The future's electric

Well it is according to the UK Government’s Department of Transport. It has launched, via the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV), a scheme to help with the purchase of electric cars.



The Plug-in Car Grant will cover up to 25% of the vehicle’s price, to a maximum of £5,000, and it’ll be available to both private and business users.



Application of the subsidy is going to work in a similar way to the scrappage scheme: the dealer will simply deduct it from the invoice when the car is bought. No form-filling needed to retrospectively claim the cash.



£230 million has been set aside, so that’s a potential 46,000 electric cars.



The money is due to be available from January 2011, but the rules are strict. Cars will have to fit into one of three categories to qualify:



1. All-electric (electric motor powered by a rechargeable battery)

2. Plug-in hybrid (powered by both mains-rechargeable batteries and an internal combustion engine)

3. Hydrogen fuel cell powered



That means there’s no point in rushing out to your Lexus dealer to order that hybrid RX 450h. You can’t plug it into the mains, so it’s not eligible.

Neither, for the same reason, is the environmentalists’ favourite, the Toyota Prius.

Does that mean that the UK’s most popular plug-in electric vehicle, the Reva G-Wiz, will have OLEV’s cash all to itself? Er, no… it’s not eligible either because it’s classed as a quadricycle, not a car.

Even if the G-Wiz was a car, its performance would rule it out. OLEV is also stipulating that eligible all-electric cars must have a range of at least 70 miles (113 km), and be able to hit 60 mph (96 kph). The G-Wiz fails on both counts, running out of charge at 48 miles and only managing 50 mph flat out.



So that might not leave too much choice. One possible contender is the City from Norwegian firm Think. It has a range of 112 miles (180 km), and can just achieve the magic 60 mph top speed. Like all manufacturers though, Think will first have to apply to the government before being considered for the scheme.

The Nissan Leaf, due for a European launch at the end of this year, could be a major player. Nissan’s Sunderland facility is in the running to build it, and that will be an important factor for some UK consumers when choosing an electric car.

Chevrolet is also scheduled to launch its plug-in hybrid Volt towards the end of 2010, albeit only in North America. UK sales of the right-hand-drive Vauxhall version, the Ampera, won’t however begin until 2012.

Of course, electric cars aren’t much good if they can’t be recharged. To address this, the government has also earmarked £30 million for 11,000 Plugged In Places - or public recharging points in plain English. The only trouble is that these will be restricted initially to London, Milton Keynes and the North East, with only 2,500 being installed in the first year.



Assuming you’ve found an eligible car, and there’s somewhere to recharge the thing, is it really going to be green? It’s the thorny issue of where all that electricity actually comes from.



In the UK, around a third of electricity is generated from coal, with over 40% coming from natural gas. That means roughly only a quarter is produced from non-fossil fuel sources, the bulk of that being nuclear. Only 6% currently comes from renewables.



Nevertheless, the government reckons that all-in-all, an electric car will be responsible for 40% less CO2 than a normal car. But even so, more electric cars won’t significantly reduce the country’s dependence on dwindling fossil fuel stocks, most of which are imported.



In time, achieving the two symbiotic goals of energy self-reliance and true zero emissions vehicles will probably have to mean increased renewables as well as more nuclear power. And the latter is as unpalatable to some as greenhouse gases.



Assuming the Plug-in Car Grant is successful (and who knows whether it’ll survive a potential change in government after this year’s general election) expect a new road safety campaign to be launched shortly afterwards. Otherwise, there’s going to be a lot of people getting run over by all those silent cars.