Electric Cars - The way of the future?

Thinking of getting a new car in 2010? Price reductions, scrappage schemes, Government VRT rebates and grants of up to €5,000 on new electrical cars may tempt you to upgrade to a new set of wheels. All of these incentives combined with an increasingly competitive new car market means there is plenty of choice for car buyers who are willing to shop around.

The Government is keen to keep the Irish motor trade alive in Ireland and encourages Irish consumers to make environmentally sound choices through a new CO2 road tax scheme introduced in 2008 and via grants for hybrid (uses both petrol and electricity) vehicles such as the Toyota Prius. With fully electric cars just around the corner promising low cost clean motoring is this way of the future?

In April 2010, Empathy Research conducted a national survey on the introduction of electric cars to the Irish market. Of those surveyed more than half of participants (55%) believed that these cars will produce zero carbon emissions. But are electric cars as carbon neutral as we might think?

While these motors will not emit the CO2 of their petrol and
diesel counterparts; they still do have a carbon foot print to
consider. In Ireland, these vehicles will run predominantly if
not exclusively initially from ESB electricity - of which 88% of its generated from burning fossil fuels. More than a quarter (29%) of people do not believe that electric cars are good for the environment as they require the burning of carbon fuels to produce the electricity that they run on.

- Curly