@Paul Crawford
“We are running out of electricity capacity in the UK and unable or unwilling to sort it out” properly” this probably is *the* ultimate elephant in the tent. IIRC 20% of UK electricity is nuclear and those sites are getting past their sell by dates. The nub of this is the generating companies like *big* gobs of capacity. They hate the relatively titchy gobs by micro-hydro (we have a lot of rivers in this country and the force of gravity is unlikely to fail any time soon), the wind turbines or even rubbish burning (which considering what they burn should be close to carbon neutral). In perspective total UK generating capacity (any unit over 1 MW) is c58GW. A usual sized landfill gas driven gas turbine is 1MW. Of course the UK has a lot of landfills but they do have finite lives.
“Infrastructure. I live in a 3rd floor flat, how do I charge a car overnight?” This is a lot easier to handle. With an agreed Europe wide plug standard it would make sense for the government to encourage charging points in car parks, particularly the ones at train stations and large office blocks. With one plug fitting all whatever rolls up can be dealt with. Rapid 10 min charge necessity eliminated. Boris Johnson's announcement in reg hardware may be relevant on this point.
“Battery chemistry. Do we have the natural resources to make the proposed batteries in the quantity needed” If the infrastructure is mostly chemistry neutral and can handle any reasonable current/voltage range it only becomes an issue on vehicle re-sale. The range of rechargeable battery chemistries available is quite large. Outside Li types NiCds and even the humble Pb/H there is the Air cell under development in Scotland, Metal Hydride (Normally Ni but presumably could be other core metal), and the high temperature (270-350c) ZEBRA cell which is a molten Na salt system. ZEBRA's core materials are Al, Na and Ni. It does run hot but not very hot, so cheap insulation is feasible (rock wool, vermiculite, glass fibre). It's claimed to have reached about the 1800 cycle range already.
“Pollution. Even with 'clean' electricity, which is currently a minor aspect, what about the process of doing (3) in (most likely) a cheap labour and lax-environment-law country like China”
AFAIK the cells out of which batteries are made are highly standardised. I'd be very surprised if all standard cell sizes are not manufactured on integrated and fully automated transfer lines, where raw materials enter at one end and the complete cell pops out the end. So no labour to squeeze out.
So most of his comments can be dealt with fairly easily, but the capacity issue is a big one. OTOH the actual use of the infrastructure is likely to be slow enough that capacity could be grown. And given nukes don't like to be ramped up and down overnight recharging seems like a better use for the electricity.
But hey maybe some people like pulling down big gulps of ground level ozone, partially burnt hydrocarbons and particulate combustion products. A shorter life, but a happier one.