London 'must consider EV infrastructure'

Date: 13/7/2011

The logistics of charging an electric vehicle (EV) at home need to be considered, as currently some Britons who may want such a car cannot invest in one because of fuelling difficulties.

Such is the opinion of Mike Rutherford, Columnist at the Daily Telegraph, who was speaking at yesterday's (July 12th) London Assembly's Environment Committee meeting.

He said that some people living in the capital do not have a driveway on which they can install a charging point, while it is not practical to park such a vehicle on the road and have an electric cable running across the pavement.

"I know in certain areas of London - around Notting Hill - we are seeing people come to these arrangements where the shops, estate agents, people like that have some sort of arrangement where they have an overhead wire into their shop," he explained.

However, Mr Rutherford added that it is vital to think about how the car can feasibly be connected to what is a "heavy duty plug".

Even if Britons charge their motors at work, he noted that it will need to be decided whether the employer or vehicle owner is responsible for paying.

Yesterday's meeting took place to analyse how close the city has come to achieving Mayor Boris Johnson's goal of London becoming the EV capital of Europe.

Posted by Nick Anderson