I don't think there is one definitive answer to what is better yet - it's still, for me at least, a 'horses for courses' argument, adding in the large difference in the purchase price that mostly means you'll have to do a huge amount of driving to make it back, as for most people, the environmental aspect has to take second place (at least) to the overall cost of ownership over the period they are likely to own it, including the purchase and selling price.

Just purely from an environmental point of view it's been shown that electric cars are better than fossil fueled cars at least here in the UK based on how the electric is generated and more and more renewable/low carbon generation is always being added.

Not if additional factors such as what the turbines etc are produced using (raw materials and energy) and that they don't last anywhere near as long as purported, needing a LOT of maintenance (I bet all those maintaining them don't drive there using EVs either). As I said, its also HOW you use them. It's not just as simple as you state, as those saying how green EVs are conveniently forget to add in all those factors.

What would make a huge difference is if as many homes and business/public buildings had PV panels (especially new ones - particularly the latter categories), meaning that charging vehicles would be much less expensive and reducing the price of panels, encouraging further R&D. As it stands, very few of them do. Solar enery is free and requires far less maintenance that turbines, and can be of benefit to everyone, including financially. Turbines still have to be heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

Not if additional factors such as what the turbines etc are produced using (raw materials and energy) and that they don't last anywhere near as long as purported, needing a LOT of maintenance (I bet all those maintaining them don't drive there using EVs either). As I said, its also HOW you use them. It's not just as simple as you state, as those saying how green EVs are conveniently forget to add in all those factors.

What would make a huge difference is if as many homes and business/public buildings had PV panels (especially new ones - particularly the latter categories), meaning that charging vehicles would be much less expensive and reducing the price of panels, encouraging further R&D. As it stands, very few of them do. Solar enery is free and requires far less maintenance that turbines, and can be of benefit to everyone, including financially. Turbines still have to be heavily subsidised by the taxpayer.

Have you allowed for the costs for building the fuel refineries, oil rigs, transportation of the fuel round the country in your calculations for fossil fueled cars?

Saying that the people that maintain don't use electric vehicles is just a nonsense argument - they have to use the vehicles that gives them access to where the turbines are located - at the moment as you know electric vehicles can't replace all forms of transport.

Solar can (and should) be used but not as useful as wind turbines particular in the UKs climate.

Turbines don't need to be subsidised to be installed - the government chooses to encourage businesses to install them and quicken their uptake.

That first point makes my point from earlier - no-one on either side of the debate has ever allowed for ALL these ancilliary factors, hence why it is so difficult to analyse and certainly not if you are comparing someone who runs a car for 3k miles a year to 20k, for example.

My maintenance comment was about wind turbines, NOT EVs - doing so in remote areas (especially offshore) is NOT cheap, nor is their installation. And whilst the UK does get a lot of wind (though mainly consistently only in the North - meaning it is not evenly distributed throughout the UK), it is often very variable, meaning some days we get none, other days the wind is too strong and the turbines have to be switched off for safety reasons. Wind turbines are also a blot of the (otherwise very picturesque) landscape.

Even though the UK gets far less solar enegery from the sun than nearer the equator, with advances in the tech, we can still get a reasonable amount from PV panels all year round, even when it is a dull day. Obviously we can't get any at night, but then we have similar issue with wind turbines when the wind is too weak or strong.

I've also read many articles from reputable sources saying that large scale wind turbine tech is still not profitable unless governments heavily subsidise them. Solar is relatively cheap, unobtrusive and can be retrofitted to most buildings, directly benefitting their owners/users and without the need for installing huge amounts of infrastructure at a cost of £Bns in one go. Now we find they use chemicals in their machinery that are tens of thousands worse for global warming than CO2 and which DO leak.

If taxes (lowered on equipment and work), planning and the Building Regs were changed to force new build and to encourage existing building owners to put up PVs, think how quickly our energy dependencyon (foreign) fossil fuels etc could be reduced. it would also be a shot in the arm to the UK construction industry and we could become a bigger player in the tech (especially R&D) generally.

The same goes for increasing the take up (where possible and practical) of cavity wall and roof insulation on older homes/buildings, which, compared to our Northern European neighbours, is woeful and contributed a huge amount to the demand for fossil fuel-based heating.

"so UK electric's contribution to worldwide emissions are on an improving curve"

In a practical sense the UK's contributions to worldwide emissions are negligible at 1.5 to 2% .