Gaby Hinsliff’s article (Starmer has discovered a tricky truth about the electric vehicles transition: there’s no gain without pain, 29 November) doesn’t address the key point in the analysis of car companies’ difficulties in selling enough electric vehicles (EVs). There is a lack of demand that is only partly due to the higher prices. More importantly, it is due to a failure to install the necessary infrastructure to enable mass charging.
A minority of car owners live in houses where home charging is possible. For the rest, to make EVs a possibility, never mind attractive, there need to be a huge number of charging points to accommodate millions of people. I live in a city with a very high density of tenement and other flats; at the moment there are virtually no charging points easily accessible for flat owners. In such areas, where it is not possible to install a charger in your home, it is simply not possible to run an EV.
There is no sign at all of the installation of the massive charging infrastructure required to meet the demand of mass ownership of EVs. People won’t buy these vehicles until they are confident that they will have the ability to easily access the energy necessary to drive them.
Stephen Smith
Glasgow
Gaby Hinsliff is correct to point out that the transition to net zero will be painful unless the government takes more action to alleviate the difficulties. Financial support to buy electric vehicles will be necessary until sales have reached volumes that will allow prices to come down.
But other steps on the technical front are also necessary. It makes no sense for there to be a multiplicity of charging methods – the government must commission the creation of industry standards that will ensure all electric vehicles can be charged using the same mechanism. Ease of use will greatly increase the attraction of electric cars.
Raj Parkash
London
