Very brave move.

ALL our cars will be electric or hybrid from 2019.

That was Volvo’s announcement and a very commendable one that’ll either set the trend for other manufacturers to follow or one of complete disaster.

As long as the infrastructure is sound to charge the electric cars with ease AND quickly, there’s no reason for this major change in the automotive industry not to work.

The biggest bug-bear with these cars to date has been the lack of charging stations and the low mileage before needing a re-charge. The hybrid technology gets around this issue by charging the battery when the engine’s running. If you drive locally with low mileage, having a charging station at home would be well suited.

I remember the days of my first Nokia mobile where I’d speak quite a few times during the week and only needing a charge on the weekends. This was an old-style talk and text only phone with no colour screen so the juice required to run it was minimal.

A bit different to my Smartphone! I’ve got used to charging it in the car, the office, the coffee shop and when I get home.

With laptops, it’s gone quite the opposite. Years back, your laptop would come with a spinning hard drive, spinning CD drive and a whopping fan, so after a few years of use you’d be lucky to get two hours of usage from the battery.

Now with the high-end laptops, there’s no spinning hard drive, no spinning CD drive and a far more compact cooling fan which leads to an improved battery life as there’s nothing mechanical for it to drive. So, if the need arises to access a CD or DVD, you plug in an external drive and the traditional hard drive is replaced with a Solid-State Disk (SSD); again, no spinning parts, just circuitry.

Add the much-improved battery technology in the mix and I can quite safely get around five to six hours of battery usage with my laptop before a charge.

Don’t go mad by constantly changing your laptop to the hilt as this will kill your battery in no time.

Try discharging your machine down to around 5 – 10% two to three times a month to really get the best out of the battery.

If this gorgeous weather continues, a solar powered Smartphone will definitely come in handy!