LETTER: Don’t be fooled by right-wing propaganda on EVs

I write in reference to Patricia Lucas’s article, “The Heavy Downside of Electric Buses” (Fox, July 18-24). Living in the Cape, I must point out that it’s only the rest of the country that is “riddled with potholes” and certainly not Cape Town.

As far as the weight of electric vehicles (EVs) is concerned, I have to point out the following. The UK right-wing gutter press (likely assisted by the oil and gas industry), including the “Torygraph” (sorry, Telegraph), are continuously on the lookout for any potentially negative publications they can find about electric cars, presumably so nobody will buy them and they’ll stay with petrol-driven cars, thus keeping their sponsors happy. The Leeds research must have been a godsend to them.

The major damage to English roads is for the most part due to the lack of funding of local councils by recent Tory governments (who have thankfully been thrown out at last) for necessary maintenance. It’s got very little, if anything, to do with the weight of the cars, or buses for that matter. And anyway, even if EVs are heavier, they still won’t be above the licensed tare so it’s unlikely that “damage” will be any more than normal wear and tear.

Happily, when I looked at the very interesting table showing that the operational cost per 100km for an electric bus was less than a quarter of a diesel one, I realised that even if they cause a little more wear and tear than diesel ones, there’d be a huge amount of spare cash around to fix it.

Dave Stephens
Somerset West

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