In January this year, BBC correspondent Brian Milligan drove from London to Edinburgh by electric car using the public charging network. It took him four days at an average of six miles per hour, including the recharging time, that could be anything up to ten hours! Today, the world’s first national motorway charging network for these vehicles opened. This is a major step forward, and there is still a long way to go, but as Brian Milligan said at the time, the technology here is changing extremely fast, including the technology behind the batteries; he predicted that in less than a year it would be possibly to plug in and receive 80% of the charge within 20 minutes, an exponential leap forward. The big question is: can the development in this technology match that of computers where for example in less than twenty years a desktop PC with a (don’t laugh) 40Mb hard disk and NO INTERNET fell from over £1100, to a machine with a 3Gb hard drive with now de rigueur Internet for a fraction of the price?
The really good news for today’s electric motorists is that the recharging system is free after users register for a swipe card provided by Ecotricity. Now, if this company were to get together with Lark Energy * they could really start something. But perhaps they already have?
[The above article was first published July 27, 2011. * Lark Energy went bust in 2017.]
Back To Digital Journal Index