Mayor Boris Johnson had pledged to install 22,500 electric car charging points across London, with 7,500 in place by 2013 of which 6,000 were to be installed at work places, 500 on the streets, 330 in public car parks, 50 at Tube stations, 140 in supermarket car parks and 120 at car clubs. This £60 million scheme was intended to make London the “Electric Car Capital of Europe” , but, following the Spending Review, the mayor’s earlier pledge of £20 million funding has now been cut back to just £7 million. Boris also promised that no Londoner would be more than a mile from a charging point. At present there are only around 250 charging points in London with just over half of them funded by Transport for London (TfL), to service the capital’s 1,700 electric vehicles currently registered.
There’s no doubt that the specification of Electric Vehicles (EV’s) is improving all the time. Ranges are steadily being extended and their performance is getting closer to regular cars. The various technologies are still sparring for dominance and projected retail prices seem to be relatively high (£30,000 is suggested for a Plug in Prius for example). That’s reflected in sales of new electric cars in the UK, which plummeted by nearly 90% in 2009 compared with their peak in 2007, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Nearly half of the electric vehicles sold last year were the tiny G-Wiz, which is ineligible for a government grant scheme thanks to its low speed and limited range.
