Taking into account the upfront purchase price and running costs like fuel and insurance, the cost of owning one can be up to £5,000 more than conventional fueled versions. According to Guardian.co.uk these figures were discovered by a study by the Element Energy that was commissioned by the Low Carbon vehicle partnership.

Climate advisers to the British government wants to see a total of eleven million electric or hybrid vehicles on UK roads by 2030. This is to meet the country’s carbon targets, but the trouble is the authors of the study have said that even if fuel prices double from current levels the cost of electric cars will still be higher.

Currently electric cars cost consumers around £30,000, without including the British government’s grant of £5,000. This equates to about double of want the standard version would cost customers. They are cheaper to run though with a Nissan Leaf costing about 2p a mile, compared to a Ford Focus that costs around 14p.

LCVP’s managing director, Greg Archer, said electric cars costs will be helped in the next 15 to 20 years by the falling prices of batteries. He added that “After 2020 the range of new technology will be more commercially available”. Archer also said that the estimates of battery costs are based on probability, and had a small chance of electric cars being competitive as early as 2020.

Provided that the electric vehicles are powered by renewable energy they can produce lower emissions over the lifetime of the car. Besides the high initial high purchase price of electric cars, another sticking point for consumers has been the availability of charging points for them.

It’s no good having an electric car if you can’t drive a reasonable distance without worrying where you are going to charge it up. The length of time it takes to recharge the vehicle can also be a problem, but as the technology improves as well as the infrastructure electric cars will be an option to consider.

Will you ever purchase an electric car?

Eric Loveday of Autobloggreen is reporting the company has announced that to start with the battery powered vehicle will be delivered to customers in Europe. This includes Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Volvo has stated they will have built around 250 electric C30s by the end of next year, but could increase the number if demand is high enough.

The C30 Electric is being built at the company’s plant in Ghent, Belgium, and is then sent to Goteborg Sweden. This is where the electric motor and lithium-ion battery pack is installed. Volvo claim the C30 has a range of around 93.2 miles with a top speed of about 80.8 mph. it also claims to have a 0 to 31mph time of four seconds.

While it may have impressive figures for performance pricing is a bit on the steeps side. Volvo plans to lease the C30 for about $2,100 a month, without the option to purchase one. So over three years this will set you back $76,674.

Do you think there will be much call for the C30 Electric?

In recent tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found the Nissan Leaf and other electric cars, got good results in crash testing according to an article on Autoblog by Jeremy Korzeniewski.

The electric cars which also included the Chevrolet Volt had “Good” results in crash tests for front, rear, side, and rollover crash protection. The testing was carried out in exactly the same way as any other vehicle is tested.

They also got good marks for their standard electronic stability control, and joined other economical cars such as the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight by earning the Top Safety Pick title. This news is added to the Nissan Leaf recently winning the Car of the Year award.

There have been questions raised before about the safety of electric cars and their high voltage systems, and whether they posed an electric shock hazard for occupants or rescue workers. Below you can see some electric cars as they are put through some crash tests.

Jonathan Welsh of The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nissan plan to start a service action involving 5,300 Nissan Leaf’s. The vehicles are located in the US, European and Japanese markets and require a fix to a possible software flaw which could be causing the problems.

The problem is that owners have been experiencing issues when trying to restart the Leaf after they were switched off. According to Nissan the problem has only been affecting a small amount of owners, and engineers have reprogrammed the cars to correct the problem.

Nissan have chosen to perform a service campaign which is below a full recall because there is no threat to safety. The electric cars will not just shut down when being driven, but may not restart after being shut off.

About 500 owners are in the US, and Nissan will send them a message via the on-board telematics systems asking them to contact a Nissan dealer to arrange a visit to correct the problem. Owners will also be contacted through the more usual methods as well.

For those of you who don’t know, Revenge of the Electric Car is a documentary style film which follows the progression of car makers building electric cars ready to release to the public. Such car makers include the likes of General Motors, Tesla Motors and Nissan.

You can watch the trailer below and see it for yourself. The actual film will release on April 22nd on Earth Day at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, as reported from the WSJ. The whole project centres around the idea of the electric car making a ‘comeback’ into the auto industry after previous concerns about whether the battery powered autos would be successful or not.

Since this is a unique film, the movie will not be shown everywhere after it’s April 22nd premiere. Instead, the film makers are asking for fans to email them with requests and the most requests from a particular city will be included on the list of places that the movie will be shown. If you want to sign up, head to the official website here.

