Electric vehicle subsidy is under threat

The £5,000 subsidy for the purchase of electric vehicles is under threat, according to the Coalition Government's Business Secretary, Vince Cable.

Cable has said that the Government grant could be scrapped as the new administration seeks to cut costs to reduce the national deficit.

The Government ''can't go around waving a chequebook at British industry,'' said Cable, adding that car makers were no longer in an ''emergency situation''.

However, Cable did say that the Government is not planning to walk away from car manufacturers, but will simply be more selective on how it provides support in the future.

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EC to ensure electric vehicles charger interoperability

The European Commission has handed on June 2010 a mandate for the development of relevent standards on  common charging system for electric cars, scooters and bicycles to the European Standardisation Organisations bodies, CEN-CENELEC and ETSI. Thanks to this mandate plugs and connectors will use the same standard all across Europe, providing a true European solution independently of brands or countries. The Commission expects that the standard will be ready by mid-2011.

On June 29th 2010,  European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani handed a European Commission mandate for the development of the relevant standard for electric vehicles chargers to the President of CEN-CENELEC David Dossett, CEN-CENELEC´s Director General Elena Santiago Cid and European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) General Assembly Chair John Philips. These new standards are aimed to ensure that all types of electric vehicles and their batteries are charged both safely and easily in all EU Member States.

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Washington to build “electric highway”

Washington has launched the nation’s first “electric highway,” a network of electric vehicle recharging stations along Interstate 5. The project will be a partnership between the state’s transportation and commerce departments and is supported by $1.32 in federal Recovery Act infrastructure funding. Once implemented, Washington will have the first border to border highway to offer fast charge technology.

The highway stations will support plug-in electric vehicles along the full 276 miles of I-5 between Washington’s borders north and south. The state estimates that nearly 300,000 electric cars will be on Washington’s roads during the next ten years. Right now, almost half of Washington’s emissions come from standard cars.

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