Government to offer £5,000 to boost green cars

If you never travel more than 60 miles, an electric car might be worth considering.

However, you would also have to be willing to pay at least double the cost of a conventional car and be prepared to fork out several thousand pounds after five years on a new battery. Then there is the small problem of the car possibly being worthless when you try to sell it.

Even if the Government delivers on its pledge today to offer grants of up to £5,000, electric car owners will still be paying a heavy price for flaunting their green credentials.

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Ordinary families will not be applying for the grants when they become available in 2011. Businesses and public bodies wanting to be seen to be green will consume most of the £250 million funding pot. A few well-off individuals will be tempted, especially if they get exemption from congestion charging schemes.

A timescale tucked away at the back of the strategy shows that the Government expects the electric car to remain a “niche” product for the next decade.

The funding is only enough for 50,000 cars, compared with 30 million on the roads today.

The strategy concedes, with masterly understatement: “It may take some years before we see ultra-low carbon cars being used on a large scale.”

The strategy is silent on how the grant scheme would work and what kind of cars would qualify. It sets no target, unlike Germany which wants to see a million electric cars on the road by 2020.

Rather than setting a clear path forward, the 16-page document is padded out with photographs of electric cables plugged into cars and platitudinous statements, such as: “Our transport system connects people to places and businesses to markets.”

The real issue for Britain is whether car manufacturers will base any of their electric vehicle production here. Vauxhall is considering building the Ampera, a plug-in hybrid that travels 40 miles on electricity before switching to petrol, at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire.

But without Government support, the car may be built elsewhere in Europe.

Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, and Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, drove an electric Mini around a Scottish racetrack in a publicity stunt today. The Mini’s shell was built in Oxfordshire but the high-value part – the electric drive train – was made in Munich.