London Expands its Electric Car Charging Points As Part of Transportation Plans  

TreeHugger has a look at London's expanding network of electric vehicle charge points - London Expands its Electric Car Charging Points As Part of Transportation Plans.

London's electric car charging points are in for a big boost. There are 250 publicly-accessible charge points now. By 2012 there will be 1,300 across the city. There will be more charging points than gas stations, which is quite a coup when you think about it.

There are currently 17,000 hybrid and pure electric vehicles being used in Greater London. The Mayor wants to boost this to 100,000 and make London the electric capital of Europe by making it easier to charge them. Source London is the UK's first citywide electric vehicle charging point network and membership scheme. It will cost £100 to join and then members will be able to charge up their car at any Source London point, whenever they need to.

Many of the charge points will be located in parking lots, near the subway, supermarkets and shopping centres, as well as residential streets.

Since one of the main drawbacks for would-be buyers of electric cars is the fear that they will be left without any electricity, this could be a major boost to get more people to go electric. Already, electric car owners do not have to pay the £10 daily congestion charge which is another good reason to buy one. There is also a Plug-In Car Grant available which pays 25% towards the cost of an electric car, to a maximum of £5,000, to encourage people to buy electric or plug-in hybrids. They are working towards developing a national charging network which would be interchangeable between cities.

It's all part of Mayor Boris Johnson's big transportation plans for the city. He got the Barclays Cycle Hire going, the bicycle rental scheme. The Mayor is so much associated with that programme that the bikes are called, affectionately or not, Boris Bikes.