My neighbours have a 63 plate Nissan Leaf......an older car by now but the batteries are (apparently) at around 90% efficiency. How this is is measured is unknown to me but I was impressed.
Recently they headed off to the Smoke, planning their route via charging points. It was a nightmare for them finding either broken / vandalised points or simply queues and they vowed - never again.....particularly in the dark and winter.
Anyway, some obvious questions....
1) Has the UK sufficient infrastructure to provide enough electricity for us all? -
yes, there is many diesel and gas gensets in the UK which sit dormant, but are on a aplan where when needed they can load electricity to the grid to keep the lights on.
2) Surely the economic savings for EV users will quickly disappear? -
if energy prices keep going the way they are i would presume so, the government has also got ideas on a new road tax plan also, EV's will only be cheap to run for a short while.
3) Surely the planet has limited resources of lithium / vanadium or whatever do avoid total devastation of areas of land? -
yes, the batteries can be recycled, but its very dangerous and expensive (costs more to recycle than mine new) and so far only around 5% of lithium batteries are recycled, as time goes on and investments made, i'm sure this will improve rapidly..
4) Has the recycling facilities of spent units been considered?
as above.
John