Julian German and Stephen Cirell believe the introduction of electric vehicles could help cut the Cornwall Council's £5m annual energy bill.
In December, Cornwall Council announced the results of a county-wide survey of the carbon footprint of the area, undertaken by Camco.
This revealed that around five million tonnes of CO2 was emitted in Cornwall each year. The report broke down the total into a number of key areas, such as buildings, transport and agriculture.
Naturally, the results reflected the fact that Cornwall is part of the rural economy. One of the key areas that the county's green programme is to target is transport, principally via cars used on council business. The Camco report highlighted the fact that 27% of the overall carbon footprint was from transport, and half of that total was from cars with diesel or petrol engines. This means that more thn half-a-million tonnes of CO2 is at stake.
The case for electric cars is now made. The Government has invested millions to assist the development of new battery technology, and vehicle manufacturers have woken up to the fact that a wholly-new and potentially lucrative market is dawning.
The King review of low carbon cars, commissioned by the Government, sets out the rationale. It is not a case of whether now, so much as how.
However, purely electric vehicles require infrastructure to operate. Whereas a petrol hybrid – such as a Toyota Prius – has an engine to power the wheels when the battery runs out, or an electric hybrid – including the Vauxhall Ampera – has a small engine to charge the battery to keep the car moving, purely electric vehicles require frequent charging.
