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Tootling around town in a tiny bubble of an electric car such as a G-Wiz remains a perverse expression of middle-class one-upmanship. Zero emissions! Just-about-funky! But while my three small children all demanded rides in the last cute little electric model I tested, it's hard to envisage transporting a family around London in one. On that basis, I'm right behind Boris Johnson's call for car makers to come up with new, family-sized electric cars.
The dream of an electric, emission-free transport system is worth aiming for but we've got a long way to go. The world's first family-sized electric car, the Ze-O, was unveiled only a few months ago. And finding the juice? Westminster has dozens of public charging points but down in south London, my neighbour has to charge up her G-Wiz with an extension cord stretching from the house across the pavement to the street. If I were really deep green then maybe I'd get a pint-sized electric car to use for the trips when I didn't need to take the whole tribe and rent for the ones I did. But even for an urban green, that's a huge hassle.
Boris's call is, perhaps, a little hopeful. The "Big Three" US car firms are on the brink of collapse and are scaling back on R&D spending, not trying to design an electric dream for green Londoners.
It will take a big investment in the car firms, perhaps as part of the bail-out now being wrangled over in the US: we rescue you if you go green. The Ze-O has a range of just 65 miles and takes eight hours to charge: they can do better than that. BMW this week unveiled its Mini-E which it claims can do 95mph and has a range of 150mph. A dozen of those may be tried out on the streets of London next summer.
The electric option is going to look more and more attractive, given the long-term direction of oil prices. And cities will need to make a priority of charging points. Boris's target of 100 points is nowhere near enough.
But if all those things happened over the next 10 years, it could change the way we get around. Think how much quieter the streets would be, never mind the savings in carbon emissions, and the cleaner air.
I look forward to buying a family-sized electric car in the next 10 years. But I look forward more to getting cut up - silently - by newer, flashier electric models in Brixton. Then I will know that my electric dream for London's cars has come true.
Reader views (20)
Taking your child for a ride in a G-Wizz is probably opening you up to accusations of abuse. These things undergo no crash testing and would come very much second in any collision.
- Paul, London, 05/12/2008 10:16
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Dear LONDON,
The answer is NO?.
To get to the Capital from Scarborough I would need 240 miles of electric cable?.
Ha Ha.
MERRY CHRISTMAS.
- John L., Scarborough N.YKS. U.K., 04/12/2008 20:06
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A very efficient power station which burns fuel will convert low to mid 40% of the fuel's energy into electricity. In practice an internal combustion engine will do about half that, although a hybrid will do better. The difference is significant, but the power station emissions cannot be said to be negligible.
A big problem for city dwellers (Boris included) is having somewhere to plug the car in. Very few people in inner London are lucky enough to have a garage or a drive next to their house/flat, and even parking within an extension lead distance can be a challenge, quite apart from the dangers of trailing cables everywhere. If I could plug it in I would certainly think seriously about an electric car, but I cant. I have bought a hybrid instead.
- Nigel, London, 04/12/2008 17:07
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The present limited bunch of electric cars are cr..p. Hardly any range, slow, limited battery life, the list of failings goes on. Even if they are perfected, the energy needed to produce them and the electricity needed to charge them will cause more pollution, not less. Far better to buy a small petrol-engined car , only use it when actually necessary, and keep it for about 15 years minimum, so as to lessen the use of resources used in the manufacture of cars. For even better MPG, buy a small motorbike for personal transport-the latest Honda 125 does 134 MPG. We need some common-sense thinking about transport-instead we have a Government which advocates electric cars for all and endless runway building for unlimited aviation expansion.
- Jon Kent, Hertford. UK, 04/12/2008 14:56
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I've been an electric vehicle user for 5 years now. I love my Citroen Berlingo Electrique and was very sorry that Citroen pulled out of making electric cars. In my experience, one shouldn't be overly swayed by the savings to be made. Yes, you save a lot, but when the car goes wrong, especially when a battery fails, those savings are fully accounted for in paying for repairs.
- Bryan Armstrong, London, 04/12/2008 13:53
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I wouldnt even swap roller skates for this heap of crap.
- Sean Dempsey, hayes london., 04/12/2008 11:09
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Its simple. Give us affordable quality electric cars and we will buy them. The truth is you can still only buy the GWiz here (seeing as Nice car went bust yesterday). We've been waiting for cars from Subaru and Mitsubishi for years and they are still nowhere near hitting the showrooms. Forget the big 3, Government funds should be going on nurturing businesses like these.
- Danny, London UK, 04/12/2008 10:00
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And when one gets squashed by a chelsea 4x4 and the driver cripples his legs who will be rushing to buy one then?
