RAC in electric cars warning

May 31 2009 by John Cranage, Birmingham Post

The estimated 6.8 million motorists thinking of buying an electric car within the next five years are in for shock, according to the RAC.

The motoring organisation said that up to a fifth of the country’s 34 million car owners are either planning to buy a battery-powered car or would consider doing so.

The figure emerged from a GfK NOP survey for the RAC Foundation and the results should be welcome news for the Department for Transport which last month announced an incentive scheme that would see grants of up to £5,000 being offered to purchasers of electric-powered cars from 2011.

But the RAC Foundation has discovered that by the Government’s own reckoning, electric vehicles won’t be available on the mass market until at least 2017, leaving millions of potential buyers frustrated.

Commenting on the findings, the director of the RAC Foundation Professor Stephen Glaister said: “What the Government is in danger of doing is putting the cart before the horse.

“It is actively promoting the purchase of electric vehicles long before there is any chance of manufacturers making them widely available.

“It has gone out of its way to encourage people to make green choices, yet these choices are not yet realistic.

“Even by the Government’s own analysis, this form of environmentally-friendly transport will not be on the mass market for another eight years and even that assumes a major breakthrough in battery technology in the meantime.

“Ministers’ thinking on green technology is really all over the place.”