When I talk to people about the need to tackle global warming, a great many still say that it is going to be very difficult to reduce our carbon footprint. In the eyes of many, one of the easiest wins in reducing emissions is to convert to electric vehicles. Given that private cars account for at least 20% of our total energy footprint, IF they were all electric, and IF the electricity all came from renewable sources, clearly there is a big prize here.

But like many, I have to say I have been sceptical that electric cars will ever be an attractive alternative.  There is a wonderful website I know called “ugly electric cars” which demonstrates clearly the problem.

However, my attention was caught by a tweet I picked up a month or two back with a link to Robert Llewellyn (Crichton in Red Dwarf) and his Carpool series of Internet TV interviews. He had been given a new fully electric Mitsubishi i-MiEV to test and I was immediately struck by how practical a car this was. And by its low running cost - roughly £1 per 100 miles, which was also its approximate range. Now for me, most of my car journeys are short, around Hertfordshire, so this could be a very viable option. He now has a series of internet TV videos called Gearless which will track his experience with the i-MiEV.

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