Boris vows to ditch his motor for electric car (From This Is Local London)

Boris vows to ditch his motor for electric car

10:00am Tuesday 2nd December 2008 in News By Local London Reporter

Boris Johnson has thrown down the gauntlet to the motor industry to produce a zero-emission electric vehicle as he pledged that his next family car would not be petrol powered.

Writing for the Telegraph newspaper, the Mayor said that the electric car market needed the encouragement of consumer demand and expressed his wish to see a far more vehicles in London powered by electricity.

Commenting on his current vehicle, Mr Johnson described the car as so old that if it were a dog, it would need to be put down.

However, he wrote he would continue using his car until the industry was able to produce a zero emission electric family car.

“It strikes me that after years of false starts, the electric market is on the verge of triumphant maturity, and all it needs is the encouragement of consumer demand,” he said.

“I don’t want to buy another internal combustion engine and there is a market waiting to be satisfied.”

London’s leader said he was looking to get as many of the Greater London Authority’s own fleet of vehicles running on electricity as possible as well as persuade councils, car pools and private company fleets to do the same.