Lack of infrastructure for new cars disappoints

States figures show that there were now almost 3,000 electric cars, vans and motorcycles registered on the island and more than half of these were pure electric.

The bestselling new car on the island last year was the electric Fiat 500.

Le Mont Saint Garage managing director Peter Beausire said that at least 95% of its new car sales were now electric or hybrid.

‘We registered 118 Fiats last year – over half were electric cars and all but a few of the rest were hybrid.’

Despite the growing number of electric cars, Mr Beausire was disappointed with the lack of infrastructure.

‘It’s not great, having only four charging points in St Peter Port is a bit embarrassing.

‘We have had a lot of people put off because they can’t charge at home.

‘They go for hybrids because of a lack of charging facilities. I can’t understand why its not part of the planning process for new builds.

‘It’s backward not to have car charging ports being put into new developments.’

Mr Beausire said that the new emission registration charges that came in at the end of last year had started to be mentioned by potential buyers.

‘On an electric Fiat 500 it’s £92 but on a 1.4 Arbarth it’s £1,110. But some people need bigger cars, especially those with large families. They’re aren’t many large pure electric cars yet.’

Doyle Motors managing director Jeremy Rees said it was starting to see more used electric cars for sale.

‘The second-hand market is good. Two years ago there was hardly any stock. Now they are filtering through on to the market. About 15% of our second-hand sales are now electric. Lots of fleet cars bought two or three years ago are now being replaced and coming up at auctions. The new cars are very expensive, so people want to get them second-hand to take that edge off.’

Doyle Motors is a dealer for new Hondas and MGs, and Mr Rees said Honda now only made electric or hybrids and there were no purely petrol or diesel vehicles in their ranges.

He said that he still saw some hesitancy from new car buyers to buying pure electric.

‘What puts people off is a fear of the unknown. Not so much driving in Guernsey, but taking them to the UK and not being able to charge them.

‘There is also a fear of what happens if something goes wrong with the battery. The battery is such an expensive part of the car and people worry about them losing range, even though new ones come with an eight-year guarantee.

‘It’s still early days to see exactly how they perform.’