The Transport Committee has announced that over 90% of the British domestic transport emissions come from road transport. Car makers are being urged to increase their plug-in vehicle production and encourage drivers to choose these models over those with diesel engines.
As the Committee said, "low carbon vehicles offer a potential means by which road transport can be decarbonised." Based on this fact, the British Government is working on its Plug-In Vehicle Infrastructure Strategy, a plan that aims to put tens of thousands of plug-in vehicles on the UK's roads by 2015.
To achieve this goal, the Committee is interested in contributing to the increase of plug-in vehicles in an attempt to minimise carbon emissions from transport. It will also analyse the effectiveness of the Plugged-In Places scheme, as well as the uptake of plug-in vehicles and how this can be improved.
The Committee also added that it will look at the role of plug-in vehicles alongside other technologies to reduce carbon emissions generated by road transport. In addition, it will look to the examples set by other countries in this field and apply their strategies to the UK.
Ultra-low emission vans
These findings are in line with the recent report commissioned by the Department for Transport, which concluded that both the UK Government and car makers will need to introduce long-term incentives and price cuts in order to attract more UK car buyers.
The actual study, carried out by Element Energy, looked into the motoring market for ultra-low emission van technologies, including pure EV, Plug-in EV and hydrogen fuel-cells.
It also reached some interesting conclusions, such as the fact that the current cost of ownership for pure electric large vans is more than 50% higher than their diesel-engine equivalents.
When asked, van operators said that 10% is the maximum cost of ownership premium they are willing to accept. Additionally, and based on the government oil price projections, the report stated that pure electric vans will still have a 10% cost of ownership premium over diesel in 2030.
