"Of the energy you're putting into an electric car when you plug it in, you probably get 80% to 90% translated into useful power at the wheels," say Professor Roger Kemp, author of a Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) report on electric cars. "And that's really very good, because in a conventional car it's more like 20% to 30%, with the rest coming out as heat through the radiator and the exhaust pipe."