Volt-face
Luton’s Vauxhall plant is to close, partly because of the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate which obliges manufacturers to sell increasing proportions of electric vehicles. Remarkably, the history of the electric car can be traced back half a century earlier than the combustion engine. There are several possible claims as to who built the first road-going electric-powered vehicle, but one is a Scottish inventor, Robert Davidson, who produced one in the 1830s, about the same time as Thomas Davenport in Vermont. By the end of the 19th century electric cars were competing with petrol cars, but died out for the reasons the industry is struggling today: it was hard to recharge them and they couldn’t travel far on a charge.
Power shares
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change called for a ‘new nuclear age’. Which countries generated the biggest shares of power from nuclear last year?
France 65.3%
Slovakia 61.9%
Ukraine 50.7%
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