THE RAC has warned that a UK government scheme to entice motorists to choose electric cars could backfire.
The scheme offers grants of up to £5,000 (€5,800).
However, with a a study by the RAC claiming to show a fifth of all motorists in the UK (around 6.7 million people) are considering buying a battery-powered vehicle in the next five years, the fear is that if the uptake were that dramatic the scheme could cost tens of millions of euro.
The support infrastructure will also be unable to support such numbers until at least 2017.
“What the Government is in danger of doing is putting the cart before the horse,” said the director of the RAC Foundation, Prof Stephen Glaister.
“It is actively promoting the purchase of electric vehicles long before there is any chance of manufacturers making them widely available,” he added.
“It has gone out of its way to encourage people to make green choices, yet these choices are not yet realistic.
“What’s more, the same announcement talked of a mere £20 million being spent on a national charging infrastructure, but only last week the Mayor of London acknowledged that at least £60 million would be needed to provide such a network in the capital alone.”