New drive for electric cars in Brighton and Hove (From The Argus)
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New drive for electric cars in Brighton and Hove
10:00pm Sunday 20th September 2009 in
ELECTRIC cars will be refuelled in the streets of Brighton and Hove using the first charging points outside London.
Plans to introduce the charging points are expected to be given the go-ahead next week - despite there currently being only three electric cars in the city.
Points will be sited in Bartholomews in the city centre and Ditchling Road, near The Level.
They could be in use within a few weeks.
Calvey Taylor-Haw, managing director of Brighton-based Elektromotive Ltd, has won the contract to provide the chargers to the city.
He said that the number of electric cars in the area would increase as all the major car manufacturers introduce new models to the market next year.
Mr Taylor-Haw added: “If the public start to believe the infrastructure is coming through, they will have more confidence to buy electric cars.
“In 12 months you will be seeing plenty of them on the city streets.”
Locations for three further sites are still under consideration but they are expected to come into use by the end of this year.
Mr Taylor-Hall said the cars take six hours to fully charge from empty and a 10,000 mile trip would cost under £200.
The same distance in a petrol powered car would cost £1,200.
An electric car can travel about 100 miles on a full battery. The charging point scheme, which will be funded by a £130,000 European Union grant, and is part of the council’s sustainable transport policy.
The city’s few electric car owners already receive 50% discounts on parking permits in the city.
Brighton and Hove City Councillor Geoffrey Theobald, cabinet member for the environment, said: “The city has a reputation for being innovative. Becoming the first area outside London to provide on-street public charging points will benefit residents, visitors and businesses.
“Electric vehicles themselves produce zero emissions and so are much better for the air quality in town and city centres than petrol and diesel powered vehicles. As well as the environmental benefits, fluctuations in oil prices have also increased interest in electric cars."
Comments(21)
bibble
says...
10:15pm Sun 20 Sep 09
stickman
says...
10:25pm Sun 20 Sep 09
Dave At Home
says...
10:53pm Sun 20 Sep 09
No news on how much the council will charge for recharging your battery, whereas in London it is free.... another half report by the Argus. How annoying it is not to read a complete story with ALL the facts.
Voice of the silent Majority
says...
11:23pm Sun 20 Sep 09
So now with Car Club spaces, Big Bin spaces and probally Electric spaces why not put the cost of the Car Park spaces up to pay for the fact we will have no where left to park
baldseagull
says...
12:15am Mon 21 Sep 09
Tye
says...
7:22am Mon 21 Sep 09
Indeed these cars are dangerous in crashes even at VERY slow speed, the chemicals in the batteries are dangerous - the extraction is done via strip mining destroying vast tracts of beautiful land and the ONLY way they are allowed on the roads is because of certain exeemptions so that they are even NOT classed as cars (I'll be glad to be corrected here but you can drive dangerously, kill people on pavements and cannot be charged with anything as was the case in the B/Mouth story last week)
The ghost of Osama bin there
says...
8:45am Mon 21 Sep 09
Hybrid cars have already shown they work, and in the future it will be cars powered by either hydrogen or water. But that's a long way off still.
As bibble so rightly points out, it's EU money, and as we are net contributors it's our taxes that are funding this!
There's no info in this article as to what the car owners wil be charged to use the power points.
I really don't think cars powered solely by electricity will ever be around in significant numbers.
snerper
says...
8:55am Mon 21 Sep 09
sold my Sinclair C5 and bought one of the first electric cars for the princely sum of £100! It was a snip at that price, but of course, the £250.000 I spent on the extension lead did take the edge off the excitement just a little bit!
She-Ra, Princess Of Power
says...
12:29pm Mon 21 Sep 09
100 miles to 6 hours charging? So if you're doing a 200 mile trip you have to stop halfway and wait for 6 hours before you can continue?!
Around town is the only place I would see the benefit, but if we're being encouraged to get out of our cars and to walk or bus to reduce traffic then is there much point?!
Not to mention as Tye pointed out, the manufacturing of the batteries! It's probably more eco-friendly to stick to a petrol or diesel car...
Darling2
says...
12:43pm Mon 21 Sep 09
Thought not......
Wilftop
says...
1:33pm Mon 21 Sep 09
Granny
says...
1:48pm Mon 21 Sep 09
yorkie44
says...
4:00pm Mon 21 Sep 09
justme
says...
4:35pm Mon 21 Sep 09
Tye
says...
8:55pm Mon 21 Sep 09
NO, I thought not!
boblat
says...
11:29am Tue 22 Sep 09
Any attempt to bury the bad policies of our peers, reformation from the young and concern over the fast advancing catastrophies due to past greed is, in my mind, A WINNER!
bibble
says...
2:09pm Tue 22 Sep 09
ghost bus driver
says...
5:22pm Tue 22 Sep 09
snerper wrote:There is (or at least, there was) an old electric car on display in the EDF hall at Amberley chalk pits museum. Presumably so we can all have a laugh
Go ahead and scoff if you like, this is the future of our transport! I am proud to say that twenty years ago I
sold my Sinclair C5 and bought one of the first electric cars for the princely sum of £100! It was a snip at that price, but of course, the £250.000 I spent on the extension lead did take the edge off the excitement just a little bit!
I'm fairly sure there`s a Sinclair C5 in there too...
Tye
says...
8:18am Wed 23 Sep 09
bibble wrote:And the its the Polices' fault because?
Nice idea, boblat. But how many electric cars do you think you will see in Brighton one year from now? If it's 200 it won't make the slightest bit of difference to the pollution (which I agree in some part of Brighton is very bad).
NIck99
says...
1:38pm Wed 23 Sep 09
Scarey.
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bibble says...
10:14pm Sun 20 Sep 09
Oh, and us tax payers are paying for it. You see, we are a net contributor to the EU. So we give them our money, then they give it out to their pet projects.
Electric cars in London are still a novelty, despite the charging points. I see them in Mayfair, sometimes parked two to a bay.
Easy way to make money: jump on a bandwagon which the EU wants, grab a chunk of taxpayers' money.