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Cllrs Ossian Smyth, Ciarán Cuffe with electric car owner, Green Party representative Una Power and Eamon Ryan TD on forecourt of Maxol Garage, Baggot Street[/caption]New survey shows Electric Vehicle drivers love the cost savings but want more charging stationsA new survey, carried out by the Green Party in conjunction with the Irish Electric Vehicle (EV) Owners Association, has found that 75% of EV drivers saw lower costs as the main advantage of going electric, while the lack of public charging stations was the biggest difficulty experienced by EV owners.231 EV owners (almost 10% of EV owners in Ireland) responded to the survey, carried out between the 14th and 28th June 2017.Green Party Transport Spokesperson Cll. Ciarán Cuffe said:“Electric cars have the potential to reduce carbon emissions and reduce oil imports. In Ireland we have the technologies to make the Smart Grid a reality and use electric vehicles to encourage more renewable electricity. We’re looking a t a future where electric cars will feed power back into the grid when needed, and recharge when grid demand is low. In the meantime, we need to make it easier to charge up when you’re on the road. We need more chargers at home and work, and in car parks, but recharging points at garages can also play its part in the move to low carbon travel.“I am also working with Dublin City Council to lower road tolls for all-electric vehicles.”The Green Party’s Leader Eamon Ryan TD said: “It is clear from our survey that a revolution in Irish motoring is ready to take off. Drivers like their new electric cars, not just for environmental reasons but also for the lower running costs and better driving experience. Every car company is now promising new electric models and the battery range is growing at the same time as the costs come down. The era of the internal combustion engine is coming to an end.“To speed up the revolution we need to address the frustration many drivers have with the charging infrastructure that is currently in place. 38% of EV owners found a lack of charging infrastructure the biggest issue they experienced. Another issue EV owners experienced was ‘ICEing’ – when a petrol or diesel car is parked at a charging point.“Ireland took a lead in rolling out the first national network of charging points but a lack of political commitment over the last six years has seen us fall behind. For the third year running the UK will have the fastest level of new EV sales in Europe. This provides us an opportunity as it will give us access to the latest models with a right hand drive specification and we can follow some of their policy initiatives.“The UK Government is about to mandate all petrol service stations to install charging points and we want Irish Governments to do the same here. New high-speed charging points can recharge a battery in a way that is comparable to filling up at the pump and even oil companies like Shell are starting to recognise the inevitability as they are starting to try and turn their forecourts green.“It is up to the Government to provide charging points EV drivers need, so that the issue of range anxiety rapidly becomes a thing of the past.”Press Release issued 24th July 2017, page last updated 27th July 2017