An article over at The Independent is reporting that ten companies have announced plans for charge stations; these will be sited across Japan in a cost-cutting measure. The group of companies which include Panasonic Electric Works, Forking Co. will work together to produce and develop electric vehicle chargers.

Forking has access to 1.2 million vending machines across Japan which is around half the total in the entire country. The group of firms is planning to add around 10,000 vehicle chargers at vending machine sites beginning the end of this month. SoftBank Mobile and SoftBank Telecom are set to provide telecom services for the charging stations.

We have seen vehicle manufacturers launching electric cars such as Nissan with the leaf last year, but many people feel the lack of charging options makes switching to electric cars not practical. But with this sort of investment could see electric vehicles becoming more popular. You may also want to read about the healthiest vending machine foods, which can be seen here.

This first thing to remember is that there is no need to panic just yet, but there will come a time when we would have drained our oil resources – we just hope that we are ready for change? For years this black gold has had a strangle hold over us, but we have seen a few changes in the auto industry over the years, but we are nowhere near where we need to be.

If you take a look at the market today there are a number of alternatives, such as hybrids, hybrid plug-in, electric vehicles, hydrogen and more. Most of you will already be familiar with the Toyota Prius; this uses a standard combustion engine and an electric motor. For years this has been the best selling hybrid, but the issue here is that it still uses gasoline.

Then we have the Chevy Volt, again this also uses gasoline, this vehicle is just a means to an end. Then there is the Nissan Leaf, this is an EV, and although it is a better alternative fuel wise, the limited range is a huge issue.

So we know that the auto industry is trying, but the technology is just not there yet. We do not know how long the oil will last, but if it were to happen soon then we will not be ready for it. Autoblog has an interesting twist on this, saying that maybe the Mayan calendar is on about change, and that change could be about what fuel drives our vehicles. Just remember one thing, oil is sued for far more things that oil.

Do you think that we are ready if the oil runs dry?

That being said, these designs and the plans that go into producing a vehicle like this do not come cheap. Also with more and more electric powered cars being released there aren’t enough EV chargers being made as readily available as regular gas pumps, and probably won’t be for while either.

This means owners of cars such as the Prius PHEV and the Leaf are left having to charge up at home. This would inevitably increase electricity bills, or would it? This is where Dominion Virginia Power comes to the rescue.

The electrical company is currently waiting for approval from Virginia State Corporation Commission for their proposed offer to cut their off peak tariffs by over half to encourage customers to make the switch to electric vehicles. This would mean you were to charge up at night it wouldn’t cost that much. You can read the press release at Engadget to find out more details about the company’s pilot program. You can also check out the best of the electrical cars out there at the moment.

Do you own an electric car? What do you think about this deal?

The reason for this is they just do not have the range yet – meaning that the technology is just not there yet to offer a practical alternative to gasoline powered engines. Do not get me wrong, electric cars are the way to go – we just need the technology to develop at a faster rate than its current rate. For those of you who are interested in an EV car, then did you know that there are DIY conversion kits that will help transform your car and save you money in the long run?

Alternate Energy Sources has a range of information detailing just how to convert your car to electric. Not too certain how old the article is, but the principle will still be the same – just newer technology to use to build your DIY electric car. They offer you the chance to download plans to build your electric car, you just have to ask yourself if you are ready to undertake the job? If not you can always get someone to do all the work for you, but that will just add to the cost.

So what are the main advantages to converting your car to an EV? The first and most important is not having to pay the extortionate prices for gas, quieter car, engine / motor will last longer and IRS refund. Last but not least, you could have you do not have to pay the price of a Nissan Leaf or a Tesla Roadster.

Below we have embedded a video for you, which should help guide you in how to convert your car to electric. Have you undertaken such a project, if so then please let us know how it has been going for you?

We still do not know what to class the Volt as, is it an EV, Hybrid or something else? However, there is no denying what the 2012 Ford Focus Electric is, and being based on a car that has already proven itself and will help sales. We know that the 2012 model will be a complete refresh, and we already know how popular the current model has been.

The next car is the 2013 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-Cell; there are a number of things going for this model, such as its 0-62mph time of 3.8 seconds. However, it is the $307,000 price tag that could go against it – not exactly as cheap as the Nissan Leaf now.

Finally we could not talk about the best electric vehicles at Detroit without mentioning the Tesla Model S, which you can see a video of here. This is much cheaper than the Mercedes, but the $100,000 price means that it will lack in a few features. However, Tesla Motors has decided to make the Model S large enough for up to 7 passengers.

These are just some of what we thought stood out at the first major motoring event of the year, but what other EVs should have been mentioned?