turbo11 I hear what you are saying, however there is a genuine market for "city" cars, my mum hasn't driven a journey of more than 20 miles for 25 years!

There are lots of reasons electric cars are a non-starter on a large scale – in fact turning fossil fuel into motion is much more efficient than generating electricity, transporting it (50% loss through heating the cables and stepup/stepdown transformers), charging a battery (10%+ loss in heat), converting it back into electricity from its chemical composition (loss ?) and then driving an electric motor which itself is only about 50% efficient. The national grid is close to collapse as it is, if we could produce a battery that can store enough electricity for a 300 mile range at motorway speeds, we'd have to provide households with 3 phase 440V supplies to charge them as a standard 13Amp socket would take at least 15 hours to deliver 300 miles worth of motive energy at motorway speeds, suddenly our peak electricity demand would be during the night – how many domestic electrical fires would go undetected as the household are asleep? We cannot and will not switch to electric cars on a large scale for sometime yet – but this niche market is most welcome. Come on British boffins – let's have a slice of the cake.