Galway gets its first on-street charge point for electric cars

Date Published: 16-Aug-2010

By Dearbhla Geraghty Connacht Sentinel

GALWAY has become only the second city in Ireland, after Dublin, to install public on-street charge points for electric cars.

It is envisaged that there will be 45 such points within the city’s environs before the end of next year, prompting two Galway Nissan customers to already place orders yesterday for the new €35,000 Leaf cars despite a February delivery date and a 160km range.

At yesterday’s launch of the city’s first public on-street charge point at Woodquay, MD of ESB ecars, Paul Mulvaney, said that Galway was leading the way for Irish regional cities in embracing this new type of technology.

“We have been working with Galway City Council, in fact they contacted us and were very interested in getting involved,” he told the Sentinel.

He said that other Irish cities were slower to meet the Government’s vision, but that the local authority here was “particularly proactive” and anxious to become part of it.

Mr Mulvaney said that the Government’s target was to have 10% of all vehicles, or 230,000, electric by 2020. At the moment, the incentives offered are a €5,000 grant against the purchase price, low road tax, and zero VRT.

Read more in this week’s Connacht Sentinel