The government has been pushing forward with their plan to boost the use of electric cars and have just started their installation project for providing special points for electric cars to charge their batteries; these special points are shortly due for installation within thousands of public streets and car parks for people to use regularly throughout the day. It is hoped that this will help to convert road users from using petrol and diesel vehicles to electricity.
The government scheme means that drivers of electric vehicles will now be able to quite easily plug in to recharge their vehicles’ batteries either when they are out shopping or at work.
It is planned that on a longer term basis, drivers of these new vehicles will be able to simply take out their empty battery and exchange it for a fully charged battery, driving on with less delay than currently filling your car with petrol.
Further incentives provided by the government to entice people change over to electric cars will include tax breaks and incentives from manufacturers. £100 million has been budgeted by the government to begin production of electric cars.
Mirroring Israel’s own electric car project known as ‘Project Better Place,’ the UK government will be providing half a million recharging points throughout the country.
Mass production for the new electric cars by manufacturers Nissan and Renault is planned for 2009; the new electric cars will hold battery power that provides 100 miles of travelling before the car’s battery is due for re-charging.
Currently, there are less than 3,000 electric cars on the roads in the UK which equates to less than 0.1% of the total car population. The main reason for this so far has been the lack of choice in models and range, currently the cars that are available on the market need recharging after only 30 miles which doesn’t make them suitable for long journeys and they are also bound to cities where rechargeable battery points are.
Now the government believes that with the higher performance, new generation, battery powered cars and easier access points for recharging batteries, the public will be swayed to swap petrol and diesel for electric in the short term future.