Electric car chargers spreading across rural areas

Here's a little blurb on the latest in electric car technology:
Gareth Butterfield spends a week in the all-electric BMW i3 | Derby Telegraph

As for this part of the country, three years ago, the first car charger was set up in the Sid Valley:
Futures Forum: SVEAG project: Electric car charging point at Hunter's Moon Hotel

Other rural areas have been moving in the same direction:
Futures Forum: Everything you want to know about owning an Electric Car >>> Lyme Regis: Tuesday 13th October

It's all in the context of reducing carbon emissions:
Futures Forum: How to reach our target for emissions reductions in the transport sector.

Although there are questions about where the electricity will come from:
Futures Forum: The fall and rise of the Electric Vehicle ... and yet "the electricity power grid needed behind the recharging still uses fossil fuels."

The campaigning group 10:10 has an interesting story from the Scotsman newspaper:

Electric car chargers spread across Scotland as pumps dwindle

Saturday 21 May 2016

The number of rural petrol stations is about to be overtaken by electric chargers, with plug-in points replacing pumps in some villages. There are more than 550 charging points across Scotland but fewer than 700 non-supermarket filling stations.

There were virtually no chargers five years ago, while petrol forecourts have declined by a quarter over the last decade.The Petrol Retailers Association said one third of independent filling stations, many rural, had closed. By contrast, the Electric Vehicle Association Scotland (Evas) said the number of rapid chargers, which take around 20 minutes, had doubled in the last year alone to around 150.

Carplus, which promotes car-sharing clubs, said one in five of their vehicles were electric – the highest in the UK. 

Spokeswoman Beate Kubitz said: “Many rural filling stations have disappeared, so people living in remote areas have to plan and make detours to fill up with petrol and diesel. The charge point network is growing rapidly and makes driving an electric car longer distances possible.”

Evas chair Douglas Robertson said that on a trip to Argyll last summer he had to stop to charge his car for two-and-a-half hours because there were no rapid chargers between Perth and Tayvallich. There are now seven on the route.

Areas now bereft of petrol which now have chargers include Torridon in the West Highlands and Tomintoul in Moray. The Torridon luxury hotel has a charger which any driver can use free, and two Tesla supercar chargers for guests.

Co-owner Dan Rose-Bristow said: “We stopped selling petrol around ten years ago as the price was too prohibitive and maintenance of the equipment was too expensive. We have seen good use of the chargers and a very positive response.”

Transport Scotland, which plans to rid the country of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2050, said its funding for chargers had helped accelerate electric car use, with 1,278 cars sold last year - more than in the previous four combined.

10:10
Electric car chargers spread across Scotland as pumps dwindle - The Scotsman

See also:
Could the Volkswagen scandal power an electric car breakthrough? | Opinion | The Guardian
Futures Forum: VW... and making 'wholly opaque disposable vehicles' >>> rather than making vehicles which 'run for a long time and are easy to fix'
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