I have decided for my final major project that I would research on a topic that really gets me interested, and one topic in particular is emissions with cars, more specific electric and hydrogen cars. We are told that they are the future, but are they? I want to find out more about these cars, they are becoming more popular on Britain’s roads, but with a 1.7% on new car sales going to electric and only two hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on sale today, is there something we don’t know and why they are still not as popular as traditional internal combustion engined cars.

I haven’t quite decided the angle I want to tackle to tell my audience something they don’t know, but I am prepared to find out something that I don’t know myself. I want to clarify with my lecturer Martin first on what route to go down, because I want my final major project to demonstrate my expertise and knowledge in this sector. I am doing a three main print articles as the profession I want to go down is motoring journalism , which focuses on a lot of print base production, and by creating three main print articles with images and interviewee’s will show to my future employer the skills I have to fulfil in my career and they would expect.

Currently in my research, I have looked into the infrastructure and market for alternative fuelled cars. Even though we have more electric chargering points than petrol stations, the problem is that they are inconvieniently placed, making journeys more anxious for electric car driver’s. Hydrogen on the other hand is lacking in filling stations with only 17 in operation in the UK. In Germany, there are currently 60 hydrogen filling stations, so is the UK just not up to speed with the rest of Europe tackling the rise in low-emission cars?

Another problem alternative fuelled cars are having to face are their running costs, or shall I say, lacking in running costs. Petrol and diesel car owners pay road tax and fuel tax, but electric and hydrogen cars, they don’t produce any emissions, meaning no road tax and no fuel is needed apart from hydrogen which doesn’t comply with tax yet. This shows that the government are receiving no money from these eco-conscious car owner’s, so instead the government have suggested a pay-per-mile scheme in which you will pay tax on how far your journey is. The longer the journey, the more tax you’ll pay. This complies to all car owner’s electric, hydrogen, petrol, diesel and hybrid.