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Writer's pictureMichael Julien

The great electric car experiment has taken a dangerous turn - The Telegraph - 05.10.23

A 'terrifying' malfunction has added to concerns that the failures and risks of EVs are being ignored or casually explained away says Annabel Denham.


When Alfred Sloan, the former president of General Motors, promised a “car fit for every purpose”, he presumably didn’t have the kidnapping of passengers in mind.


Yet a man’s electric car broke down in spectacular fashion this week and began driving itself, leaving the motorist with no ability to brake. Only by slowly, intentionally, crashing into a police van did it finally stop. It might have been more Father Ted’s milk float than a scene from the blockbuster Speed, but the ordeal will add to the doubts among the British public over the safety of EVs.


And these are not unjustified, despite the Government barely paying them lip service. Road safety groups have long described electric cars as “silent killers”, with research suggesting they are around 40 per cent more likely to hit a pedestrian than a conventional vehicle. Last month, firefighters were called to a car park in Sydney after a lithium battery, which had been detached from an EV, ignited a blaze. Such incidents are not entirely uncommon.


Structural engineers have raised fears that older designs of car park building cannot cope with the weight of EVs, some of which have batteries weighing half a tonne, while councils have been told to check the weight limit on bridges to ensure they don’t collapse under the strain of these new, gleaming vehicles.


Even the quintessential British pastime, queueing, is not safe from the EV revolution. One motorway service station provider has been forced to bring in marshals to police “charge rage” among drivers battling for access to plug-in points because, while the Government is pushing for greater ownership, a lack of grid connections is preventing service stations from installing enough chargers to meet demand.


And there are the dangers that haven’t reached the public consciousness – but would swiftly do so were things to go awry. In prolonged power cuts, as regularly happen in rural areas, there could be serious issues around transport and emergency response capacity. While the Call The Midwife notion of nurses bicycling to call outs might seem charming, it would be less so in a wintry emergency.


There is, too, the more sinister threat from China’s dominance in the global electric vehicle supply chain. Beijing has a stranglehold on mineral processing and battery component production. It’s now starting to export EVs in bulk, too. The next time a car refuses to shut off – or just won’t start – one might wonder what else is at work. It doesn’t take a hardline hawk to worry about handing the Chinese state access to our location and movements, or the ability to incapacitate official vehicles.


The lack of consideration for these risks underscores the wider flaw in the current approach to net zero: we have allowed ideology to come before reasoned debate. The groupthink that has penetrated elite opinion has meant evidence of failure has been either ignored or casually explained away.


This is how we end up with the British state part-nationalising a fertiliser plant in order to produce CO2 for the drinks industry while spending billions to achieve net zero. It’s how environmentally-conscious members of the public find themselves ditching well-functioning gas boilers for heat pumps that may not keep them warm. And it’s how politicians who believe EVs are a technological miracle are able to force them on a public that, often, doesn’t really want them.



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