Yesterday a convoy of electric cars drove from Coventry to Birmingham, to publicise the fact that both cities now have a network of electric car charging points. The cars themselves are part of a year long experiment in London, Newcastle, and other British cities to see how ordinary drivers respond to electric cars for everyday journeys. Local government in the UK is very enthusiastic about electric vehicles – London Mayor Boris Johnson wants to see 100,000 electric cars on the streets of London within the next few years, and is busy installing more than 25,000 charging points throughout the city. National government is enthusiastic too, although Business Secretary Vince Cable has refused to confirm that the current administration will honour a Labour pledge to give a £5,000 grant to anyone who buys a new all electric vehicle from 2011 onwards.
Yes, this really is an electric car
Electric cars are far from perfect – the batteries are heavy, expensive and don’t last very long – but it’s already clear that electric cars will take over from petrol and diesel. At the moment electric cars are more expensive to build, but cheaper to run, than petrol. As the technology develops, and the price of oil continues to rise, sometime in the next five to ten years old fashioned petrol cars will simply be too expensive in comparison with their electric rivals. And even if you recharge your electric car from the national grid as it is now – ie mostly powered by fossil fuels – the overall emissions of CO2 per mile are still less than that of a typical petrol or diesel car.