Recently, the opinion expressed by Ullrich Bez on the future of transport in Malta received wide publicity in this newspaper.
There was one snag. Seeking the opinion on the future potential of the electric car from a former chief executive of a company which manufactures prestige high-performance cars like Aston Martin is, of course, like asking a turkey what he thinks about voting for Christmas. Briefly: Bez was mostly off the mark.
Big German motor manufacturers like BMW, Daimler, Porsche and VW have been doing well and this saw to it that they remained blinded by their success with combustion engine cars which were all about speed and luxury.
They, and possibly Aston Martin too, have now been taken by surprise by Tesla’s electric cars which seem to be flourishing in California and they are starting to feel nervous because their turf is under threat.
Much of what Bez said was equivalent to whistling in the dark. His most unlikely pronouncement was that phasing out all combustion engine cars and replacing them with electric cars “could work for a city like Valletta but not a whole country”. He seems not to have noticed that Valletta is a postage stamp- sized city which acts mostly as a glorified car park with virtually no active traffic.
Equally invalid was his argument of “limited potential” of electric cars in a “whole country”. California, where the electric car seems to be making strides, is about the size of Spain. China, not exactly a small country, also looks set to steadily go electric. Malta is a city-sized country which is an ideal situation for electric cars.
Electric cars manufactured today can easily traverse the length of Malta eight times or more without needing a recharge
It also seems as though Bez wants us to think that an electric car needs to be charged every five minutes whereas the range of electric cars is steadily increasing. Electric cars manufactured today can easily traverse the length of Malta eight times or more without needing a recharge. So the question of range or frequent recharging is fast becoming a non-issue, especially in Malta.
Bez nevertheless told us that Malta did not have enough charging stations when about half of our car fleet is privately garaged and won’t pose any charging point problems.
Even in the unlikely event that Malta were to go electric overnight, the problem remains illusory because recharging stations can be installed in public places about as easily and quickly as installing a domestic washing machine.
The internal combustion car has now been with us since 1885 when Karl Benz developed the gasoline-powered automobile. Since then its only further ‘evolution’, if one can call it that, has been the addition of innumerable bells and whistles such as air conditioning, automatic windows, power steering, hydraulic systems and so on.
But the car has remained basically the same: a four-wheeled steered vehicle which transports people and goods powered by an internal engine which works much in the same way as the original 1885 Benz, except that it is faster and a bit more fuel-efficient.
The days of the fossil fuel-driven car are numbered and change will probably arrive sooner than we think. As with all new technology, prices of electric cars are decreasing.
The possible scenario is that, once the price of electric cars reaches a low enough threshold, they will spectacularly crowd fossil fuel cars out and the car, as we know it, may disappear before we will have had time to blink. This could easily happen sometime soon.
Contrary to what Bez would have us believe, Malta is a magnificently suitable country for electric mobility – the only likely major obstacle will be the love of so many drivers for the noise their cars make. The electric car may have fewer brownie points for such people because it lacks the ‘vroom’ factor. But sooner or later it will become unstoppable.
George Debono is a retired doctor with a research background and a special interest in health and environment matters.