Rampant negativity

Instead of saying we're better off with efficient diesels, try to think of ways to make the Electric car better...

The letters page in PE always reminds me of someone I worked with several years ago. The company he worked for made gang planks for cruise ships, and he was complaining that 'elf and safety meant that they had to be self levelling and limited to a certain incline. As far as I was concerned, his job had just started to sound a lot more interesting (let's face it, a gang plank in its crudest form is something that even a pretty rubbish engineer should have off their desk by lunchtime on Monday).

The bulk of the letters in PE are often in a similar vein; new technology can never work, and we're better off sticking with what we know. For example, last month there was a letter about the Nissan Leaf (or as they called it, the Low Efficiency Alternative Future... I think someone needs to look up the definition of efficiency!). Yes, it has a limited range... but it is a step in the right direction. Instead of saying we're better off with efficient diesels, try to think of ways that the Electric car could work better. For example, another electric car that will soon be on the market has a range extending petrol engine that kicks in after it has gone 60 miles. That 60 miles will cover the vast majority of journeys for most people, and if it doesn't, they don't need to worry about running out of power. Lithium air batteries have the potential to have an energy density 10 times that of lithium ion batteries, and will be being commercialised within the next few years.

Engineers are working on this stuff right now, which is a much better use of their time than whining about how everything should just stay the same. Engineering would be a very boring job, and the world would be a very different place, if we just exclusively evolved old technologies. Instead of bleating about how rubbish the first generation of electric cars is, think of ways they could be better... the internal combustion engine didn't just spring into being as it is now, it is over 100 years old! Lend some experience from your area of expertise, you might just find that getting a bit of scrap paper out and working out if your idea could help is more enjoyable than coming up with clever acronyms to lampoon the Car of the Year.

Peter Greaves, Newcastle upon Tyne

Next letter: Costs of the West Coast Line