§ Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Energy what assistance and collaboration is taking place between his Department and the appropriate manufacturers in this country regarding the use of batteries for power and passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and private cars; if he has made an estimate of the savings in the use of oil which would result from the use of such batteries; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. John MooreThe Department of Industry is responsible for co-ordinating Government interest in electric vehicles and for sponsoring work in the manufacturing industry. The Department of Transport makes assessments of the part which electric vehicles of all types could play in the national transport network system. My Department maintains a close interest in all the above work.
At the present time, the savings in primary energy consumption resulting from the introduction of electric vehicles in place of internal combustion engine vehicles would be marginal.
In the longer term, realistic figures for savings in oil resulting from the introduction of electric vehicles are difficult to estimate since this will be dependent on the energy efficiency of the vehicles, the market penetration achieved by the individual vehicle types, and the future characteristics of the electricity generating system.
The Transport and Road Research Laboratory of the Department of Transport has calculated the energy efficiency of the various vehicle types, and supplementary report 311 makes the following comparisons of annual energy requirements based on these energy efficiencies for cars and light goods vehicles in the year 2005. The figures assume 25 million 432W vehicles covering 20,000 km per year for each vehicle type, and include the indirect energy to manufacture the vehicles and batteries, and for heating.
Annual energy requirement million tonnes of coal equivalent Today's car with natural crude oil 74.6 Today's car with natural crude oil and energy conservation 46.0 Synthetic gasoline 69.9 Advanced lead-acid battery 80.4 Sodium sulphur battery 51.3