And ,as the motorists of yesteryear could have told the inventor of this scheme ---

"Where's our fuel coming from ?"

Just read JC article in today' paper

Jeremy Clarkson | Why I won’t volt Labour | The Sun |News|Columnists|Clarkson on Saturday

" Let’s say we all switched to electric cars which get their juice, of course, from the mains. What will that do to the power supply?

At present, experts say that Britain will have serious problems meeting demand for electricity in just six years’ time.

Most of our power stations are already more than 30 years old and unreliability is starting to become a problem"

Some ideas will never work - I believe battery cars is one example, they will always be an impractical novelty.

After all the billions invested in research we still don't have cheap lightweight batteries that don't overheat under current draw, that will remain capable of holding their original charge capacity when 18 months old, that don't get fussy about how regularly/rapidly they are charged/discharged, that don't require use of massively polluting materials, that work reliably between weather extremes of -25C and +45C etc. etc.

Can you imagine the chaos on the roads as these electric cars break done with flat or overheated batteries - they will have to have a second engine.

And as already said - the electricity has to come from somewhere. Using fuel to generate electricity remotely, transport the electricity over the grid, charge the batteries, carry all the extra battery weight. This all incurs losses that makes it intrinsically less efficient than using the fuel at point of need.

On the plus side, I expect battery power tools will continue to improve!

Must go now, off to invest £50k in Lithium options.

I read in the paper today (mail or times) that if this kicks off that britain would experience black outs at night as everyone plugged in their electric cars as the infrastructure to cope with this isnt in place and can barely cope as it is.

No - it's definitely a scrappage plan -looks like he's seen the light (or the possibility of them going out )