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Are electric cars the way forward? Clearly as far as the environment is concerned of course it is so why are many fleets taking them off their options list and consumers becoming reluctant to buy or lease them? Cost has always been a problem but the costs have been dropping whilst driving ranges increase.

So why are people not only refusing to take electric vehicles but also the plug in hybrids? The answer according to Business Car is charging points. There is still a grave lack of charging points but not only that, early points need to be replaced as many are no longer working and those that are, are simply inefficient or have the wrong connection points fitted.

The Government which was fairly and squarely behind this project has let the industry down according to experts, something that Transport Minister, John Hayes is well aware of. One of the issues that needs to be addressed is the mapping of charge point locations that was to be undertaken by Government. Not only the location but also which charge points were most suitable for which car.

In a survey it was found that only 25% of fleets offered a plug in model to its drivers whilst 69% of drivers said that they would be happy to drive an electric car. John Hayes has agreed to take the issues on board and look into the infrastructure as this is clearly a barrier to EV expansion.

He is also looking into driver education although I would suggest that this isn’t needed as drivers are very much in favour of electric vehicles. So if you are looking into an electric vehicle at the moment it may be worth some extra investigation before taking the plunge. By Graham Hill

Oh dear, I once again find myself disagreeing with the self promoted ‘Motoring’s most outspoken and opinionated colomnist’ Mike Rutherford. This time over electric cars. He has described 100% electric cars as ‘stillborn’.

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He has written a rather amusing article in which he goes head to head with Richard Bruce who is the head of the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) over the reasons why we should persevere with electric vehicles(EV’s). Quite naturally Mr Bruce is heavily in favour of EV’s as without them his job pretty much becomes meaningless so of course he is in favour.

Mr Rutherford’s point is that they are expensive and you can’t cover more than 100 miles in one charge, both of which are reasonably true – at the moment. But not everyone needs a car to cover more than 100 miles in a single trip and for those that do there will come a time when cars will be able to cover over 1,000 miles with a single charge.

Look, I’m not a huge fan of electric cars but I’m not going to suggest for one minute that after spending £millions if not £billions in research that we should simply throw out the idea and revert to fossil fuel vehicles or mixtures of fossil fuel engines and battery power packs. That Mr Rutherford is simply dopey!

And don’t forget this is electricity we are talking about – just think back to the days of Thomas Edison, it only takes one experiment to solve the problem even though it may have taken hundreds of experiments previously. With what I have read and reported upon we are rapidly moving closer to the point where cars can cover several hundred miles on one charge, chargers can charge very rapidly and as volumes grow prices will tumble as a result.

Even now we can provide a Nissan Leaf, after allowing for the Government grant for less than £200 + VAT per month on a car that costs over £21,000. My money is on Mr Bruce and whilst he is very protective about EV’s I believe he has a good point and for many drivers EV’s represent the future so go off and have a whinge about something else Mr Rutherford. Don’t you just hate these people that can only moan and groan about things! By Graham Hill

You may remember the days when a mobile phone battery only lasted for 4 hours before it ran flat so the solution was to carry a spare battery that sat in the charger with the phone giving you 8 hours of standby time and 60 minutes of call time.

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Then the new batteries came along and increased substantially the standby time and talk time meaning that you could be out for a complete day and not think about the phone dying on you but what if you are nowhere near a USB connector or unable to plug in a charger? The answer could be a mobile charger.

You charge up the mobile charger which then stores enough electricity to charge your mobile around five times before the charger itself needs charging. Unfortunately the power pack takes around 5 hours to charge but given the extra range that it gives your mobile phone I don’t think that is too bad.

One such device is the Just Mobile Gum++ Charger which fits into the palm of your hand. It costs 69.95 Euros (£57) and can be bought online. Go and have a look by visiting www.just-mobile.eu well worth a look. Oh one last thing it can only be charged via a USB connector, it doesn’t come with a mains plug. By Graham Hill

I actually invented the domestic smoke detector. It’s absolutely true, I was working in a large fire alarm company called Sound Diffusion at the time. They sold their equipment for cash although most was leased and hence this is where my background in leasing started.

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After chatting to an engineer about our smoke detectors that all had to be hard wired into a central control panel I found out that the amount of electricity required to maintain a detector on standby was incredibly small. In the first instance whilst doodling one day I came up with a light bulb that above the light was a smoke detector.

I then ‘developed’ the idea further to a battery driven unit. I showed our chairman at the time and it was dismissed as not saleable. He explained that consumers never expect catastrophes to happen, ‘it always happens to the next door neighbour, not to us.’ was his conclusion. A year later a company brought out a stand alone smoke detector for £29.99 and a matter of months later Black and Decker brought out theirs for £9.99.

In the words of Del Boy I could have been a millionaire! So why have I explained my flair for coming up with amazing ideas? Well I have just been reading about the latest announcement regarding electric cars. A series of quick charge units have opened up across the centre of the country, referred to as the Milton Keynes Crosslink.

There are 14 of these charging points capable of charging a car in 20 minutes, located in Cambridge, Bedford, Milton Keynes, Buckingham and Oxford. Now I don’t know about you but I still wouldn’t feel comfortable relying upon these points to get me home in the same way that I might hope to find a service station open at 11.00 at night.

And frankly I don’t consider 20 minutes as a fast charge when I can fill my car up with diesel in 2 minutes. So have we really found the answer to the problem? I don’t think so! Hence my invention! Don’t laugh! First of all it requires all batteries that are used in electric cars to be standardised in terms of size. We also need standard fittings into which a battery could be slotted into close to the ground (the batteries are bloody heavy).

You then enter a drive through bay and with the speed and precision of a group of F1 mechanics someone comes out with a trolley type jack and removes the fitted battery whilst making a note of the electricity reading on a visible dial on the outside of the battery. A freshly charged battery is is then slid into place, locked in place and the car is good to go.

The car drives up to a payment booth, pays for the electricity that he has used, as shown on the old battery, and he is good to go. If the F1 mechanics are anything to go by a driver could be through in about 5 seconds. There you go problem solved! Oh and the old battery goes straight back on charge on a rack of fast chargers. Brilliant or what? By Graham Hill

Image via Wikipedia

Those people working on the development of electric cars are yet to run with my idea of replaceable batteries, in the meantime it looks as though we will have to go with the sort of technology that allows you to have a petrol engine in the car as well as the electric motor. However even this technology is split although both types are referred to as hybrids Read more »

Image via Wikipedia

For some time I’ve been discussing the merits (or otherwise) of electric cars. Are they fit for purpose or not? The problem is really twofold, firstly the very high cost, even allowing for the £5,000 per car subsidy from the Government, and secondly the range, which in most cars isn’t much more than 100 miles. OK make that threefold as Read more »

My gadget of the week is a tool. It’s made by Dremel and is simply called the 8200 multitool. It’s a cordless electric battery operated tool that can cut, sand, grind and carve. It is claimed to have twice the speed of its rivals and has reduced weight due to the size and weight of its smaller lithium battery that takes around an hour to charge and can hold that charge, according to Dremel, for up to 2 years. The increased Read more »

Thinking of getting an electric car? Many are but before you get too excited the institute of Engineering and Technology has calculated that you would need a battery weighing 1.5 tonnes and costing £100,000 fitted to a Ford Focus sized car to match the range of an equivalent diesel version (370 miles). This means that you would need a pack of lithium-ion batteries the weight of a mid sized hatchback to power – well – a mid sized hatchback for this distance. What do you think of electric cars? By Graham Hill

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