Great Britain and Australia are bent on giving this world a better plan by rolling out recharging infrastructure to support future electric cars. Both countries believe the immediate zero emissions future lay in encouraging consumers to buy electric cars when they first become widely available in the next 2 or 3 years.
On Monday, the UK is set to announce that it will be installing thousands of electric car charging points throughout the country. The UK Ministers will be announcing $158 million USD in tax breaks and corporate incentives to spur electric vehicles into the marketplace. Currently, there are only 3,000 such vehicles in the UK.
The Brits are well aware that the Renault-Nissan Alliance will be rolling out EV’s in 2011 that have over a 100 mile range. Cleaning up smoggy old London and other regions is still of great concern even after Mayor Boris Johnson cancelled an order of 60 hydrogen cars for his city this past August.
The UK is also keeping its eye on Israel and Denmark and the Better Plan program, which helps those who drive over 100 miles in their electric car swap out batteries at special stations in under 5 minutes. Australia has decided to be the third and largest nation getting in on the action with an investment of $676 million.
Both recharging spots and battery exchange stations will be added to the world’s sixth largest country. Getting the Aussies to give up their gas guzzlers may be a bit tricky, but the low cost incentives will be worth it in regard to the low recharging price and vehicle maintenance costs.
California has around 500 recharging stations that it has built up over the past decade or so, but the rest of the states are still pretty scarce when it comes to support for electric vehicles. What we need is “electric cities” to come onboard such as Lake Portland, Oregon that is putting up recharging stations in support of future EV’s and PHEV’s.
A little planning now will pay dividends a few years from now and won’t involve any nasty “crushing” incidents.
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