EVs show our net-zero obsession has gone too far

EVs show our net-zero obsession has gone too far
EVs show our net-zero obsession has gone too far

Blimey, it’s cold. But with energy costs remaining stubbornly high, I refuse to keep the heating on beyond 9am. The thermometer in my study as I write this column says 17 degrees. Well, thank goodness for the hooded blanket I got for Christmas last year. Lifesaver.

But at least I don’t drive an electric car. As if there weren’t already enough reasons to continue with a petrol or diesel variety, we now learn that EV drivers must “think twice” before switching on their hot air blowers during cold snaps.

Why? Because it will drain their batteries and reduce their range, whereas those of us who drive petrol or diesel vehicles get free heat as a byproduct of the car simply moving.

I have recent experience of travelling without heat, and I don’t recommend it. My train carriage into London Charing Cross from Kent yesterday morning (thanks Southeastern) was completely icy. Passengers were literally shivering, and it was miserable.

But for that to happen in what should be the comfort of your own vehicle is surely too much to bear.

And that brings us on to the broader problem. The government keeps telling us that we must “do the right thing” and move from fossil fuels to electricity, whether it be through heat pumps or EVs. Fine if you live in America, for example, where electricity comes dirt cheap and there’s plenty of it. But here in the UK it doesn’t and there isn’t.

The opposite in fact, because we pay through the nose importing so much of our energy, while using eye-watering sums of taxpayers’ money subsidising green initiatives within our own shores. Either way, this burns an enormous hole in our national pocket, while leaving us short of supply, with no sign of the basic economics changing any time soon.

Of course, it’s not just ordinary people that suffer the consequences of these sky-high electricity prices. Look at businesses. The UK is now right at the top of the international league table for the cost of power to industry – having suffered a hike of nearly 125 per cent just in the last five years.

That means UK manufacturers are paying more than twice as much as those in Germany and France, for example, and a whopping four times as much as their competitors in the USA.

At a time when businesses are paying more tax, and now, thanks to the budget last month, much more in national insurance, it’s a wonder that we’ll get any business investment at all. Well, perhaps we won’t.

Yet, just as ordinary people up and down the country are being told to switch away from fossil fuels, so are manufacturers. It’s all part of the net zero hairshirt we’re being forced to wear, apparently to set an example for the rest of the world.

Well, it seems to me the rest of the world is sniggering at our stupidity while enjoying cheaper fuel and toasty temperatures.

No wonder sales of EVs and heat pumps are lagging behind target. We may have elected a government seemingly determined to base its energy policy purely on what might sound virtuous to a bunch of Extinction Rebellion activists.

But the rest of us, and not just pensioners denied their fuel allowance, want to stay warm without going bankrupt.