Over Christmas I was searching for something to watch on TV for a bit of a chill out on the sofa. Thing is I was not at home, we were at my wife’s mum’s house and her TV is more complicated than ours. It’s one of those arrangements where the TV provider, in this case Sky, show you everything to watch even if it is not available for you to watch!

What this meant was that having spent some time refining my search the programme that I decided upon was not in fact available to me, nor the second, third etc. – they wanted more money! Argh! Anyway I eventually found a nature programme that I was able to watch.

As I wrote above I was looking for a chill out – but then before I was able get to the nature programme that I had painstakingly found I was confronted with loads of ads! We normally watch BBC and so avoid them.

So this is where we get to the car-free connection. One ad I had to endure in preparation for the nature programme was a Volvo ad. As I mentioned I am rather sensitive to TV ads as I go out of my way to avoid being told what I need to buy to make me happy and live the good life!

The ad, I am sure their ad people would try to tell me a different story, seemed to be premised on how Volvo’s electric cars are god’s gife to nature and the planet and by driving one you’ll be solving the climate and biodiversity emergencies.

OK electric vehicles (EV) might be better than fossil powered ones, depending on how the electricity you use is generated, but they still have many problems. The mining and often lack of ability to recycle the materials used for their batteries as well as all the particulates they emit when their tyres rub along the road, and any debris they kick up off the road for us to potentially enhale – EVs can tend to heavier than other cars due to the weight of batteries.

Also, car are individualised forms of transport so their general efficiency in moving people around is much less than public transport options that move many people at a time. In sum, I am just pointing out a few questions about EVs sustainablity credentials.

So I gave up – my attempted TV chill out had turned infuriating. I never got to watch any programmes. Instead I ran a bath and relaxed there in all my car-free-dom – away from the EV ads.