“I’m convinced that cars ought by right to be driven by electric motors”
WHILE JEREMY Clarkson has gone on record to say he will never, ever buy an electric car, his colleagues on The Grand Tour appear to be more open-minded about motoring minus petrol or diesel.
James May in particular has started to stand out as an especially big fan of zero emission vehicles. As well as owning an assortment of them, including Tesla Model S and leasing a Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell car (which is also powered by an electric motor), and testing a new electric superbike, he has gone on the record to say that today’s crop of EVs are “already as exciting as petrol-powered cars“.
Red Tesla Model S (Image: T. Larkum)
In fact, writing in today’s Sunday Times, May goes as far to suggest cars will be considerably better once the motoring industry finally decides to ditch fossil fuels for good.
He writes: “We’ve known since we have had the word “car” that the electric motor (which, by the way, predates the internal combustion engine) makes more sense. It’s light, compact, smooth-running, famously reliable, has excellent power and torque characteristics, is easy to produce and is virtually maintenance-free. It’s a bit of a 19th-century no-brainer.”
If those comments weren’t enough for dyed-in-the-wool petrolheads to get rubbed up the wrong way, May adds that he’s convinced cars “ought by right to be driven by electric motors”.
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