A round-up of UK EV news from c-zero.info: e government is to invest more than £9m to boost the number of charging points for electric cars across the UK and will work with manufacturers to accelerate the growing market.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced today that £5.8m will be spent on providing 140 new rapid chargepoints in towns and along major roads to create a nationwide network of 500 chargers, each of which can fully power up an electric car battery in 30 minutes.
A further £600,000 is set to be spent on fitting 80 chargepoints at railway stations for commuters, while grants of £2.9m have been awarded to public sector organisations, including hospitals, fire and rescue services, the Ministry of Defence, and Gloucestershire police force, to install more than 450 chargepoints for their staff and visitors.
The money comes from the extra £37m set aside for electric vehicleinfrastructure in July 2013, on top of which the government has also committed to invest £5m to introduce electric vehicles across public sector fleets this year.
There are currently more than 6,000 public chargepoints across the UK serving a rising number of electric vehicles. Since a government grant of up to £5,000 was made available to electric car buyers in January 2011 almost 20 electric and plug-in cars and vans have been launched in the UK.
However, take-up has been slow so far, with around 6,880 cars eligible for the plug-in grant sold over the past three years. The government is keen to grow the market, not just to help the UK meet its carbon reduction targets, but also to put the country at the forefront of electric car manufacturing.
Last year, ministers outlined £1bn plans to decarbonise UK road transport entirely by the middle of the century and ensure every new car bought after 2040 will be an ultra low emissions vehicle.
And today Clegg confirmed a 12 month awareness campaign featuring fleetpartnerships alongside print, radio, and online adverts promoting the benefits of pure electric, plug-in hybrid and extended-range vehicles that will see theDepartment for Transport and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles team up with manufacturers BMW, Nissan, Renault, Toyota, and Vauxhall, as well as trade body the SMMT.
The campaign will focus on the low driving costs associated with electric vehicles at a time of rising fuel prices and the performance of the cars, most of which can travel around 100 miles on a single charge – or up to 700 miles for hybrid – taking the range well beyond most people’s standard journeys.
At the heart of the campaign is a new website, www.GoUltraLow.com, providing information about owning and running electric vehicles, which makes and models are available, and the locations of publicly available chargepoints.
“Electric cars are one of the most promising of our green industries and wewant to secure the UK’s position as a global leader in both the production and adoption of these vehicles,” Clegg said in a statement. “The extremely low running costs of electric cars help drivers save money and we are allocating more than £9m to boost chargepoints across the country to help drivers to go green,” he added. “This means we can lower UK emissions and create high-tech engineering and manufacturing jobs to boost our economy.”
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced today that £5.8m will be spent on providing 140 new rapid chargepoints in towns and along major roads to create a nationwide network of 500 chargers, each of which can fully power up an electric car battery in 30 minutes.
A further £600,000 is set to be spent on fitting 80 chargepoints at railway stations for commuters, while grants of £2.9m have been awarded to public sector organisations, including hospitals, fire and rescue services, the Ministry of Defence, and Gloucestershire police force, to install more than 450 chargepoints for their staff and visitors.
The money comes from the extra £37m set aside for electric vehicleinfrastructure in July 2013, on top of which the government has also committed to invest £5m to introduce electric vehicles across public sector fleets this year.
There are currently more than 6,000 public chargepoints across the UK serving a rising number of electric vehicles. Since a government grant of up to £5,000 was made available to electric car buyers in January 2011 almost 20 electric and plug-in cars and vans have been launched in the UK.
However, take-up has been slow so far, with around 6,880 cars eligible for the plug-in grant sold over the past three years. The government is keen to grow the market, not just to help the UK meet its carbon reduction targets, but also to put the country at the forefront of electric car manufacturing.
Last year, ministers outlined £1bn plans to decarbonise UK road transport entirely by the middle of the century and ensure every new car bought after 2040 will be an ultra low emissions vehicle.
And today Clegg confirmed a 12 month awareness campaign featuring fleetpartnerships alongside print, radio, and online adverts promoting the benefits of pure electric, plug-in hybrid and extended-range vehicles that will see theDepartment for Transport and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles team up with manufacturers BMW, Nissan, Renault, Toyota, and Vauxhall, as well as trade body the SMMT.
The campaign will focus on the low driving costs associated with electric vehicles at a time of rising fuel prices and the performance of the cars, most of which can travel around 100 miles on a single charge – or up to 700 miles for hybrid – taking the range well beyond most people’s standard journeys.
At the heart of the campaign is a new website, www.GoUltraLow.com, providing information about owning and running electric vehicles, which makes and models are available, and the locations of publicly available chargepoints.
“Electric cars are one of the most promising of our green industries and wewant to secure the UK’s position as a global leader in both the production and adoption of these vehicles,” Clegg said in a statement. “The extremely low running costs of electric cars help drivers save money and we are allocating more than £9m to boost chargepoints across the country to help drivers to go green,” he added. “This means we can lower UK emissions and create high-tech engineering and manufacturing jobs to boost our economy.”
