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Motoring news

Cleaner energy needed alongside electric vehicles

26/05/2010

The widespread take-up of electric vehicles (EVs) would not alone be enough to make a significant impact on climate change, according to a new report by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Electric vehicles: charged with potential says that UK electricity production - the majority of which is still from burning coal or gas - must become greener. Unless this fundamental change is made to electricity production, it argues, the benefit from an EV compared to an efficient traditionally-powered car, is "negligible".

The proportion of UK energy generated through renewable and low-carbon sources is among the lowest in Europe, the report says.

It also identifies four "major technical issues" that need to be addressed in order to make EVs a viable alternative.

These include producing cost-effective batteries with a life cycle that makes their use "economically viable", building charging points so that owners without off-street parking can recharge their vehicles, and also improving the electricity distribution infrastructure for the use of millions of vehicles.

Chair of the academy's electric vehicles working group, Professor Roger Kemp, said that establishing EVs as the norm for personal transport was "only one aspect" of reducing emissions.

"When most electricity in Britain is still generated by burning gas and coal, the difference between an electric car and a small, low-emission petrol or diesel car is negligible," he added.

Meanwhile, a report from environmental charity WWF Scotland has claimed that by 2020, at least one in 10 vehicles on the country's roads must be electric in order to fulfil Scotland's climate change targets.

Watt Car?: the role of electric vehicles in Scotland's low-carbon future found that at least 290,000 petrol vehicles will have to be replaced by EVs over the next 10 years. However, this will also have to be accompanied by "reversing the projected increase in car use" - if not, the number of petrol vehicles that would need to be replaced by EVs would soar to 1.5 million.

The report argues that by 2020, EVs must account for 20% of all new sales.

Dr Sam Gardner, WWF Scotland climate change policy officer said that the country's devolved government must "kick start this transformation" by ensuring that every public sector vehicle is electric by 2020. However, he added that EVs "are no silver bullet in our response to climate change", and pointed to a need for a "far greater effort to reverse our current reliance on private vehicles".

Research published in 2008 by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry found that Scotland - an exporter of energy to England and Northern Ireland - could hit its target for 50% renewable sources by 2020, but that this would be likely to require a five-fold increase in wind farms.

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