Last week's poll: electric vehicle switchover

We received a strong response to last week's poll, with 671 readers responding and over 50 comments. A clear majority of respondents, 52%, said that reinforcement of electricity infrastructure would be the most helpful measure in the switchover. The next most popular option, with 19% of votes, was improvement of funding for hydrogen infrastructure, indicating that fuel cell technology is still a subject of much interest for powering electric vehicles. The introduction of scrappage grants to get the most polluting vehicles off the roads was the choice of 12%, while 3% supported the introduction of charging to enter zones most affected by poor air quality. A relatively large proportion, 13%, declined to pick one of our options.

Our comments section reflected the lack of clarity in the government's recent announcement that sales of new internal combustion engine vehicles will be banned after 2040; several readers called for clarity over whether this ban would include range extended hybrids with an internal combustion engine powering a generator to charge batteries.