(With apologies to Philip K. Dick.) In July six electric Mitsubishi i-MiEVs will arrive in the North East for trials run by Cenex's Low Carbon Vehicle Procurement Programme at a leasing cost of £137,450 over four years, plus (we guess) around £6.5m for installing 1,300 charging points. The latter approximate figure is included in the last government's 'Plugged in Places' programme, channelled via the regional development agency One North East. In London, 20 Toyota Prius plug-in hybrids on lease will arrive on the fleets of various public bodies in London, courtesy of Toyota and EDF Energy. Similar trials are under way in the Midlands, funded by the Technology Strategy Board and Advantage West Midlands. Correction: funded by all of us.

By comparison with the <£5,000 subsidy the last government proposed paying to EV buyers, let alone the size of the national debt, the cost of these EV trials may seem trivial. But what are they trialling? Users driving within the restricted range of these i-MiEVs from one conveniently placed socket to another will undoubtedly say how great they are. But then, they won't be paying. Who'd want to pay £30,000 for essentially untried technology for a second car? (No current-generation automotive lithium-ion batteries have yet undergone their expected lifecycles. Without a battery, an EV is worthless, as CAP has reasonably determined.) EV buyers will typically need access to two cars, because their EV may barely take them 40 miles and back.

A recent forecast from J.D. Power Automotive Forecasting suggests that the global market for pure electric cars will amount to no more than 500,000 units in five years' time. As 40m+ annual car sales drive us towards a global car population of two billion, that's so far away from reducing oil dependency, it's hard to imagine that EVs will be any real help by the time the stuff actually runs out.

Yet the whole point of electric cars is help us survive the eventual end of the 'Oil Age'; With our present energy mix, they won't cut global warming emissions. We need to invest in better energy, smart grids, and much better energy storage, before pump-priming a fantasy market with trials of vehicles that aren't market-ready. Unless we soon discover the battery technology needed to expand EV demand beyond a niche market of do-gooders subsidised by taxpayers at large, governments' EV support will have proved an expensive diversion from other, more urgent tasks. Those include investing in more energy production, and reducing car dependency - not expanding the second-car population with ruinously expensive EVs, used by the few, paid for by the many.

Toby is the lead author of a forthcoming Trend Tracker report which will survey the activities of the auto industry, governments and utilities relating to the electrification of personal transport, and assess the likely outcomes of efforts to replace oil as its fuel by the middle of the century. Details of this report will be posted on this site nearer publication in Q3 2010.

Toby Procter

Trend Tracker Limited

0870 421 4350

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