Excited about electric?

It appears the UK Government are ploughing on full steam ahead with their plans to create a ‘greener’ and healthier Britain in the next decade.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is focusing his most recent efforts into introducing electric cars into the UK through a £2.5 million campaign named ‘Go Ultra Low.’

At a recent event in London, Clegg claimed that they intent to invest a further £9 million on installing rapid charge-points for electric vehicles along motorways, making travelling distances by electric cars more feasible.

Despite subsidies of up to £8,000 for electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, people have still been reluctant to invest with just 5,702 people choosing a green vehicle.

Clegg was quoted saying, “Our clear objective is to move the car fleet in this country to ultra low-emission vehicles by 2040 and to put money and policy money behind it,”

Any vehicle that emits less that 75g/km of Carbon Dioxide is considered to be ‘low emission’ by the government. The Go Ultra Low campaign brings together the five main producers of EV and plug-in hybrid cars; BMW, Vauxhall, Nissan, Toyota and Renault to deliver the key message that electric cars are no longer like the original ‘G-Wiz’ and that EV’s and plug-in hybrids are to be the car of the future.

In 2013, 1.3% of vehicles sold were those with alternative fuel systems. A total of 2,512 were electric and 3,584 were plug-in hybrids.

BMW are expecting to sell approximately 2000 of their new i3 electric and range extender city car next year. Head of BMW’s ‘I’ programme Suzanne Grazy was quoted by the Telegraph saying, ““If you stopped subsidies at the end of 2015 then the market will suddenly dry up. It needs to run for longer than that.” She believes that 5% of sales representing 6/7000 sales for the brand would provide a sustainable future.

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