Good news for electric vehicles as national grid gets greener

London’s electric car company NICE has welcomed the prime minister’s boost for renewable energy. In a speech yesterday, Gordon Brown said that renewables would supply 15 per cent of the UK’s energy mix by 2020. He also emphasised the important role that electric and plug-in hybrid cars will play in the strategy.

As electricity generation become less reliant on fossil fuels, electric cars will become even greener. They already produce less than half the greenhouse gasses of traditional cars, even with the current energy mix. An increase in renewables will move electric vehicles ever-closer to true, zero-emissions motoring.

“In the drive towards truly sustainable transport, the government has taken a significant step forward,” said Evert Geurtsen co-founder NICE Car Company. “There is now a clear understanding that the environmental benefits of electric vehicles will develop hand-in-hand with an increase in renewable energy supply.”

In April this year, the WWF published a report called Plugged In: The End of the Oil Age. This said that, even with the UK’s current energy mix, all-electric vehicles are still far cleaner than those that are conventionally-fuelled. However, it also made the point that electric vehicles would reap the benefits of more renewable energy supply:

“Electric vehicles need not wait for the coming renewable energy revolution, though they will automatically reap the rewards when that does indeed happen.”