London to become the 'electric car' capital of Europe

09 April 2009

If London Mayor Boris Johnson has way, then London will become the 'electric car capital of Europe', as Johnson intends to have 100,000 electric cars in London with about 25,000 charging points spread all over the city.

Apart from car and vans, the mayor also wants to convert at least 1,000 government utility vehicles to electric by 2015.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the forthcoming UK budget would have provisions to introduce electric cars in a mass way although many MPs have called for incentives for consumers to swap their petrol or diesel run vehicles in favour of new electric cars.

Since a small electric car costs around £7,000, the UK government is planning to give consumers an incentive of £2,000 to purchase an electric car, which the owner could recoup from the cost price in about two years since an electric car brings a cost saving of approximately £3,000 a year.

The Mayor sent a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlining his plan for making London a city with electric cars, where the infrastructure for charging the electric cars would be made available on main roads, retail centres, car parks, in workplaces and railway stations by 2015.

He has said that 20 per cent of all new parking spaces and all new building developments should have charging points and guaranteed that all electric vehicles would not have to pay the central London congestion charge.