Reports claim the UK transitioning to all-electric cars (EVs) by 2040 will require huge investments in electricity-generating infrastructure and that 'standard' home charging could take up to 19 hours per car. 

The studies are expected to impact both leisure travel and business car hires.

They say it is likely the UK power grid will need to be upgraded and recharging points will need to be sited on streets, not just at petrol stations.

Today, there are about 4,000 publicly-accessible locations (often in car parks and at some of the UK's 8,476 petrol stations) offering 13,000 plug sockets. Of the 13,000, about 20 per cent are 'rapid charging connections' that will top up a Nissan Leaf, the UK’s best-selling pure electric car, in half an hour. However, quick-charging points in homes will mean upgrading domestic electrics, otherwise, experts warn, homeowners will not be able even to boil a kettle while their car recharges. 

 

The number of public charging sockets should increase to 80,000 by 2025, predicts Zap-Map, which has mapped the ones already built. A lot of those will be in car parks, or at railway stations, but many will be needed on poles on streets where domestic off-street parking is not available.

 

Meanwhile, even the low numbers of electric cars on the roads today are putting pressure on the grid. One estimate is that as few as six electric cars in one neighbourhood could risk a 'brownout' – an unexpected drop in voltage.

 

Most experts agree that the problem is managing the demand if all EV drivers try to charge at the same time, such as plugging in at the office at 9am, or at 6pm when they return home.

The government also may seek to tax EVs to counter the fall in revenue from fuel duties on petrol and diesel. The UK Treasury earned GBP27.6 billion in 2015-16 from fuel duty in 2015-16, so public finances will take a substantial hit as EV totals increase.

 

 

Manufacturing concerns focus on two areas:

 

- How electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries are manufactured.

 

- How the electricity to power them is generated.

 

One of the authors of a Norwegian report, Guillaume Majeau-Bettez, published by the BBC says the electricity grid - for the electricity used when driving and the electricity used to produce cars - needs to be improved.

 

The study is a life-cycle analysis of the global warming impact of the production and operation of EVs, driven for 150,000km (93,750 miles), compared with the production and operation of conventional cars. The scientists include so-called 'well to wheel' data, taking into account the energy needed to refine and transport oil into petrol or diesel.

 

One of the findings is that the energy-intensive manufacturing of EVs mean that some cars have almost double the impact on global warming as conventional cars. This is mostly because of the raw materials and energy needed to build the lithium-ion batteries.

 

However, the moment a new EV hits the road, the environmental picture starts to improve.

 

But even there, the picture is mixed, and dependent on how electricity is generated in the country the car is being driven in. It can even depend on what time of day the batteries are charged, because night-time electricity is less dependent on coal.

 

Electricity from coal, which is the most polluting way to generate power, drastically reduces the environmental advantage for EVs. In China (which mostly uses coal-powered electricity) EVs are far more polluting than conventional cars.

 

However in a country like Norway, where most power is generated from hydroelectricity, EVs fairly quickly begin to outperform conventional cars in terms of their overall environmental impact.

"We want people to make choices with their eyes open, knowing the trade-offs," said Majeau-Bettez. "There have been a high number of misrepresentations from all sides in this debate. There is no such thing as a zero-emission anything, whether a zero-emission vehicle or a zero-emission building.

 

"Everything has emissions, but sometimes they are further away from the user."