Sainsbury’s to launch electric charging points for cars

Sainsbury’s will be the first UK business to actually make charging spots widely available for electrically run cars in London city. This falls in place with the new motto to make London, the electric capital of Europe.

London is set to have 25,000 refueling docks in her work places, streets, car parks and retail parks by 2015. The infrastructure is meant to cater to 100,000 electric cars. This scheme is said to be worth around 60 million pounds and has been undertaken in order to counter carbon emissions and decrease the scale of CO2 emissions in the city by 60% by 2025.

Till date, there are only 5,000 battery powered cars registered in Britain. With 2,500 recharging points provided by the Mayor’s office, 22,500 are to be provided by businesses.

Sainsbury’s is said to have installed at least two charging points in 9 places. These include Camden, Chiswick, Greenwich and Beckton. Wandsworth and Whitechapel will soon be provided with their own charging points. Also included in the plans are further expansion plans if the initial phase of the scheme proves to be successful.

London has ambitious plans to become the electric capital of Europe, and has been making several strides towards this goal. The city has been encouraging people to have more electrically powered cars as they are less noisy and certainly better for the environment.

While the electric cars would be great for reducing both noise and carbon pollution, concerns have also been raised about one of its biggest advantages—which also turns out to be one of its drawbacks. The electric cars are very quiet by their very nature, and this has raised concerns that cyclists and pedestrians, who often rely on the sounds of oncoming vehicles to keep safely out of harm’s way, may end up being in danger from the silent cars.

Efforts have been underway to reach a compromise: where sound effects that are adequate as warnings, but not as grating as sounds from regular cars, are fitted on to the electric vehicles.