I can't get past the fact that some one has to live next to the power stations which will have to produce all this "clean" power and we are already very exposed if we have a bad winter. Can the grid provide enough electric power for us just to live?
Indeed. In France only about 18% of electricity is produced by burning hydrocarbons, so the environmental argument for plug-in electric cars holds far more water than it would in the UK, where an electric car is mainly just moving the pollution somewhere else. One also has to consider if the infrastructure of the national grid is adequate to provide all the charging required for our cars if we all rush out and buy electric ones, as it seems there may be shortfalls in generating capacity on the horizon even without this extra demand.
My dear old dad (who served on diesel electric submarines) likes to point out that there's nowt new about hybrids. I suspect ultimately hybrids with fuel cells to top up the batteries may be the way forward.
