Yes - the UK is going to need alot more power generation capacity if the planned introduction of electric cars is going to be more than a tree- hugger's wet dream.

I just looked up what the power consumption is for charging the Renault Zoe.

3 kilowatt 16 amp single- phase wall box - 9 hours on charge

22 kilowatt 32 amp three-phase charging station- 1 hour charge time

43 kilowatt 63 amp three-phase charging station- 30 minutes charge time

What you might call serious power supply requirements-where's that going to come from if electric cars get popular? Windmills?

As a worst case -If 1000 people buy these cars and all plug them in at the same time on a 30 minute charge that's the output of a small power station - 43 megawatts.

Why can't politicians and their idiot advisors understand basic science?

Ok right they are all arts graduates -I'd forgotten that.

That's a good point actually I missed that. Due to EU carbon dioxide targets, we are being forced to shut more of our power stations this year and we're at serious risk of blackouts in 2015.

The Liberal Democrats fully support EU membership and loudly support these co2 targets, so how can they then demand that every car uses our ever dwindling electricity supply? They simply cannot have it every way they want. It stinks of rank hypocrisy and they're lying to the public by spouting this horse manure.

Apart from the fact the lib dems are a waste of blood and organs.... True!

How do we propose to switch over to electric cars? We constantly told that we're on a knife edge for providing enough electricity for the countrys homes, so even if 10% of the motoring public switched over to electric then we're in trouble. Switch that to 60-100% of cars and we'll need power stations everywhere!

And thats assuming the battery technology has improved a lot, as the ones in electric cars are still glorified laptop batteries. Hydrogen fuel cell cars seem like a more realistic long term aim to me.

Except there are few ways to source the Hydrogen. 1) Extract it from Natural Gas (and dispose of the Carbon that remains) 2) From coal, by passing steam through red hot coke (which also produces Carbon Monoxide) or 3) Electrolyse water (oh, sorry, that needs electricity, doesn't it?)

Any other practically feasible large scale methods? (Acid on granulated Zinc?)

I wonder if hybrids are going to be the short to medium term solution. Gradually using less and less fuel combined with better and better electricity generation and storage.

I know a lot of hybrids aren't any better than diesels, but diesels are getting so over complicated and compromised that buyers might drift towards to hybrids. Most of the 'advancements' on diesels are about reducing the emissions of a fundamentally dirty engine, hybrids are more about more efficient generation and storage of power.

I can see my next car being a hybrid, but not an all electric or diesel.

and if electric motors become smaller but more powerfull using less current I think they could beat the petrol/diesel for range,which may come quicker than battery development

Power is measured in Watts. Watts = Volts x Amps. Less current = less power. Stepping up voltage would reduce current for the same wattage but the total quantity of electricity is the same. Only better motor and battery efficiency will increase range but unlikely to double or triple current limits.

I seem to remember many years ago a peanut farmer in America who became president telling the us the world was on its last legs as far as oil production was concerned the moral is never believe a politician.