Electric cars set to boom in the UK

Britain is close to an electric cars revolution which could see driverless vehicles charge up as they use a Scalextric-style road network across the country.

The cutting-edge travel technologies may be adopted in the UK far quicker than people realise, David Cameron’s policy guru Oliver Letwin told MPs.

The Government is pulling out the stops, he stressed, to make the UK the world leader in electric vehicles.

“There is in prospect here a colossally significant revolution,” he said. “It has huge consequences for society and indeed for the environment.”

He said the usage of cars that do not produce CO2 would have “a massive impact on the carbon and NOx equations” — a reference to nitrogen oxides, produced during combustion, which can cause smog and acid rain.

“Also, once they are autonomous you can fit dramatically more of them on a given stretch of road,” he added, “so you don’t need so much road building, you don’t get so much congestion and accident levels fall almost to zero.”

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The Cabinet Office minister said a new government strategy would be unveiled within two years to give Britain pole position in the electric car revolution in both usage and production.

Talks are under way with an Indian car manufacturer for mass production of a long-range electric car at a “very affordable” price.

Key to the sweeping reforms, he emphasised, is a “systematic plan” to install charging points on trunk roads across the UK — so cars do not run out of electricity — as well as thousands in London and other towns and cities.

Mr Letwin pledged that “measures” to achieve this futuristic vision would be taken before the end of this Parliament in 2020 — with several trials of driverless vehicles already taking place, including at Greenwich.

He predicted a “tipping point” at which the take-up of electric vehicles would dramatically escalate.

For taxi, bus and van fleets this could be just “around the corner”, to be followed by mass adoption of the technology for cars then lorries.

Mr Letwin — addressing the Commons environment, food and rural affairs committee’s probe into air quality — said technology is already so advanced that electric cars could be recharged by and induction system under the road network as they drive along. “In practice, it could be done today,” he added.

Alarmingly, he revealed there was the potential “difficulty that the car inhabitants might not be in good shape” due to the effect of the charging process.

He said such “technical” issues had to be addressed, adding: “But it may be that in due course we can actually have charging going on while cars are moving on the road.”

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Source: Evening Standard