Hi, I wonder if any of you own or are thinking about buying an 'electric car?'

There are other choices besides purely electric cars. There are cars that run on conventional diesel or petrol and electric. These may switch between fuel and electric when they think appropriate (at points the manufacturer has deemed appropriate) or at your choice. When in fuel mode they may re-charge the electric battery or they may need plugging in. Or there are cars that are all electric that also need plugging in.

Lots of the major manufacturers seem to be producing either all electric cars or duel fuel. At least one major manufacturer is selling you the car excluding the batteries but leasing the batteries to you. This presumably means that they will simply replace the battery when it fails and you continue to pay the leasing charge. If this charge (and the associated charge for the electric you use to re-charge the battery) is no more than you would normally pay for diesel or petrol then the cars may still be cheaper to run because of the reduction in road tax and London charges.

I am told that in London people are simply bringing out their cable for charging the cars and laying it across the pavement to their car but as a lucky Northerner I would charge it in the garage. Using the cheaper electric at night on my white meter might also help. I assume you would only have to use the full 14 hours charging time (if this right) if you had an all electric car and were doing the 100 miles a day. However, I doubt whether most people do this kind of mileage on a regular basis. Doing 26000 miles a year means a 100 miles a day, 5 days a week and no holidays and it seems unlikely that many people are doing this. Nevertheless an all electric car is unlikely to be a travelling salesman's first choice of vehicle.

There are lots of other environmentally friendly ways of changing vehicles as well, engine downsize and turbo charging, micro hybrid and start-stop systems, tyre pressure monitoring systems, low rolling resistance tyres etc etc. Personally, I am definitely going to research the dual fuel electric/diesel - petrol, for my next car change but as someone pointed out I should also consider the carbon footprint of changing the car at all.

Yes, I've considered it - but rejected for the moment.

I think they're perhaps about 2 or 3 years away from being a realistic option for many people because of a combination of initial cost, lack of choice, limited range and recharging issues.

One you have one, they are certainly cheaper to run, but I think the initial outlay is more expensive than an equivalent tradditional car.

Electric cars are of course not pollution free. The process of making the lithium-ion batteries produces pollution and of course the generation of electricity generates pollution. However, the advantage is that the pollution occurs within a controlled environment rather than across millions of streets, so in theory, the pollution can be reduced more easily.

I think electric cars typically take about 14 hours to recharge, so that limits use for many.

I love the idea of getting solar panels for your garage or car porch, allowing you to recharge and therefore run your car on free power! (once you made the initial outlay of course!)

With out doubt, the future of motoring. I think we'll start to see mass adoption towards the end of this decade.

This is something I have thought about but could never work out the logistics of how I could do it!

My main issue is with recharging and lack of places to do it. I don't live in a large city which currently is where the majority of electric cars are and thus there are no dedicated recharging spots near me.

As MrWallet states, electric cars will be the future, but I am not sure we are quite ready for all of us to start adopting them.

I've been very interested in this myself, but as I currently can't afford better than a 1998 Corsa I've some way to go before considering an electric car, and wouldn't want to buy one until I could be sure that they could travel at least the distance of the country anyway!

I read up on the offer of grants to have charge points fitted outside your house, for personal use or public, but again this requires you to have your own property - if you don't, perhaps you'd have to re-charge in a public place, which could be another hassle.

I would not consider an electric car at the moment. Their current range is about 100 miles which is OK for many of us for everyday motoring if we live in a city but not for longer journies or remote rural areas.
The other problem is cost. Industry estimates suggest that an all-electric car with its expensive lithium-ion battery will cost up £25,000, well out of my price range.
It seems that the best bet for the future will be a mix of car technologies as at present there is no structure for recharging electric cars as there is for refueling with petrol.
With regard to running costs, I don't see these as being any cheaper than a conventional car. You have to use electricity to charge the battery and the batteries will not last for ever and are very expensive.
I don't think that electric cars are a 'green' solution either. Apart from the production of the batteries which in itself is not very green, if in 20 years time we are all using all-electric cars, then we simply will not be able to produce enough electricity to power the cars.
We would have to build many more power stations and probably have to start burning more coal in power generators to feed the demand for all this electricity. How green would your green car be then?

Hi Lillie

An interesting question. I would like to think that we will all be driving greener cars in the future, especially since fuel is dwindling and becoming so expensive, but I'm not sure that electric cars are the way to do it.

The batteries only have a limited shelf life and are very expensive to replace - running into the thousands. For most that would price cars out of everyday life.

Some very interesting comments have been made about more power stations to make more electricity which doesn't sound very green! Also other than camping sites, I can't think of places outside of say London where you could recharge your battery - and how much would this cost you to do?

I think cars run on Water or steam could be a viable option -the theory is already there because they used to run Steam Engines (although they would have to take coal out of the equation - so why not investigate and develop that?

I recently spoken to my 'fountain of all knowledge' here and his view, and I suggest an excellent one at that, is that electric cars are currently in 'beta' stage and as such no where near replacing the conventional petrol or diesel fuel efficient vehicles. Sure they will work but they are low on range and recharging facilities. He also maintains that the required electric fuel cells will deteriorate due to the high current demands and their cost of replacement ( once outside warranty ) would scare the average driver to death! Saying that I have heard that the new Toyota Auris Hybrid ( uses both petrol driven and electric driven engines ) is a revelation, what with £0 road tax and 70mpg but with a high purchase cost. That sounds fine until it goes wrong or the warranty expires and what then? I love the idea of this car but I just feel that the warranty may be limited on the electric fuel cell and I fear the repair/replacement costs when out of warranty. I suggest that it is all just too new and innovative at this point and hope that future development will ease people's fears here.