EV SOLUTION
▶ All the people front of house are exclaiming how good these electric cars are, but the innocent at the back can see that they are not very good at all. Unless you can charge your car at home and all you need it for is to do local journeys, then an electric vehicle will not be very practical compared to a petrol or diesel vehicle because the latter will have a much greater range and be much easier to re-fuel.
Even then there is still the problem of battery failure, the cost of which could well write the car off.
Plus they have a nasty habit of catching fire and when they do it is catastrophic.
If, in the future, the batteries are cheaper, can hold more charge, are not made with rare earth minerals and can be recharged quicker – plus we can generate limitless amounts of electricity, then maybe they would work.
In the meantime why do we not concentrate on Hybrids that can run on electric power through towns and engine power out of towns now that could work. Maybe not as perfect but practical. Robin Scammells
I still use a screen ice scraper/ squeegee which came as a free gift from Practical Motorist magazine in the 60s.
I also have a ‘Winfield’ (Woolworths best) battery charger from the same era. It has 6- and 12-volt output with three windings on the transformer primary and three on the secondary so I can get as many amps out of it as I require. It comes in handy when a battery falls to less than 11 volts because the latest fancy chargers will not recognise this as a car battery. My old charger is used to bring the voltage above 11V and I then switch to the modern equipment.
This stuff is like me – it may be old but it still functions when the need arises! The only motoring problem I have is that my insurance renewal premium has almost doubled because I will be 81 soon. I have found alternative cover at a more sensible rate elsewhere. Bill Nicholson