[Battery takeover
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LONG-TERM switch to ectric road vehicles is needed ; fossil fuels become scarce, Lys a Department of Energy port on transport in the 21st !ntury.
Introducing the report in )ndon last week, special adser to the chairman of the ational Freight Corporation . E. Osborn, said that the 'ne had come to give active tention to the research into nv energy resources.
"We are not in a crisis posim and have a few years in hich to concentrate search," said Mr Osborn, ho is also chairman of the ivisory Council on Energy Dnservation's Transport 'orking Group.
A short-term role is seen for mcrude fuels (oil derived om coal), but as coal is nited worldwide, it is inevitIle that electricity will be the incipal fuel source come the iddle to end of next century id Mr Osborn.
Battery vehicles will be itable for short-haul operams and for light vans and rs, but overhead or other Iwer pick-up means will be !cessary for heavier and ver-range vehicles.
Most likely vehicles in this avier range are continental imcars running on reserved icks, trolleybuses, and trol1 lorries running on motoriys. Mr Osborn indicated at the ACEC saw little oblem in developing new hides, but infrastructure search will require great :ention.
The change to electric hides could be encouraged, ys the report, by weighting cation in favour of electric hides. There is no tax at esent on fuel for such hides, and any imposed in ?, future could be introduced adually.
The introduction of the hides themselves could be dertaken under normal pital replacement pro grammes, possibly over a 10year period.
Mr Osborn dismissed suggestions that consumers could be held to ransom by a nationalised single power industry and he referred to a possible breaking-up of the electricity supply industry into smaller units.
But he added that the oil industry was in relatively few hands anyway.
The report believes that a change to electric vehicles could lead to more efficient use of power generating capacity. Transport would use power supplies (mainly for recharging of batteries) at times when industrial and domestic consumption is low.