FREE Electricity for Sydenham

[admin]

The rich folk who have just received a big subsidy from the general taxpayer to buy an electric car you can now top it up at the council tax payers' expense

Just received from Lewisham ...

Electric Vehicle Charge Points in Lewisham

Owners of electric vehicles can now ‘top up’ their cars for free until early 2013 at a growing number of charging points throughout the borough if they are Source London or Source East members.
Seven charging points have been installed in Lewisham Council car parks with funds from Transport for London.
The seven locations are:

Pearcefield Avenue, Forest Hill, Lewisham, SE23 3EU
Clarendon Rise/Albion Way, Lewisham, SE13 6BT
Slaithwaite Road/Clipper Road, Lewisham, SE13 6LY
Blackheath Grove, Blackheath, Lewisham, SE3 0TE
Holbeach Car Park, Holbeach Road, Catford, SE6 4JU
Frankham Street Car Park, Frankham Street, Deptford, SE8 4RN
Kangley Bridge Bowls, Kangley Bridge Road, Lower Sydenham, SE26 5AQ


Each location allows two vehicles to charge at any one time. To check locations and availability of the charging points, please visit www.pod-point.com.
Vehicle owners must be a Source London member or Source East member to use the charge points. Membership costs £10 annually. Members can use all live Source London and Source East charge points.
For more information on Source London, including how to operate charge points, visit www.sourcelondon.net.

[mosy]

I don't understand why our tax dollars are used for non-productive services such as this. The service, yes, but given freely pro tem? That must be economic nonsense as it's delaying recovery of capital cost of installation. Surely people who bought electric cars must know they'd have to recharge them, presumably as a trade-off with petrol costs, so why free for now? Especially as they are saying today that our household electricity bills are set to rise...

[Annie.]

Perhaps its to advertise Electric cars? Make them more popular,giving free charge for a limited period is probably cheaper than adverts,or at least could work alongside the ads?
To encourage more people to use them.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[mosy]

Isn't advertising the role of the manufacturers to sell their products rather than council tax payers? A short-term free recharge is hardly likely to persuade people actually to buy an electric car IMO.

The only thing I can think of that makes any sense is that if it were a chargeable service initially but had teething troubles (like it/some didn't work or foolish charges arrived on credit cards as did for Boris Bikes and Oyster in some cases) it would give some more lead time for testing.

I agree with public recharging points in principle, even though the "greenness" of the actual cars and disposal of, and of batteries, is debatable. Then again, perhaps if few cars are currently around, the free period will be of relatively negligible cost. I've only seen one in the College Road area so far...

[Annie.]

I was thinking more that the council were trying to promote "green" travel, but as you pointed out there are issues even with Electric cars.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Manwithaview1]

I will buy one when the range gets better, the batteries are better and the car safety is as good as other cars...until then it is the 202...

[Annie.]

:0))

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[maestro]

I'll stick with Toyota Prius hybrids, I'm now on my third and I've so far had nothing fail on any of them, not even a bulb. No road tax, no congestion charge, averaging 60 mpg in traffic, high 70's or more on long trips (pic is of my mpg display following a trip down from Scotland last month, 378 miles at an average of 80.8mpg). I'm frequently covering 400 mile jaunts in a day so there would have to be a significant improvement in battery range before I could ever consider an electric car.

[JRobinson]

nothing failed on your Prius, but you are on your third one?!

wow - I was going to be sarcastic about them only being around a few years, but I've just read on Wikipedia all about them and the first one was sold in 1997 in Japan, and global in 2000, so three cars in 12 years is about average in the UK.

[maestro]

nothing failed on your Prius, but you are on your third one?!

wow - I was going to be sarcastic about them only being around a few years, but I've just read on Wikipedia all about them and the first one was sold in 1997 in Japan, and global in 2000, so three cars in 12 years is about average in the UK.

I actually bought my first Prius in 2008, so I'm now on my third in four years. I drive 25k a year so I keep depreciation, the biggest factor in running a car, to an absolute minimum by buying ex lease cars at auction at a year old with about 20k on them, I then run them for just 18 months and sell privately. This process saves me about £6000 on every car I own (I save about £5000 on the initial purchase cost of the car as opposed to buying a similar car from a main dealer, and I then get about £1000 more selling privately than I'd ever get offered to trade in). At 2.5 years old and about 57k on the clock, I've found them very easy to sell privately, because I keep the service history bang up to date and whoever buys the car from me has the balance of Toyota's 100,000mile/8 year hybrid warranty. I've now done over 100k of Prius motoring and I've never so much as had a bulb fail on any of them, my only expenditure has been servicing (30k service being done at Jemca Toyota tomorrow for only £119), fuel and tyres (Michelin tyres last about 40k). Doing it this way effectively means every other car stands me at nothing compared to the cost of trading in to a Toyota dealer. I'm prepared to travel to get the car in the colour/spec/mileage that I want, my current Prius was purchased last March at Preston, Lancs. With the Prius, the further away from London the cheaper the car is likely to be, I've noticed they make about £1500 more if they're at auction anywhere within 100 miles of London. The fact they're congestion charge exempt can save a potential £2500 a year if someone is driving into the city centre to work (hence why you'll see hundreds of them whenever you're up in town), so trade prices are higher in the South.

To me, owning one is a no-brainer.