Courier Autumn

Page 34 Mr Hartridge's Car Have you put the car on charge? This is going to become an increasingly common question as more and more families switch their cars from petrol or diesel to hybrid or fully electric. In the near future, plugging the car in at night to top up the battery will become as important to most people as it is now for your smartphone. Electric cars have been available for over 20 years now, but the take up has been slow due to concerns over purchase costs, how far you could drive using the battery and how to recharge them. Hybrid cars that could use both petrol and electric were more common as drivers had reassurance in case the battery ran out. But they still give out harmful gases and surveys showed that most drivers tended to rely on the petrol engine rather than the electric motor. About 10 years ago fully electric cars began to become popular, led by companies such as Tesla, Toyota and Nissan. In November last year we took the decision to finally get rid of our old petrol-powered Ford Fiesta and replace it with a fully electric Nissan Leaf. It had taken quite a few months of reading up on battery capacities, charge point availability and driving range before we felt confident that going electric was the right decision for us. So far our experience of ‘going electric’ has been very positive, but not without incidents and adaptions. Running out of petrol or diesel is never a really big deal when there are so many garages available. Recharging points are not so common, so a journey back from Exeter had to be broken in Ashburton to call in on some friends so we could top-up the battery. Longer journeys take quite a bit of planning, and a recent trip to Brighton took over 7 hours due to the two full recharges that were necessary to cover the 220 plus miles. Having a car that produces zero emissions of carbon and other toxic chemicals into the air is of course the main attraction of driving an electric car. The incentive of zero ‘road tax’ is just an added bonus. Using power that can be generated from renewable sources such as sunlight, wind or wave power is another great environmental benefit. Recharging costs vary depending on whether you do it at home or at public rapid charge points, but we reckon the cost is about half what it is per mile with our old petrol car. Set against that are the concerns about the chemicals extracted and used to make the powerful batteries needed by electric cars. The mining of lithium, graphite and cobalt all have environmental impacts that will only grow as the demand for batteries increases. Additionally most of the electricity currently used to recharge the batteries is still generated from environmentally damaging and non-renewable sources such as coal, oil and gas. But environmentalists are pushing the electric car movement and have persuaded many national governments to set targets for phasing out petrol, diesel and even hybrid cars. In the UK the sale of these should end by 2035, just 15 years away, and the government now offers grants to help people buy electric cars. They also provide grants towards the cost of a home charging point, to provide faster and easier charging at home. As the batteries in newer electric cars get larger capacities so their mileage range increases and the availability of recharging points grows, the popularity of electric cars will continue to increase. The most important thing is having a fully charged battery in the car at the start of the day – it just needs someone to remember to plug the car in to charge it up.