Birmingham to bid for electric car pilot project
Environmentalists said plans to increase the amount of electric cars will not make the nation any greener. Chris Williams, from the West Midlands Green Party, said that unless the electricity to power cars came from renewable resources, Britain would not become any greener.
His comments came as Rail Minister Lord Adonis confirmed that the Government had no immediate plans to increase renewable energy sources to cope with the demand for the cars. He said: “Our key priority at the moment is to stimulate a market for electric cars.
“That market does not exist but we have announced cash incentives to create that market.
“When it comes to the issue of power generation, we will address that, but we believe this first generation of cars will not require additional energy.”
He also spoke about the use of smarter technology and ‘charging cars at night’ as a way of making sure the current electricity grid is capable of coping with the additional demand.
The Government has announced subsidies of up to £5,000 to encourage drivers to buy electric and hybrid cars but Green Party European Election candidate Chris Williams said current electricity demands were largely met through coal-powered stations, which do nothing for the environment.
“The Government is still investing in coal-fired power stations, which is how we get our electricity for these new cars, which is not very green,” he said.
“We’re not in favour of this scheme as it does little to address that problem. “What we’re doing is moving people from oil-powered cars, through petrol, to coal powered cars, through electricity.
“There is no progress at all and we need to be moving towards greener forms of energy.
“This may be a step in the right direction, but a better way forward would be to reduce the amount of cars on the road as you’ll still have congestion problems, whether cars are electric or not.”
The subsidies are part of the Government’s £250m plan to promote low-carbon transport over the next five years but ministers do not expect the cars to hit the showrooms until 2011.
The Government believes there is huge potential to reduce emissions, with less than 0.1 per cent of the UK’s 26 million cars now electric.
