Electric car problem

[David H]

It takes about 8 hours to charge an electric car. The range is around 100 miles on a good day, assuming it's impossible to calculate the exact amount of power you'll consume per journey, what do you do when you conk out half way home? It must happen and I literally have no idea what the drivers do.

[jake-the-peg]

Most electric cars are used for city commuting and do nowhere near 100 miles in a day, they're not appropriate or designed for inter-city or longer range driving.

In point of fact because at the moment the UK's electricity generation is mixed the actual emmissions from something like a GWhiz are not zero but are about 62gm/KM

That places it lower than any petrol car but given it's size it's not a fair comparrisom

adjust for that weight and it's not hugely better than many small petrol cars

What it does do is export pollution outside of cities where the build up of emmissions can be so damaging.

Electric cars are not a complete solution to our energy problems, just a part of the picture.

Longer term things like Hydrogen fuelled cars are probably a better bet but there are a lot of generation, storage and transportation isssues to deal with there so they're a way off yet

[chas2008]

as battery technology gets better these cars will become more viable , just look at the way mobile phone batteries have improved in size and power in the last 10-15 years..