Somebody once described a torch as “a metal tube in which dead batteries are stored”. Before everybody had a torch as part of their mobile phone, that was a fairly fair statement. You would search in the odds’n’sods drawer in the kitchen, usually in the dark, and when you found the torch the battery would be flat.

I have always hated relying on batteries. You buy a new phone and it remains close to full for most of the first day. Then it needs charging three times a week and then every night. Battery-powered wristwatches and wall clocks run for ages and then stop when you are in a rush for the ferry.

‘Rechargeable batteries’ seem to last about a week between topping up.

I am assuming that the situation will be similar with electric cars. Sure, they will do the promised 250 miles (between charges) when they are new but what happens after they have been used a bit and done a few long trips? You can’t just change the battery in an e-car, basically because the battery is the chassis – it is holding the wheels on.

So, when you have done say, 200 miles, you’ll start looking for a charging point. A filling station with a charger and there will be a queue. It takes 30 minutes with high-speed equipment to recharge a normal car, so you go for a coffee and when you come back somebody has moved in ahead of you.

Then you’ll remember… it never used to take more than about five minutes to fill up your old ICE (internal combustion engine). Drive up, top up, pay up (about €40, in my case) and drive away. Charging a car at home on alternating current could be an all-night job and think of the effect on your electricity bill.

Only two per cent of the world’s cars are electric at the moment.- Revel Barker

Where does the power for the electricity come from? Solar and wind power are unreliable, so it’s down to petrol (or natural gas, coal or nuclear, where available). And, already, there’s just not enough of it to go round. Elon Musk said recently that the world is going to need to double its energy output if it is going to go all-electric. And he’s a fan.

So it’s down to this: electric cars may be fine if you live on Gozo and never travel further than Valletta and if you have a garage with a socket (rather than assuming it’s your right to run a cable across the pavement from your front door to the car) or don’t care about your ARMS bill (nor about people walking on the pavement at night). Even then, nowhere – absolutely nowhere – has a power grid with 100 per cent reliability.

Only two per cent of the world’s cars are electric at the moment and the couple of e-drivers that I know on mainland Europe spend a lot of time (and fuel) searching for charging points. Actually (because there are currently so few e-cars) you can find all the chargers on a single map.

For choice of model, price, range, running costs and other reasons buyers continue to choose ICE over electric and that’s even when e-cars are often subsidised with tax breaks to bring buying prices down.

Toyota’s head of energy and environmental research, Robert Wimmer, testifying before the US Senate last month, said: “If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refuelling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance and affordability.” And Toyota, which introduced the hybrid Prius on to the market 20 years ago, knows what it is talking about.

All I am saying is that our governments (all the ones that have signed up for ‘net zero’) may have been verging on the side of reckless optimism. Maybe best to experiment with hybrid, where your battery will be powered by… petrol.

As for me, I’m driving the diesel I bought when scientists and governments told me it was best for the planet. Now I fear that polar bears are sliding off ice caps when I switch on the ignition. However, I greatly prefer the old scientists to the new ones. I will stick with their advice.

Revel Barker is a former Fleet Street reporter and a long-term resident of Gozo.