming, a great many still say that it is going to be very difficult to reduce our carbon footprint. In the eyes of many, one of the easiest wins in reducing emissions is to convert to electric vehicles. Given that private cars account for at least 20% of our total energy footprint, IF they were all electric, and IF the electricity all came from renewable sources, clearly there is a big prize here.

But like many, I have to say I have been sceptical that electric cars will ever be an attractive alternative.  There is a wonderful website I know called “ugly electric cars” which demonstrates clearly the problem.

However, my attention was caught by a tweet I picked up a month or two back with a link to Robert Llewellyn (Crichton in Red Dwarf) and his Carpool series of Internet TV interviews. He had been given a new fully electric Mitsubishi i-MiEV to test and I was immediately struck by how practical a car this was. And by its low running cost - roughly £1 per 100 miles, which was also its approximate range. Now for me, most of my car journeys are short, around Hertfordshire, so this could be a very viable option. He now has a series of internet TV videos called Gearless which will track his experience with the i-MiEV.

Unfortunately they are not available yet, and they are not cheap, and I am still trying to find a valid whole life cost comparison. In the Midlands they are leasing them at £350 per month on a government sponsored trial called CABLED which is about twice what you would pay for a Citroen C1 but only slightly more than a Mini convertible. If your monthly fuel bill is £132 (Lets assume 40 mpg, which implies 1000 miles x 0.12 litres/mile x £1.10) then the Mini would be more expensive to run than the i-MiEV.

Very back of the envelope but that is not the point - electric cars are almost affordable even before they have become mass produced.

And, as I found out when I did some more digging, they are also exciting. If you have £90,000 to spend on a sports car then the Tesla EV is for you. Made by Lotus in the UK, but a Californian invention, these cars surely put the lie to the ugly car image of Electric Vehicles.

There are plenty of nay-sayers still of course. What about the greenness of the electricity supply? Well, even assuming coal fired generation the emissions of these cars are way below petrol driven cars simply because electric motors are much more efficient than internal combustion. What about the cost of replacing the batteries? Well, Mitsubishi claim that the i-MiEV battery pack will last 10 years. What about the pollution and cost of disposing of the batteries? Well, according to Tesla’s Diarmuid O’Connell, interviewed by Robert Llewellyn (another Carpool episode - well worth watching), their batteries are designed to be completely recycled. Hype? Do your own research and let me know!

My take on this? I think the next few years will see a massive increase in electric vehicle production. Does it need help from the government? Probably yes, and that can best be made by sorting out a carbon price internationally. In the absence of that, then government grants to EV manufacturers in the UK would be a good start.

Some more links:

Cool electric vehicles

The Lightning high spec sports car - the British  answer to the Tesla - even more expensive though!

An EV Grand Prix in June 2010 in Paris

An electric Trabant - and other ideas from New Zealand EV enthusiast Gavin Shoebridge