The city of London is facilitating the future of environmentally-friendly private vehicle ownership by ensuring the uptake and viability of electric cars. Through enacting its EV plans London is hoping to become the electric car capital of the world.
To achieve this, London has drawn up the Electric Vehicle Delivery Plan. The British capital aims to have 100,000 electric vehicles on the road with 25,000 battery charging points by 2015. The city also aims to convert 1,000 Greater London Authority fleet vehicles to electric by the same year.
Tackling the level of emissions caused by private vehicles is a priority for London authorities. It is estimated that poor air quality is responsible for 1,000 premature deaths and 1,000 hospital admissions per year in the city. Transport accounts for 22% of the cities total CO2 emissions, with motorbikes and cars accounting for 16% of the total CO2 emissions, 46% of its NOX emissions of and 83% of its PM10 emissions. Car transport is also the leading source of CO2 emissions amongst transport in the city. Figure 1 breaks down CO2 emissions from London’s transport by transport mode.
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Figure 1: CO2 emissions from London Transport by transport mode. Source: Office of the Mayor of London, 2009
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After examining possible candidates for a low-emission alternative to fossil-fuel based car transportation, the city agreed that electric vehicles presented the most effective option. Taking into account the UK’s current electricity mix, which includes electricity generated by carbon-heavy energy sources, electric cars are still around 30% to 40% less pollutant than combustion engine vehicles.
The Electric Vehicle Delivery Plan sets out a strategy to stimulate the market for electric vehicles within London. It is separated into three sections.
- Infrastructure
This aspect focuses on the roll out of charge points across the city. The city will work with the boroughs and other partners to deliver 25,000 charge points by 2015, including a network of fast charge sites. 500 charge stations will be on-street, while 2,000 will be off-street in areas such as car parks. 22,500 will be provided in partnership with businesses. Under city policy, all new developments will be required to provide charging facilities. The city is trialling wireless charge points, in which cars drive over an electric charge pad.
- Vehicles
The public vehicle fleet will be electrified, with a target of 1,000 electrified vehicles in the Greater London Authority (GLA) Fleet by 2015. The GLA comprises Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police Service, the London Fire Brigade, and the Greater London Authority. After a detailed analysis of the operational requirements of the GLA fleet, a procurement framework was established to purchase 1,000 new electric vehicles, with funding support sought from the national government. Support is also being provided to the boroughs and central government to increase their electric vehicle numbers.
The GLA is working with companies to expand the use of electric vehicles, and has established the “Electric 20” partnership. The city is working with twenty companies that already use electric vehicles on a daily basis, such as Sainsbury's, Tesco's, Marks and Spencer, and Royal Mail, to learn from their experiences and encourage other companies to copy their example.
Manufacturers are striving to create a cost model that ensures purchasing an electric car is more cost effective than purchasing a car run on fossil fuels over a four or five year period. The higher initial cost of purchasing (caused by the expense of the battery) is offset by lower maintenance and fuel costs. Costs saved through owning an EV in London include:
- Exemption from the congestion charge
- Lower fuel costs
- No road tax
- Reduced rate parking
- Incentives, marketing and communications
Marketing is important to the success of the scheme – for it to work, customer benefits must be adequately communicated to the public.
As mentioned above, in order to incentivise potential customers the city is abolishing the Congestion Charge for electric vehicles, abolishing road tax and is working with the borough to develop parking incentives. Car clubs are also being encouraged to increase their percentage of electric vehicles.
To further make owning an electric vehicle easier, the city has developed a London-wide membership scheme for users, which provides access to the charge point network and the congestion charge discount. The scheme, named Source London, provides this for a fee of £10, which was recently reduced from £100. As the fee was intended to be nominal and not to generate revenue, authorities felt that £10 provided more of an incentive to potential users. Source is consolidating all charging points, originally managed by separate borough authorities. By 2015 the scheme hopes to create a system in which no Londoner is more than one mile from a publicly accessible charging point.
On of the drawbacks of city run-schemes is that they stay within the jurisdiction of the city. The difficulty of linking the city scheme with other schemes is that other regions might not be using the same charging points, leading to compatibility issues. National schemes can lead to a larger uptake in the short term and increase user confidence, solidifying the concept as a viable alternative to fossil-fuel based cars in the minds of the public.