It is impressive how New Industrial Revolution and Electric Cars are taking the world over. Our thesis about Next Big Thing is getting more and more confirmation by the day. Will this stylish beauties silently glide on the old streets soon?
Geoff Hoon announces incentives of up to £5,000 for consumers to buy electric cars and plans for cities to become testing grounds
Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 April 2009 22.00 BST
The government will tomorrow finally put flesh on the bones of its long-awaited £250m electric car strategy. The transport secretary, Geoff Hoon, has announced incentives of up to £5,000 for consumers to buy electric cars and plans for cities to become testing grounds for how drivers will use and charge their vehicles.
But the electric car has had numerous false dawns in the past. Motor manufacturers have had electric vehicles on their drawing boards since the 19th century - the first was invented before the diesel engine. But, every time, the ideas have fallen by the wayside through lack of development and the low price of oil.
Something is different this time. There is a near-global consensus that something has to replace internal combustion engines, which account for 20% of the world's carbon emissions, and it needs to happen fast. A perfect storm of technology, design and political will suggests 2009 will be the year the electric car begins its takeover in earnest.
"What we've got to get people used to is the idea that electric cars will become quite normal, quite usual," Hoon told the Guardian. "That people will have one, that it won't be exceptional and, without being unkind to existing electric vehicles, they won't be slightly odd, they will be cars that conform to appropriate safety standards and we can use on an everyday basis."
The move finally brings the UK into line with countries including Germany, Denmark, Australia, Israel, China and parts of the US in stating their hopes for an electric future for cars.
About 22% of the UK's carbon emissions come from transport, with 13% of these from private cars. According to a study for the Department for Transport (DfT), widespread adoption of electric vehicles capable of a range of 50km or more could cut road transport carbon emissions in half. The UK government initially threw itself behind the electric dream with the launch of a £100m programme last October to accelerate the introduction of electric cars to the UK.
David Bott, director of innovation at the Technology Strategy Board, a government-sponsored research body which funds low-carbon research, said: "Now the motor manufacturers have understood that the [electric] car doesn't have to be hair-shirt. These are now credible cars and you're not giving up anything to use one but you get a benefit in terms of running costs – the equivalent cost per mile is an eighth or a tenth of the cost of using a petrol engine."
Every time electric cars have failed in the past, it could usually be attributed to some combination of three specific factors: the low price of oil, the lack of good batteries and the scarcity of charging infrastructure. But now a fourth factor has come into play: the environment.
"I accept that, for most consumers, what drives their decision to buy a new car is generally the reduction in the cost of fuel rather than their concern about carbon emissions," said Hoon. "But there are significant numbers of people, and those numbers are growing every day, who are concerned about the impact of carbon on the environment. It's the responsibility of the government to help those people achieve our overall targets. Electric vehicles will be part of that, provided that we also ensure that the electricity we generate is generated increasingly from renewable sources."
The oil shock of 2008 has dealt with the first of the usual barriers to electric cars and batteries are also getting better. Not only can modern lithium-ion cells store more energy than ever before, manufacturers can now make them in the quantity and quality needed for the mass car market. "What's very positive is that we can see down the line the investment the motor industry is making in battery technology," said Robert Evans, chief executive of Cenex, the government-backed agency that develops research into low-carbon transport.
And the infrastructure question – how to keep electric cars charged when you are not at home – is finally emerging from its chicken-and-egg conundrum, with electric car networks popping up in several countries.
A model that is gaining significant traction around the world is that developed by Californian start-up company Better Place. The idea is to build a network of kerbside charging points around a city but also the equivalent of filling stations, where electric car owners would be able to swap their flat batteries for fully charged ones. With a full charge on one of Better Place's batteries, a typical saloon car would be able to travel 100 miles. The company already has agreements to build networks in Israel, Denmark, Australia, California, Hawaii and Canada and next week it launches a battery-exchange trial in Japan. By 2015, the company plans to have more than 40m electric cars on the road in these networks.
The UK's own electric car infrastructure tests are more tentative. Though the British government has expressed interest in the past with the Better Place model, today's strategy does not pick that solution above others. "I'm quite keen that our solution should be technology neutral and we shouldn't be suggesting that there is only one way this ambition can be achieved," said Hoon. "Not least because if you lock yourself into a particular type of solution and type of infrastructure that is necessarily associated with changing batteries, it becomes more difficult to support the kinds of innovation that are around."
He added that the government wants to create a critical mass of people driving electric cars in the UK before settling on what the infrastructure should look like. "That's not just the government building the infrastructure, it's working with the private sector in a complementary way."
In addition to asking cities to bid to become electric car showcases, about 200 electric cars of various models will be available in British town centres for members of the public to try in towns and cities across the country.
These demonstrations will test some fundamental questions about how people drive electric cars. A battery may have a nominal range of 200 miles but how does this change if it is driven in stop-start city traffic or accelerated hard down country lanes? "Will people drive their cars until they're almost flat and then try to plug them in or will they try and top them up? Will we need to provide interim topping up in car parks? How far do people drive in a day? If the capacity of the car is 200 miles and they only drive 100, they can probably charge up at night on low-tariff rate," said Bott.
London's mayor, Boris Johnson, recently announced his intent to make the city the electric car capital of Europe. He wants to introduce 100,000 electric cars to the capital's streets and build an infrastructure of 25,000 charging points in public streets, car parks and shops. And he wants money from central government to do it.
Hoon said he had spoken to Johnson and had warmed to the mayor's plan. "Clearly I want to work with him and see what's possible in London and am willing to help financially if there are sensible schemes that can be brought forward. London is a showcase for the UK and large numbers of electric vehicles around the UK would be a good thing."
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