Predictably, none of the spokespeople for eco-friendly UK local authorities and businesses contacted by us over the past few years had ever heard of advanced battery vehicles like the Toyota RAV4 EV, the Nissan Altra or the Honda EV Plus(much less the Ford e-Ka prototype). Almost without exception it was widely assumed by all concerned that 50 mile-per-charge Peugeots and Citroens represented the state-of-the-art of EV technology. Indeed, many local authorities and companies told us they'd decided against using electric vehicles precisely because of the poor range and performance of the vehicles tested.

In the US, of course, things are very different: many local authorities like, for example, Sunnyvale City Council, many utility companies, the New York Power Authority, - not to mention the US Postal Service .....have all chosen to lease or buy long-range electric vehicles and have done so for both environmental and budgetary reasons(yes, still cost effective - even with petrol at just UKP1/one dollar fifty a gallon!).

So - when it comes to debating AND adopting Zero Emission Alternatives to the Internal Combustion Engine the US is way ahead of the UK and Europe - a fact which the UK media consistently fail to mention, of course, amid all the self-righteous attacks against the US at successive climate change conferences in The Hague, Kyoto, Rio....