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Sir: Any issues which R V WATTS may have with the film my partners and I made which are subjective I will not argue - they being purely a matter of taste. However, I feel compelled to correct some factual inaccuracies and common fallacies whereby electric vehicles and their impact on our current electrical infrastructure ("the Grid") are concerned. I have quite his letter here for simplicities sake.

"Electric cars would simply transfer the atmospheric pollution from the cars to the power stations."

This argument, known colloquially in America as the "long tail pipe" argument has been disproved by more than 30 studies conducted to determine the "well-to-wheels" pollution generated for charging and EV vs. gas cars (http://www.sherryboschert.com/FAQ.html). In every study, it was determined that an EV generates far less pollution. If Mr. Watts has any studies that show the opposite is true I would love to see them. Additionally, common sense dictates it is preferable for pollution to be constrained to a few large plants - removed from population centers - than distributed to millions of vehicles that move amongst us on a day to day basis.

"If all road vehicles were switched to battery-driven electric it would require at least a 40 per cent increase in electricity-generating capacity"

This argument is known as the "lack of capacity" argument. It too has been proven incorrect in countless studies but its real inaccuracy has to do with actual usage patterns. It turns out that the primary charging window for electric vehicles is "off-peak" when there is a large amount of excess capacity on the grid. This capacity is currently wasted. In the U.S., there is enough excess generating capacity at night to charge 80% of the American fleet of gasoline vehicles without adding any new electric generating plants. That's 180 million vehicles. It will take 2-3 decades before that many EVs are built much less driving around on the roads.

R.V. Watts then goes into some highly questionable; hypothetical mathematics to demonstrate the impossibility of the electric vehicles involving cookers and charging speeds. Rather than refute these line by line I'd prefer to simply use, by way of example, the "real world" usage patterns of the 1000's of people in the US who have been, for over 5 years now, driving and using highway capable EVs in both Rural and metropolitan settings, some of whom we even interviewed in the film. These usage patterns tell us that:

- Economically speaking, even under long-trip heavy usage the cost per mile, when compared to petrol, driving an EV is the equivalent to paying roughly 10 pence a gallon of gas (you'll have to recalculate to Liters)

- You don't need a fast charging system since virtually all charging is done at night while we sleep, or at times when the vehicles are not being used such as during work or while shopping.

- the vast majority of vehicle trips are less than 50 km, so each night one only needs to charge 5-10 kWh, not the 50+ kWh Mr. Watts claims.

- Regenerative braking; whereby electric vehicles recapture energy when the cars slow down or stop improve fuel and battery use dramatically, this technology is already standard on hybrid vehicles.

- Dr. Oshinsky's battery does exist, as do the even more efficient Lithium Ion batteries in the Tesla (http://www.teslamotors.com) -which differ hardly at all from those in my laptop upon which I'm typing this letter. All of them are far more efficient at energy transfer and storage than the petrol in Mr. Watt's tank.

The real fact is that these electric cars do exist, they are driven on a daily basis by 1000's of Americans; (and Brits here with your Gwiz's, and Smartcars) and would be driven by many more people with a little vision and/or discipline by either the auto industry or our political leadership. The death of the EV1 in America was not about consumer demand or economics; it was about the macro-economics, oil, war and a culture of complacency.

Richard D. Titus

Producer, Who Killed the Electric Car?

Dartmouth Park, London, UK