The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, plans to make the city of London the electric vehicle (EV) capital of Europe by increasing the number of them on London’s roads and encouraging the development of the technology amongst car manufacturers.
With this in mind, he has set a target of having 1,000 electric vehicles in the Greater London Authority (GLA) fleet by 2015, rising to 100,000 by 2020.
The first, albeit small, step towards achieving this was the acquisition of four new Mitsubishi i-MiEVs, to be used by Transport for London. The i-MiEV is a fully electric city car with zero emissions at the tail-pipe. The car can seat four adults and has a top speed of 81 mph, a range of 80 miles and takes six hours to charge with a conventional charger.
By the end of this year, TfL will have up to 10 electric vehicles in its fleet which it will use to ensure that roadworks comply with its permit scheme to keep traffic moving.
Increasing the number of fleet vehicles is one element of the Mayor’s plans to boost electric vehicle numbers to 100,000 as soon as possible. Over the coming year, 1,600 charge points will be installed across the Capital with numbers rising to 7,500 by 2013 and 25,000 points will be in place by 2015. By then, with 2,500 charge points installed in publicly accessible areas, on average no Londoner will be further than a mile from any charge point.
The number of electric vehicles in mainstream use is forecast to significantly increase in the coming years as many of the leading car manufacturers are planning to launch new electric vehicle models in the UK. The increase of zero-tail pipe emitting EVs will help to improve air quality and cut climate change emissions. As the price of petrol and diesel continues to increase they will also have significantly lower running costs than conventional vehicles, including a 100% exemption from the congestion charge.
Later this year a single London-wide brand for electric vehicles will be launched so that drivers will be able to clearly identify where a charging point is located. This will be supported by a new website providing a one-stop shop of information on electric vehicles and charging points and a London-wide membership scheme will also be launched to enable drivers to access charge points across the capital - currently electric car drivers have to register in every borough they charge up in.
It is estimated that 100,000 electric vehicles could cut London’s carbon output by almost 500,000 tonnes over the next decade as well as save 100 tonnes of NOx emissions and several tonnes of PM10 emissions. This is equivalent to 300 million car trips.
London already leads the way with almost a quarter (around 1,800) of the 8,000 electric vehicles registered in the UK in the Capital.
The city is also ideally suited to becoming an electric vehicle world leader since 95% of London motorists travel less than a total of 50 miles per day, which is within the range of existing electric vehicles. At present there are over 250 charging points in the Capital, over half funded by TfL, with around 1,800 electric vehicles currently registered - far exceeding numbers anywhere else in the UK.
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Glad to hear an influential city like London is taking the reigns on this important eco way of life!