Governments Electric Dream

Written by: ECRA Bloggers
Under new proposals the government will offer £5,000 towards the cost of an electric car, create electric car cities and launch large-scale experiments with "ultra-green" vehicles.The scheme will see £30 million of investment in electric vehicle infrastructure for London, Milton Keynes and the North East.The three ‘Plugged-In Places’ will build over 11,000 vehicle recharging points in car parks, supermarkets, leisure and retail centres over the next three years.The proposals are part of a £250m strategy outlining a revolution in Britain's road transport network with the aim of cutting the UK's CO2 emisisons.Tranpsport minister Geoff Hoon said that decarbonising road transport had a big role in helping the UK meet its targets of reducing CO2 emissions by 26% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. "Something like 35% of all our carbon emissions are caused by domestic transport," he said. "Of that, 58% of the emissions are caused by motor cars."Car manufacturers are also a key part of the strategy with £100m available to car makers for research. "What we want to see is the UK firmly in the lead in the manufacturing sense because we want to ensure the incentives ... benefit, broadly, manufacturing in the UK," Hoon told the Guardian.In response to the announcement, Emma Gibson, Head of Transport at Greenpeace UK, said:"Providing help for people buying electric vehicles is exactly the kind of action that’s needed to cut carbon emissions and create green jobs. The simultaneous announcements from Mitsubishi and Siemens, investing in UK wind and tidal power, support the renewable generation needed to make these cars truly green. The much-vaunted low carbon economy finally seems to be coming together in the UK."