The four-seater vehicles — with a range of up to 150 miles — were unveiled by French tycoon Vincent Bolloré, whose group runs the Autolib electric car-sharing scheme in Paris used by around 220,000 drivers.
The French-made cars, powered by lithium metal polymer batteries, have been painted “double decker red” and will be seen on the streets of the capital in the new year when Bolloré launches a London version of Autolib.
Mr Bolloré was in London to open the company’s UK headquarters in Cavendish Square near Oxford Street. The office will also house the call centre for drivers once the car-sharing scheme is fully up and running in 2016.
The ceremony came after official figures revealed a huge increase in the number of electric cars on Britain’s roads in the first quarter of the year.
The data showed registrations of “ultra low emissions vehicles” were up 366 per cent to almost 10,000. Industry statistics also showed that almost 40 per cent of the cars on Britain’s roads are now in the five lowest bands for emissions, meaning they spew out less than 140g of carbon dioxide every kilometre driven. As recently as 2001 just one per cent met that standard.
Transport minister Andrew Jones said: “I am delighted to see such a huge rise in the number of people buying ultra low emission vehicles. The Go Ultra Low campaign is making low emission vehicles an increasingly popular choice and the government is investing £500 million in making them more accessible to families and businesses across the country.”
Earlier this week Richmond Park Tory MP Zac Goldsmith, who is intending to run for London Mayor, called for Boris Johnson’s flagship environmental policy of an ultra-low emission zone to be brought forward from its scheduled start date of in 2020 and for it to be made bigger.
He stressed in a Commons debate that more than one million Londoners live in areas that exceed legal limits on nitrogen dioxide.
The Standard has run a series of reports about how adopting green technology can help to improve Londoners’ lives by curbing killer air pollution, and will host a debate on June 30 to discuss technological fixes for London’s environmental challenges. It is chaired by Kirsty Wark of BBC’s Newsnight, and sponsored by French energy efficiency group Engie.
