ANDY Brown makes a powerful case for the benefits of owning and running an electric car (Craven Herald Letters, October 24), but I fear it missed a few points.

I cannot challenge his claim that an electric car is far cheaper to run, as I have not been able to afford to buy one in order to check for myself, and many other folk that I know are stuck with petrol, unleaded of course.

Also, the situation is more complicated than was first thought when electric cars were advanced as the answer to an environmentalist’s dream. Now we all know about batteries, with lithium and cadmium which are actually bad for the environment and have a finite life. The manufacture of these vehicles is a terrible process.

There is, of course, another alternative to the petrol car, and that is public transport. Could not some of the 10,000 miles that Councillor Brown covered last year in his electric car not have been done on the bus or the train? We all need to consume less energy, with fewer cars making journeys that could be undertaken on public transport.

Celia Midgley

Skipton