Electrifying the Roads

The announcement by the Government of a ban on new diesel and petrol motor vehicles in 2040 is a welcome step toward the cleaning up of the filthy atmosphere on our roads. It raises a huge number of questions, including whether it applies to lorries, buses and other large vehicles, how we will generate the electric power needed and whether battery technology will up to the job (and skates over the environmental costs of making the batteries in the first place); but anyone who has ever been stuck behind a vehicle belching out oily black smoke will be happy to see the phasing out of this dead-end in technological development.

Leaving aside the question of whether I should put my Hyundai i30 into storage for the next fifty years so that I can bring it out to The Antiques Roadshow to admiring gasps and "I know you want to keep it in the family but if you were to take it to auction it would raise at least a million pounds", it opens up a whole new way of living. I assume that there will be no significant differences in the price of a recharge no matter where in the country you obtain it (apart from the extra 15% when on the motorway, naturally). We shall no longer cruise the highways in search of petrol stations, each displaying the price of a litre in giant illuminated letters. We shall no longer have conversations on the lines of the following:

"There's one - oh, it's 115.9"
"Still better than 118.9 at that one we just passed"
"But it's on the wrong side of the road - I'm sure there's a cheaper one somewhere over there"
"That's five we've gone past since we came off the motorway. How much petrol is there left?"
"Dont worry, the gauge shows empty long before it really is empty ... Hey, there's a sign through those trees"
"That's the other side of the railway."
"OK, straight up this dual carriageway then. Must be something round here ... ah, there's one that's closed down ... hey, there we are, 114.9, fantastic, I'll pull in ... oh sod it, look at that queue. Shall I turn round?"
"You mean go all the way back and pay a penny more?"
"You're right, we can save enough to buy half a Toblerone if we fill up here ...not too long to wait now, this past hour has really flashed by ... ah, they've just run out. Oh, well, it's only a few miles back.."
"Why is the car juddering to a halt?"
"Umm...yes, that is a good question".

Or will there be differentiated brands of electricity with massive advertising campaigns telling us things like "Zippo power puts more volts in your cathodes" or "Zoppo power ramps up the amps" or maybe "Zuppo power - reassuringly expensive electricity". Will competing suppliers give away glasses or dangling furry tails like in the good old days? Will knowledgable drivers prop up the bars at golf clubs arguing about which brand generates the most miles-per-kilowatt?

We shall (if we live long enough) see.