In spite of the low quality reports currently in circulation – funded by manufacturers of petrol and diesel cars – about the environmental drawbacks of electric vehicles, most academics, industry experts and the Committee on Climate Change see them as essential if we are going to decarbonise transport. Not having a car at all is, of course, even better if you can manage it.

There are difficulties, though, in persuading the public about EVs. Two principal concerns – range and time to re-charge – were discussed in the 26th November edition of Inside Science on BBC Sounds. Peter Bruce, Professor of Materials at Oxford University, summarised the intensive efforts underway around the world to get the battery range up to 400-500 miles and the charge time down to 5-10 minutes.

Considerable international research is going into the development of solid state batteries. Apparently the electrolyte in a standard lithium ion battery (as used in today’s mobile phones and EVs) is liquid; and this means that lithium metal cannot be used as the negative electrode. If the electrolyte is solid instead, then lithium metal can be used, which would make the range and charge time targets realistic.

The power of adaptation

That’s great. But there’s another way … we can learn how to live with an EV that ‘only’ has a range of 160-200 miles and takes 45 minutes at a motorway service station just to charge up another 70-80 miles. Such are the properties of our 2018 Renault Zoe (and probably of other EVs of similar price and vintage); and I can safely say that our quality of life has not suffered any diminution since we bought it.

As the presenter Anand Jagatia said, the service station charging time is not huge in the grand scheme of things. Indeed, we aren’t exactly consistent in our attitudes – we’ll often spend hours in traffic queues but get steamed up over spending more than 10 minutes re-fuelling.

Here’s what we can do while we wait: respond to emails, work on our laptops (with material downloaded in advance if we are concerned about the network connection), talk to each other about topics that could be too distracting whilst one of us is driving, listen to music, read a book, … It is not even inefficient, an ever-present source of concern in a market economy.

As for the range – for the one or two trips a year to visit the grandparents in northern Scotland, there is always the possibility of hiring a conventional car. Or just take a little longer perhaps (the Zoe has made it to the Lake District and Cornwall easily in a day; the Scottish adventure awaits).

It seems that we human beings are very good at adapting when we are forced to do so, but mystifyingly inflexible up until that point.