@AC

"What's wrong with placing recharge points on the road?"

- If you'd see the sort of scumbags who wander the streets at night around where I live, you wouldn't even bother considering that. You're right about parking - I often don't even get to park in my own *street*.

- In the case of mass uptake, you're talking about dozens of vehicles in each street each with its own cable attached to a point at the kerb, which creates a hell of a mess for a start even with short cables. What sort of extra load does this place on the under street cabling anyway?

- RFID is trivial to fool so thats a non starter. There isn't a current digital transaction technology that is even relatively safe from abuse, so you might want to think that one through a bit more.

-Another negative is that kerbside charging infrastructure is a politicians wet dream. It is the perfect excuse to both monitor and tax the urban motorist in new and interesting ways. Screw that ... we've had enough trouble fighting off the imposition of CPZs proposed by our local authority. Twice. In one year.

"The problem with other fuels is which to chose? Are all those compatible within the same engine?"

What engine? There is no engine in a fuel cell vehicle. Its all electric. Chlorine is just one example - what about Alcohol? That has none of the big danger you see in top-fuel motor racing since no combustion is involved. That and it is currently being produced commercially by the bio-ethanol industry. Fuel cell vehicles have been successfully prototyped and shown to work well. There is enough potential to make further research and development well worth the effort, to fine tune issues such as methods for refuelling and safe/compact onboard storage.

Regarding 'cheaper' electricity - thats an illusion. Your power bills from the utility company might be slightly lower per unit, but the new nuclear power stations required to supply the extra juice are going to be costing you more in huge unseen subsidies funded by YOU in the tax you pay to the government. Not to mention the astronomical amounts you are already paying to decommission the old ones. Funny how the power company shareholders don't seem to footing THAT bill, huh?

Bah

The batterys will be owned by who ?

Who gets stuffed with the cost of replacement batterys, the service station ?, the poor smo who used it last (sorry sir can't give you another one your last one won't hold a charge anymore)

If all the batteries are wholey owned by BP fer instance then it will be uncompetitive.

Picture the Service station on a entrance to the M1, it will need a wharehouse just for the damm duff batteries as everyone has to pop in for a new one to make sure they can finish the journey.