- Dc, London, 04/12/2008 09:36
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I live in a block of flats - so how do I charge it? and if everyone goes electric, the price of electricity is going to rocket.
- Dave, London, 04/12/2008 08:20
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The future of electric cars may lie in converting petrol stations into battery changing stations - If changing a flat battery was as quick as filling up a conventional car with petrol, then range, and charging time become almost irrelevant. (In addition, there would be less need to carry around a very large, heavy battery).
- J Smallwood, london, 03/12/2008 20:06
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The G-Wizz isn't a 'car'; it's defined as a quadracycle. Well it's actually a rolling death-trap, and it's probably only a matter of time before a G-Wizz and its occupants gets squashed in London. It achieves what it does because it is light, because it has no modern safety features.
Nonetheless if you were allowed to replace the G-Wizz's electric motor and batteries with a tiny 3 cylinder petrol or diesel engine, you would have a phenomenally efficient 'car'.
- C Harrison, London, 03/12/2008 17:27
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The G-Wiz works. It's not about one upmanship it is simply the first succesful electric car. The reason it's so popular is because it saves you a fortune in London, is small, nippy, easy to drive and squeezes in to all the car parking spaces no-one else can - perfect for London in fact. There is a lot of noise and hype about new electric cars but they will take years to come to market. Meanwhile you could be saving all of your car emissions and around £10,000 per year in congestion charging, parking fees, fuel costs, road tax and insurance premiums from the moment you buy your G-Wiz and then upgrade when (if) these other electric cars come to market. With thousands of pounds worth of exemptions to the next owner, the residual values are good too. What's so silly about that?
- Keith Johnston, London, 03/12/2008 17:24
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For me to buy an all electric car, it would require to be able to carry up to 4 passengers, have a small boot, be able to run at speeds of up to 70 or 80 mph, and have an opperational range of at least 250 to 300 miles between charges.
Above all, it should be affordable and reasonably cheap and realiable (ie:- under £6,000-00).
- Uncle Vanya, Chelmsford England, 03/12/2008 17:08
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People on their own would mostly be better off on public transport in the London area. I sometimes need a car to carry great piles of stuff, but many of these small cars don't have a useable boot.
- Alan In Bow, London, 03/12/2008 17:07
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Rob has a point, but the essence of Andrew's argument is surely sound and welcome - the problem with many of these cars is that, ultimately, they look like the transport equivalent of a hair shirt. They appear to neatly 'prove' the point that people who are green are anti-car. Period. And this of course is simply not necessarily the case. Some take Andrew's view which is pragmatic and sensible. There was a similar issue for some with SUVs/4x4s...when you tried to explain to some campaigners that some 4x4s were actually more 'green' by their credentials than other smaller cars, they often did not really want to know. Sexy car = horns and tail. Impose taxes on it, shake the fist at its drivers and run it off the road. Better surely to make the flash car green?
- Damian Hockney, London, UK, 03/12/2008 14:13
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>>my neighbour has to charge up her G-Wiz with an extension cord stretching from the house across the pavement to the street
which of course is illegal and potentially dangerous unless a residual current detector has been used.
>>Just because there is no emissions from the car itself, what about the stuff coming from the power station used to generate the electricty
It is negligible in comparison.
- Adam, Harrow, UK, 03/12/2008 14:09
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@Rob
Well, even if you consider electric power as being produced with fossil energy only, centralized power plants have a much higher efficiency than car motors (which are at approx. 35 per cent only). They can be equipped with way better filter systems, letting out warm air only, and would reduce smog dramatically.
Moreover, we have an increasing amount of alternative energies.
Electric cars may not be the final solution, but a very big & ready to go step towards it.
Whatever eco-friendly energy sources we may have in future, electricity will be the pure result of all of them.
By the way, Tesla Motors is actually developing a family car to match Mr Johnsons vision and the British company Lightning Cars has the technology as well.
This is the typical case where new technology doesn’t have to be developed, it just have to be released…
- Michael, Germany, 03/12/2008 13:22
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Once you factor in the manufacturing, chemicals used in the batteries, generation of energy in order to charge them and the lifespan of the vehicle it is more than likely "greener" in the long run to buy a second hand Land Rover and run it into the ground.
- Bruce, London, 03/12/2008 13:08
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When an electric car has a range of 600 miles, 4-wheel drive and 7 seats, I might consider getting one.
But apart from the technical barriers, I don't have the money, as Darling keeps taking more of my income as tax and he has driven down the value of my potential trade-in vehicle to near junk.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland, 03/12/2008 13:01
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In what way is an electric car zero emissions. Just because there is no emissions from the car itself, what about the stuff coming from the power station used to generate the electricty? Or doesn't this count?
- Rob, London, 03/12/2008 11:36
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