Chargepoint Increase Announced
We have had a few blogs in the past about electric and hybrid cars with all their pro’s however there is always one con that’s highlighted that they all have in common, there simply just isn’t enough charge points within the UK or anywhere else for that matter. Its finally arrived, change, hundreds of new electrical car chargepoints are set to be installed in the UK with funding from the Government, local councils, NHS trusts and train operators who will all help provide points.
We had a recent blog about the BMW i3 running at just 2p per mile, this is what attracts so many customers and businesses to buy into the new notion of going green there was always the one major flaw holiday both customers and car manufacturers back however, the charge points. Now however these new points will mean there is an ability to recharge at various places such as car parks at hospitals, on the side of streets and various recharge dedicated stations, it should make the appeal and production of electric cars much more attractive.
The government announced in February that they would give £37 million into installing some of these stations and the money was up for grabs from various big businesses. Recently the first round of this funding has been announced and gifted to certain operators such as the NHS trust. The second round of instalments are soon up for grabs leaving the possibilities open to a wider public sector, councils and train operators to bid for the second round.
The instalment of more chargepoints is a huge thing in the world of electric cars, the progression is going to be huge. Car manufacturers where limited to how much they wanted to do in progression of environmentally friendly cars, this is going to make it so much more appealing for customers as electric cars are not what they used to be, there good now!
There are a few other issues however that still need to be tackled but you can tell are starting to become less apparent. Some of the issues are to do with how long the vehicle can run, the best I have seen so far is around 100miles before the battery runs out, when the batteries out it also takes a lot longer to charge than a car would to refill at a pump, some electric cars can take around 12 hours to charge fully there an alternative however, although expensive you can just easily swap out the batteries for fully charged ones, always carry an extra pair of batteries with you! Another issue with them, although this is helped by the low cost of fuel is the price of the car when it’s new they generally cost a lot more than the petrol versions of the similar models. A further flaw of there is the expensive batteries which must be replaced just like a cars, other than that however most the other maintenance costs are very low in comparison to petrol vehicles.
The government however is constantly trying to back the use of electric cars with offering huge discounts on some of them bringing the price down significantly. They also have made the really economically friendly cars avoid the congestion charge which is helping the appeal of them to Londoners, the sale of the electric and hybrid cars have seen a massive increase in this area.