Boris slashes electric car charging point plans

London Mayor Boris Johnson has cut funding to build electric car charging points in London by 65%

Back in the Summer of 2009 Captain Boris announced to the Climate Change Conference in Seoul (how many carbon dioxides did it cost all the delegates to get there, I wonder) that he intended making London the electric car Capital of Europe. For some reason.

As part of that plan Boris committed some £20 million of taxpayers money to build electric recharging points all over London. In the barking mad world in which politicians live it seems Boris was convinced that London needed 25,000 recharging points around the Capital, with one in five parking spaces needing a plug-in point.

When we reported the original story we commented that “In 10 years time these re-charging stations for plug-in electric cars are going to be about as much use as the old Betamax Video player that’s been gathering dust in your loft for the last 25 years.” It seems Boris may now concur.

Laying the blame on the need to cut costs in the current climate, Boris has cut the £20 million pledged to re-charging points to just £7 million. That’s still £7 million more than it should be, but a sensible move nevertheless.

What justification can there possibly be for investing all that taxpayer money in to facilities to recharge non-existent cars? In the whole of 2009 just 55 electric cars were sold in the UK and there are currently less than 2,000 electric vehicles in the whole UK.

Eco-mentalists claim the electric car to be the future – and politicians have bought the story – despite their woeful range making them suitable only as a second car for urban-dwellers and, with our dependency on coal-fired power stations, they are actually dirtier and less efficient than proper cars.