Gearing up for electric vehicles

Michael Kelly (“Running on empty”, March 27) has laid out the huge cost of work needed over the next 10-12 years to create capacity for this country to provide for electric vehicles. The cost to us and the rest of the world of not proceeding would be far higher. New Zealand has languished in this while the UK is an exemplar. Wind turbines reasonably close to cities will power the change, with hydro and geothermal generation providing reliable back-up. Electric car batteries will progressively have second lives contributing to power storage in households.

Solar power for household hot water is already economical here. Huge government investment in infrastructure and training for maintenance of all this will be needed alongside private industry. The good news is that we don’t import wind, and electric vehicles are comparatively cheap to run and maintain. So are wind turbines.

There will be many large and small ways of making this necessary change. We dealt to Covid-19. We can do this, too. So, as Kelly asks,