Blow for electric cars as hydrogen finds favour

worried_jim

"The government is planning to cut support for electric cars and boost investment in hydrogen as it hedges its bets on future car technology.

A Department for Transport report, released last week, reveals that funding for low-emissions vehicles, which has so far been focused on electric cars, will now be spread more widely to support vehicles that run on hydrogen and natural gas.

Ministers plan to reduce the £5,000 subsidy given to buyers of new electric cars in 19 months, while changing the rules so that hydrogen vehicles can take advantage of the grants. They are also expected to help fund a national network of about 65 hydrogen refuelling stations.

The announcement comes after manufacturers including Toyota, Hyundai and Honda said they would launch hydrogen fuel-cell cars by 2015. A joint project between Ford, Mercedes, Renault and Nissan could see a further wave of hydrogen vehicles in 2017.

“Sales of fuel-cell vehicles could reach approximately 10,000 vehicles per annum by 2020. By 2030 there could be UK annual sales of 300,000,” the DfT said in its report, Driving the Future Today.

Sales of electric cars have been underwhelming since the subsidy was launched in 2011. Latest industry figures show that 2,000 electric cars were registered between January and August this year, representing 0.14% of all new-car sales.

The DfT insisted its strategy does not signal that it is abandoning support for battery-powered cars, on which it has already spent tens of millions of pounds in the form of grants, subsidies and infrastructure projects."

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/ingear/cars/article1309531.ece

anotherbaldrick

Blow for electric cars as hydrogen finds favour

The cars will still be electric. The difference will be that instead of being plugged in to the mains to charge they will be charged by an on board hydrogen fuelled fuel cell to generate the electricity and store it in the cars batteries.
This technology is dependant on developing the new methods of manufacturing hydrogen from organic compounds, the technology for which is not quite ready yet
In fact the developed car will be more of a development like the Prius (which has sold over 1/4 million in Europe) with the fuel cell replacing the existing I/C engine.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/h2_tech_roadmap.pdf