The UK government has decided to end support programs for natural gas vehicles, according to the UK’s Natural Gas Vehicles Association.
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The government had been consulting with the European Union on getting state-aid approval for a new set of grant schemes to replace the Powershift programs that ran out in March 2005. But before any new schemes were launched, transport minister Stephen Ladyman said at the start of June that the government no longer thought the grant schemes provided value for money at all and would not be implemented in any case.
The government has decided instead to focus its funding on eco-driver training and green consumer advice, such as advising people to car-share on the way to work. The Powershift schemes had funding of around GBP26m/year (US$47m/year).
The NGVA said it was ‘disappointed.’ Mike Ellithorn, chairman of the Natural Gas Vehicles Association, said that “it is a concern that these programs have ended at such an important time for road transport.”
The UK has around 400 natural gas vehicles, nearly all trucks, compared to for example 420,000 in Italy.
Ellithorn said the UK needed to get over the “chicken and egg” problem of manufacturers not making right-hand drive gas vehicles for the UK before gas filling stations are built and developers not building filling stations until there are enough cars to be customers. Left-hand drive gas vehicles are sold on the continent but can not easily be sold in the UK.
Countries such as Germany had got over that problem, he said, by strong government action, with the German government backing construction of an 800 station filling network.
“Moving forward, the NGVA ask the UK government to consider truly bold moves as has been the case in other European countries,” the NGVA said.
