I am all in favour of serious efforts to achieve real and substantial reductions in carbon emissions, and I accept the arguments as to why this is urgent.  But I am not in favour of our chasing false goals.  So it seems to me that we need to account quantitatively for energy usage and carbon emissions, and we need to look hard at claims made.

In that context, I am sceptical about the overall carbon emission reduction claims made for electric cars.  Am I missing something?

Using published data for the current average carbon emissions at generation time of electricity supplied in the UK (around 500 gms CO₂ per kWH), and assuming that:

1.      50% of the electrical energy purchased gets through the charging system, the battery and the motor to the driving wheels.

2.      Both an electric car and a diesel powered car of a similar size will need the same average power (say 40 DIN or 30 kW) delivered to the driving wheels to travel, for, say 1 hour over the same terrain.

In that time, the electric car will account for around 30 Kg of CO₂ emissions whilst the diesel car will account for around 8 Kg of CO₂ emissions.  Fuel costs to the consumer will be slightly lower for the diesel car.

For the electric car to compete on CO₂ emissions, let alone get ahead, average carbon emissions at generation time of electricity supplied in the UK will need to reduce to below 125 gms CO₂ per kWH, i.e. 100% wind or wave power.  This goal is some way off.