An electric Car Hire scheme to revolutionise transport in a city has been put forward.

The eccentric Tory leader said: "I think we should be making London the electric capital of Europe, and that's why we are going to be greatly expanding our support for electric car charging points around London.



“At this stage it is important to ensure we fully understand the potential market for electric vehicles in London so that we can trigger a demand for this type of technology.

"We have been talking to manufacturers about the possibility about switching to, or indeed creating, electric vehicles in this city.”



Despite Johnson’s hopes that London will be at the forefront of electric car use, a similar scheme is already under way in Paris.

The Parisian scheme is known as the Autolib, and is the logical progression from a transport plan in which bicycles are available for hire around Paris. The Autolib scheme should be introduced by 2010.

Johnson has set a task group to studying the scheme and last week told the London assembly that he was considering using it.
However, it depends on whether a large allocation of money will be made available to London for the scheme, as charging points for the electric hire cars cost thousands of pounds.



Caroline Watson, of the Energy Saving Trust, said: 'This is a brilliant idea and exactly the kind of innovative leadership we need.
“Electric vehicles are a new and relatively untested technology, so this would be a great way for people to test the technology. It may even be that for many Londoners, a car hire scheme which is easy to use is all they need.”

In other news Britain’s largest van hire company is desperately trying to save itself from financial ruin by renegotiating is bank loans. Northgate van hire has recently been forced to write down the value of its assets by more than £153 million.

Northgate has 21 hire companies operating from 82 sites and a fleet of almost 70,000 vehicles across Britain and Ireland. But the value of Northgate has dropped from £450 million to £29 million over the last year.