The Government has announced £43m of funding for infrastructure and research and development for ‘plug-in’ vehicles.
£32m will be used between now and 2020 to create a “wave of chargepoints” at homes, hospitals, train stations and on A-roads.
The other £11m will be provided to 50 organisations, ranging from small businesses to large universities, working together on 15 research and development projects.
The funding was announced by Baroness Kramer, transport minister, during a visit to Nissan’s European technical development centre at Cranfield in Bedfordshire (26 Feb).
The £32m infrastructure commitment will include £15m to continue the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, under which ULEV drivers will receive a 75% grant of up to £700 towards installation from 13 April 2015.
£8m will be used to support public charging infrastructure across the UK which (alongside £15m Highways Agency funding announced in autumn 2014) will deliver chargepoints on major roads and across towns and cities.
The remaining £9m will be used to address “other infrastructure priorities”, further details of which will be announced later this year.
Baroness Kramer said: “The public will find it even easier to charge their cars when they are out and about thanks to our £8m commitment to support new chargepoints across key locations in towns and cities. And we have today announced another £15m to continue the rollout of convenient home chargepoints across the country.”
Charge networks such as the ‘Energiser Network’ allow publicly owned charging points to be registered on their network; this has a lot of potential for some small businesses. We most definately need to see improvements in the charging networks across the UK. Although the range of EVs is improving it is still the main sticking point holding back sales. Charging networks will be key to the take up of electric cars. https://www.ecocars4sale.com has a charge map available and also details of charging networks and schemes, as well as other government incentives for electric car owners such as free road tax and no congestion charge for driving in London.
Matt-ecocars, Norwich
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And so the electric train charges towards the cliff edge. With insufficient power generation invested in over the past 30yrs, this can only end in tears. Renewables are not going to save the crash either, more likely to accelerate it. Funding (tax payers money) available for such folly, but not for the NHS?
Derek Reynolds, Salop.
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