The point of loading car of ecotricity in Michaelwood M5 services. Photo: Professional imagesToday launched the first national freight network for electric cars. This may sound a bit grand, something quite beautifully simple - a series of load jobs installed by Ecotricity in services of Highway across the country. Charging stations for electric cars, are easy to access and free use. That allows drivers of electric cars from Britain to the length and breadth of the country, with all the advantages of pull simply in a motorway service station to the top unit.
Why are we building? After all there are only about 2,000 electric cars on the road today. In fact, is a large part of the reason: the lack of demand.
It is often said that one of the reasons most people don't buy electric cars is the lack of facilities: load, while the reason not built cargo facilities more says that it is because there are not enough people are buying electric cars: Classic things egg and the hen. We are hoping to break this impasse.
Another barrier to the assimilation is "range anxiety": the fear of running out of juice when traveling to any kind of serious distance.
So here is where our network – we hope Britain electric car revolution will help kickstart.
We chose the motorway network for good reason. Emphasis to date, with burden of posts, big cities and centres: I think that it is really where it is needed as a minimum. Car use statistics point to this.
The average in Britain car travels approximately 20 miles a day, a distance that they can sustain more modern electric cars for almost a week without charge. And the majority of car owners have access to private parking (70% apparently) – and are therefore capable of charging at home, at night. Most cars do not need to load, almost every day. It is the longest travel load is needed more.
We have chosen the power of this network is carefully too. Our points will be wind - and in this we are making a serious point. Britain needs to switch to electric cars as fast as possible, but that alone is not enough. Where does the electricity is of vital importance. Electric cars must run on renewable sources of energy, the energy of the wind and the Sun - only then be done full zero potential emissions from driving.
And we can do as a nation? Can you manage all wind-powered electric cars? The Statistics say so.
There are about 28 m cars on the roads of Great Britain, 150bn driving miles a year, burning about 20 million tons of oil and producing 70 million tonnes of CO2 (12 per cent of the total of our emissions). Incredible numbers, but we could power all that with only about 10,000 of today's wind turbines and 5,000 tomorrow (which double in size every few years).
Can the grid take? It should an increase in electricity online through the grid of 12%, much less that many people think that. And context, before the credit crunch, delivery of grid electricity grew around 3% per year (for what they are talking about normal growth in four years only for cars all of United Kingdom). And the majority of load will take place at night, at times of low demand. The grid can easily cope, in fact if Great Britain changed to electric vehicles that the network operates more efficiently.
And this. One of the truly revolutionary aspects of electric cars is that we can be our own oil companies: we can make our own electricity - and our own car of food. A typical 5 kW rooftop solar system, for example, could provide some 5,000 miles of driving for a year, free of pollution (and fuel duty).
Before this, perhaps in due course, "anxiety" about electric cars will increase from motorists to oil companies.
? Dale Vince is the founder of the Ecotricity green energy company
