Mayor Boris wants fleet of electric vehicles

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, plans to introduce an electric car project to the city, similar to a French scheme in Paris. This follows his initiative for public bicycles.

The scheme would enable drivers to collect an electric battery driven car belonging to the city, from one place, and leave it at another when they wish.

Mr. Johnson said today that he has created a team to look into charging networks, test electric vehicles and designs and examine the autolib system being prepared for 2010 in Paris.

He is also encouraging the use of electric vehicles in London.

The French project will have around 700 collection points throughout the city, 200 being underground, and was originally conceived by Bertrand Delanoë, Mayor of Paris.

Autolib will deploy 4,000 electric cars, which motorists can drive at any time for a fee.

Mayor Delanoë has called the plan totally clean but members of the French Green party are against having more cars in the city.

Autolib comes after the flourishing Vélib, which is a system of enabling bicycles to be hired in the streets of Paris.

In 2010 Mr. Johnson, a keen cyclist, will start a form of that in London.

Users will pay either by annual subscription or by a card for use on the city’s public transport network.

Mayor Johnson believes London should become Europe’s electric capital so he will increase support for more charging points all over the city.

He said they have been discussing changing to, or even building electric vehicles in London with various companies.

He will try to convince Geoff Hoon, secretary for transport, to allocate a large slice of the £250m from the government aimed at encouraging electric proposals.

Johnson also wants to replace nearly half of the 8,000 vehicles owned by the Greater London Authority with electric ones soon.

There would be disappointment if the government found that London is not the most important place for their assistance he said.

Johnson declared that he would stop the third phase of the capital’s low emission area, potentially penalising the uppermost polluting trucks coming into London with a £100 daily fine.

He said it was wrong to expect drivers to spend £2,000 for compliance or £15,000 to change to fuel-efficient engines in a recession.

The major environmental benefit of these projects is that electric cars do not emit carbon.