Alternatively Fuelled Cars And My Diet
Wednesday, 10. October 2018
If you’re like me and constantly on a diet, which clearly isn’t working or we wouldn’t still be on one, we fool ourselves into believing that we stick exactly to the diet but in truth, we have all the right intentions but when it comes to the crunch we fall short and succumb to chocolate, biscuits, cakes and much more. So whilst we know what we should be doing we do the complete opposite!
It seems that this is the case when it comes to the switch away from fossil fuels to planet-saving alternatively powered cars such as hybrids and electric cars. To prove the point fleet management company CLM carried out a survey amongst car drivers. 400 drivers were asked a series of questions with the following results: 24% said that they would consider a fully electric car, 32% said the same for a plug-in-hybrid and 36% said they would consider a conventional hybrid.
However, in the real world where people swear they are sticking to their diet – but aren’t, these people who say they would go green or greener with their next car are saying it because they want people to believe they actually care about the planet. The truth is that they do care but money talks and if it’s cheaper to buy and run a diesel or a petrol car – that’s the choice made for them.
So back here in the real world, just 0.57% of the cars registered are pure electric, 1.83% are plug-in-hybrids and 3.38% conventional hybrids. That is crazy! Are we all fooling ourselves into believing we can continue as we are because everyone else will switch over to cleaner cars or is it simply down to cost? Or could it be, as CLM MD John Lawrence alluded to – simply down to education?
They found that only 26% of those surveyed could identify a plug-in hybrid whilst 38% could identify a conventional hybrid. On the other hand, 64% could identify a fully electric car. Whilst most of us look on and see how cars are evolving at a rapid rate we struggle with understanding how the vehicles work and how they improve the environment. If your car usage consists of several short trips around town every day then a Plug-In Hybrid or electric car would be the best but forget the electric and possibly the Plug-In Hybrid if your daily usage requires you to drive long distances.
You could end up spending many a pleasant hour sitting on the hard shoulder of a motorway. So whilst most of us would like to think we are environmentally conscious, in truth we could all do a lot more to bring pollution levels down but for each of us the question is – at what cost? By Graham Hill
