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One major factor preventing the widespread uptake of electrical vehicles is having a proper network infrastructure in place for re-charging these vehicles. Now it seems, the Spanish have come up with a novel idea to potentially overcome this major drawback quickly.
It has just been announced that as part of a test network of 546 state-subsidised recharging points in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, telephone boxes in Madrid are going to be brought into play. Thirty to be precise. Obviously, with most people now using mobile phones, public telephone boxes have more or less become redundant.
Phone boxes are located close to the kerbside and are reliant on electric supply, which makes them ideally situated and easy to adapt as re-charging points.
What brilliant lateral thinking. Hats off to the Spaniard who came up with the idea!
Meanwhile, in Barcelona, the council proposes installing recharging points attached to what they call 'intelligent lampposts'. It plans to have 191 re-charging points in place within two years.
The Spanish Government has allocated £8.7m to promoting the use of electric vehicles over the next two years, £1.3m to be spent on re-charging points. So serious is the Government over the project, that companies tendering for public service contracts will collect extra brownie points if they operate electric vehicles.
The aim is to eventually have a predominance of electric vehicles in city centres although initially 2000 are planned over the next two years with incentives including a 75% cut in car taxes and free parking. There is already an extensive network of wind-powered generators across Spain so we can anticipate a major push to bring about an equally important revolution in vehicle power on the Spanish mainland.
Sounds as if ex-pats living on the Costa Brava will be greener as well as browner than their fellow countrymen suffering congested, polluted city centres and the good old British weather!
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