on cars

Would you buy a new electric car if your government offered you £5000 towards it? You know, I might.

Rough estimates put the new electric models at twice the retail price of conventional infernal combustion types. I wouldn't dream of paying more than, say, £12000 for any car, so it works out to about a quarter to a third discount. One of the misconceptions I've held is that they don't perform as well. Apparently, they do (or will). The new models can attain speeds of up to 100 mph, and because electric motors produce more effective torque than ICs, they'll manage to accelerate 0-60mph in a few seconds.

Distances per charge are improving too. You'll want that. I mean, you don't want a golf buggy when you can easily get around the golf course on foot. The new Mini-E, according to BMW, will do 150 miles between charges. I expect this doesn't correspond to either 0-60 in 4 seconds or driving at maximum speed but that's a good thing too, isn't it? Not so good is it'll be just a two-seater - the back seats are lost to make space for the enormous batteries.

The downside to this story, the first models aren't expected to be available to us until 2011. Ample time for the recharging infrastructure to be put in place but possibly too late for the climate. In the meantime we have to use our cars more mindfully and less often.