The government’s climate spokeswoman has been accused of perpetuating myths about electric cars.
Allegra Stratton had defended her decision to keep her ageing diesel car, saying, “I don’t fancy [an electric car] just yet” because she needed a vehicle to visit relatives without having to make lengthy stops to recharge the battery.
Stratton, who lives in north London with her husband and children aged four and seven, told Times Radio she used her “third-hand” diesel Volkswagen Golf, which she has had for eight years, to “go to grannies and grandads who are mostly 200, 250 miles away”.
The AA pointed out that the average electric vehicle (EV) had a range of at least 200 miles without recharging. Edmund King, its president, said: “Unfortunately too many views on EVs are myth, based on hype and unwarranted range anxiety.
"Even on a rare journey of over 200 miles the driver should stop to take a break anyway for road safety reasons, so why not combine it with a rapid charge that takes just 20 minutes to go from a quarter charge to over 80 per cent?”
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Stratton, 41, said her son would like her to get an electric car but she said: “Right now, if I had one, any of those journeys to my dad in south Scotland, my mum in Gloucestershire, my in-laws in the Lake District and my gran in north Wales, they're all journeys that I think would be at least one quite long stop to charge. And my kids are seven and four and I don't fancy it just yet.”
She added: “Sometimes when you've got a four-year-old in the car, they're asleep and you just want to keep going to get there because you know, if they wake up they'll want the loo, they'll want food, they might be feeling carsick and so on.”
She said that it was possible an electric car would become a viable option for her if “the stop times for recharging improve so much that it's half an hour”.
Toddington Harper, chief executive of Gridserve, which operates fast charging points at motorway service stations, said: “There are a lot of myths surrounding electric vehicle charging, but the truth is, it can be just as convenient as using a traditional petrol station and drivers should have the confidence to make the switch today — we would welcome meeting with Allegra to demonstrate all the latest technology first-hand.”
He added that it was “great to hear that Allegra is looking forward to the day when recharge times can come down to only half an hour, as this is already the case with our chargers. Last week, across the Gridserve Electric Highway network we charged over 7,000 electric vehicles, and the average charging time was only half an hour”.
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King said that heavy investment was being made in rapid chargers at motorway service stations. “For those living in London the EV driver currently has the added advantage of no congestion charge and lower parking charges, and all EV drivers benefit from lower running costs, no car tax and zero tailpipe emissions,” he said. “Now is the right time to go electric.”
As well as emitting greenhouse gas, Stratton’s diesel contributes to London’s air pollution problem on the rare occasions she uses it. Given it was registered long before 2016 it is likely to be liable for the £12.50 a day ultra low emission zone charge, which is being extended out to the north and south circulars from October 25. Stratton lives inside the expanded zone and normally cycles to work in Westminster.
The Times reported on Saturday that Alok Sharma, president of the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow, was said to have been annoyed by some of Stratton’s recent comments. In one interview last week she said that one option for people who cared about saving the planet was to join the Green Party. In a newspaper article she said people should not rinse their dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.
Stratton defended her dishwasher comment on Monday, suggesting on Times Radio that it had been taken out of context because she had gone on to say in the same article that such actions were “microsteps” and on their own would not stop climate change.
She added: “If you want to halt climate change the heavy lifting, the real action, is Cop26. We need real action at Cop26 on cash, coal, cars and trees, to be able to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees [celsius above pre-industrial levels].”
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Stratton also defended people’s right to fly on holiday despite it being by far the most environmentally damaging way to travel. She said: “This government isn't in the business of dictating what your lifestyle choices should be . . . it's up to you to decide where you want to go on holiday. And it's up to you to decide how you want to go on holiday.”
She said the government was sending “signals to the market” about the need to develop zero-emission aircraft and had set up a “Jet Zero Council”.
She added: “But in terms of individual choice, the prime minister believes in it fundamentally. And people should make their own informed, educated decisions about where they go on holiday and how they go on holiday.”
