Cairngorm community drives into future with electric car

Published on Monday 16 November 2009 21:06

THE future arrived in Scotland yesterday with the first electric car to be used by a rural community in Scotland.

Batteries – 48 of them – are included, as is the vehicle's own wind turbine.

A standard diesel Vauxhall Astra has been converted into a car that can be fuelled from the mains and can be run at 10 per cent of the cost of a conventional vehicle.

For the next 18 months, it will be used by the Badenoch and Strathspey Community Transport Company, a charity which helps people who cannot access public transport or have no transport of their own.

The Cairngorms Electric Vehicle (EV) cost 50,000 to manufacture and, even if mass-produced, would still cost 25,000-30,000 today.

The car is one of a number of projects being developed under the banner of Clim-ATIC – a European Union Northern Periphery Programme project.

Fergus Ewing, the minister for community safety, completed a test drive yesterday from Aviemore to Kingussie.

He said: "We want Scotland to be at the forefront of building a sustainable low-carbon economy of the future. To do that, we need more great projects like this one in the Cairngorms. I hope that this will be a catalyst for action right across the country. It may well be the future."

David Green, convener of the Cairngorms National Park authority, said it was important for rural areas to push the boundaries of sustainability. "Testing of electric vehicles hasn't really happened outside of cities, so I think what we are doing here is innovative and really quite brave," he said.

"The core of the project is about tackling and adapting to climate change, but the electric car is helping us to meet many other aims in the national park plan, from promoting sustainable transport to combating social inclusion issues."