Two important principles

To restate two major principles which will allow everyone, like keys, to see through cheating and worst practice.

1) The Ken Livingstone principle.

In short, just because there is no penalty, you should always do the right thing. Our ex-mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, promised he wouldn't a) Raise the price of the congestion charge b) Extend the congestion charge c) Stated the congestion charge was revenue neutral by law d) He would never get rid of Routemaster buses.

In his two terms he a) Raised the price of the congestion charge b) Extended it to double in size c) When the extension was removed by his replacement, he openly admitted he wanted to get rid of it all "But they couldn't afford to lose the revenue" d) Routemaster buses were dumped in 2003 except two short routes for tourists.

When interviewed and asked how he could so easily break such promises, he simply said "Because I could"

That is pure evil.

2) The Hutchison Rabbit principle:

Before mobile phones, a vast company in Hong Kong created a wireless phone system where customers could make calls within a few hundred yards of an antenna, but not receive calls. The cost of units and calls was higher than landlines (as you'd expect) and the range was comparable with the far cheaper public call boxes.

Despite not providing a better and cheaper service, millions were invested in the company, and as any not fit for purpose and entirely left to market forces, it failed almost immediately, as it totally had to as it did not provide a useful product or fill a gap in the market.

The second part was that despite being a massive telecoms company and spending years investigating the British market, Hutchison still went ahead and blew the lot on a system which did not deliver any more than was there already, and at a far higher cost. Who would finance a plan like that?

I very much doubt a single person can't see this after the event, but none did before or it wouldn't have gone ahead. It created a specific principle, producing anything not fit for purpose, but still going ahead can not provide a useful product and must fail.

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Knowing this, electric cars use the same source for propulsion and peripherals. This makes it physically impossible to judge the available distance at outset. If they do run out there is no fuel besides a replacement correct size battery to switch it, which even if possible may not be nearby. If they do make it to a charging point they take many hours to charge, what do you do while you are waiting?

All these problems are inherent in their being, and very unlikely (besides reducing the charge time and increasing the range) to overcome totally. Add to that once the batteries wear out (another guaranteed problem) they will cost all the saving you made in fuel to that point. Guaranteed.

People are buying a few of these, but a tiny fraction of those expected (no surprise there), but they are still being made despite attracting barely any subsidies. Companies are hardly being paid to produce them regardless of sales, yet they still do, like Hutchison handsets.

They must fail.

Solar panels and wind turbines produce intermittent power, in the case of solar very little, and wind currently only usable at the time as impossible to store in batteries. So while solar barely produces more than you need unless you're not at home so hasn't much to put back for night time, wind produces sharp peaks of power whenever it's windy, and is either added to the grid or wasted. It also requires extra staff as unlike conventional power it does not provide a steady supply the grid needs not to burn out, so they have to turn down the wick whenever a peak comes in or the whole area will black out. Plus any power they supply is cancelled out by a permanent backup station, on whether used or not as they take weeks to warm up. Plus the power to turn the rotors, put the brakes on in high winds and heat them when they may freeze. And maintenance. This is inherent in their nature, you can never make a wind turbine turn without random mother nature, the technology is 3000 years old and all windmills can only collect as much wind as provided to convert to energy and no more.

There can be no solution to any of the links in these chains enough to complete any of the three. Even if one or two issues could be improved by new technology you cannot make the wind blow or sun shine when they aren't, so the power source fails by its nature.

So why do we have all three of them at all?