London’s plan to achieve green transportation based on Electric Vehicles (EV) system seems to be turning into reality. Thorough measures have been worked at to make sure that the electric vehicles becomes an easy choice for the locals vehicle owners.

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London has great visions for the city. According to him, a real action needs to be taken rather than simply talking about electric vehicles. He plans to have as many as 100,000 electric powered vehicles and over 25,000 places or points to charge the vehicles batteries. As of now, there are around 1000 vehicles in the city and very low existing network of charging points which is just enough to fuel the existing vehicles.
To accomplish this revolution, the city needs to have a constructive plan backed up which is crucial. For customers to buy the vehicle they need to have an assurance on many aspects of it, when you know that the vehicle has just hit the market. Does it have enough charging points in the city? Does the city house enough maintenance and equipments needed for the vehicle type? A potential customer would not buy the vehicle if the above requirements are not met.
The Mayor of London wants to partner with “boroughs and other partners” to have about 25000 charging points built. He wants to have at least 1 charging point every mile so as to add to the customers convenience. This statement was made by the Mayor during the recent Copenhagen climate summit.

With regards to the vehicles, its demands need to be alerted through purchasing of a vehicle fleet. A lot of vehicles are owned by the city and central government organizations whose vehicles can be targeted to become electric.
Another major event expected soon is the 2012 Olympics which will be held at London and the organizing committee are in charge of acquiring hundreds of vehicle.
Also included in this plan are the Taxi’s or “Private Hire Vehicles” but the drawback towards this plan is the range and the daily driving requirement which would possibly not make the plan applicable here. Discussion of bus fleet has also shown a drawback due to “battery powered” electric buses do not fit the operational requirement as compared to hybrid-diesel buses offers reduced emissions. And finally, the 180,000 commercially owned vehicles.
Offering an incentive to promote the use of these vehicles would encourage the EV adoption. Incentives include free parking, purchase rebates, congestion charge discount (applicable in London).

•