Electric Cars: UK Behind the Times?

We have all heard how the UK Government is now offering up to £2000 for anyone who wants to trade in their car of at least 10 years old for a new one. Maybe a good offer if you was going to buy a new car anyway, otherwise this is a total waste of time. Of course, the Government is attempting to encourage sales in the UK as the recession is now biting extremely hard on companies, such as the motor industry. They also claim that they would like to see people getting rid of their old polluting cars and buying a newer cleaner running vehicle. Fossil fuel = clean? Hm mm… Not too sure on that one. One thing I do recognise however is their wish to push electric vehicles. In my view this is way overdue. To say that the technology is new is utter rubbish. Do you remember the old Milk Floats? They have been in operation now for decades. Okay I admit, taking the family on holiday at 10-20mph isn’t very convenient, but the idea of electric powered vehicles has always been there. If more money was invested in this technology 20 years ago, then maybe petrol vehicles today would be a thing of the past?

The one thing that I do find amusing about all this is how the UK companies claim that they can only give us a small electric car that can only do around 40-50 miles on a charge, with which the charge takes around 7 hours. Considering the UK is supposed to be one of the richest nations in the world today, how have we got so far behind in technology? I personally have been investigating electric vehicle use in the U.S over the last few years, and have not only found that their production of a recent electric car (the Tesla Roadster) is miles ahead in technology to our efforts, but the U.S. also has a huge amateur following of electric cars too! The embarrassing thing is that one of the typical amateurs has built his own electric vehicle that ran up to around 200 miles per charge! So the question is, why can’t our own car makers do the same? Then of course we have those people who say that charging your electric vehicle will be damaging to the ozone because you are using energy from an ozone depleting power station. Well, yet another amateur in the U.S. is running a modified Toyota 4×4 on batteries that are charged in his garage by a power charger connected to solar panels on his roof! Now that is 100% green! Again, why is this not thought of over here? I sometimes wonder if the Governments of the world really are serious about electric cars.