A weighty question Will electric cars prove too heavy for roads and bridges?

Cars have a weight problem. Consider the Mini, designed to save precious fuel during rationing: it has ballooned in size. It is not alone. Cars have got bigger and bigger, with the rise of the SUV only accelerating the trend.

- Jasper Jolly

Electric cars might look the same (for now) but they have one big difference: a heavy battery.

Our EV mythbusters series has taken a wild ride through the common (but often misinformed) criticisms of electric cars, from range anxiety to carbon emissions, mining and air pollution. This final instalment asks: will electric cars prove to be too heavy for our roads and infrastructure?

The claim

After years of bloat on our roads, the extra battery burden has prompted some people to wonder whether electric cars will break our roads, bridges and car parks.

Matthew Lynn, a columnist at the Daily Telegraph, wrote this month: "It's far from clear that the charging infrastructure will be in place, or whether roads and bridges will cope with the heavier vehicles."

Greg Knight, a Tory MP, last year asked the government to test "the adequacy of the strength of multistorey car parks and bridges at safely bearing the additional weight of electric vehicles".

The Asphalt Industry Alliance claimed smaller roads could be vulnerable to potholes, and the Daily Mail wrote: "Multi-storey car parks could be at risk of collapsing."

The science

Electric cars can be very heavy. Car magazine said General Motors' gargantuan Hummer "manages to look even heavier than it is" - an impressive achievement, considering it comes in at more than 4 tonnes. A third of that is the battery pack capable of powering one of the biggest cars over 300 miles. It is big.

A more reasonable electric car would be the Tesla Model Y, at 2 tonnes. For comparison, JLR'S flagship Range Rover weighs in at 2.5 tonnes before any people get in, while newer versions of Ford's F-150 pickup truck - the US bestseller - can weigh as much as 2.7 tonnes depending on the model.