UK to spend over £7bn on electric cars by 2014

The British motor industry is in line for a £7bn boost from electric cars between now and 2014, according to a survey of 5,000-plus drivers by GfK Automotive.

The survey found 1.8 per cent of people would "definitely" buy an electric car by 2014, equating to more than 300,000 electric cars if extrapolated over the total car-buying population of 19.8 million households.

Using the newly released all-electric Nissan Leaf as a benchmark, the market will be worth £7.2bn by 2014, GfK Automotive says. And another 3 per cent of respondents – equating to 500,000 of all car-buyers – say they would consider going electric in the future.

Another UK survey conducted in December found that 53 per cent would consider buying an electric or hybrid vehicle as their next car. That equals 10.5 million hybrid / EV sales in the very near future.

Source: The Independent