Today I reluctantly signed the dotted line for the purchase of a Volkswagen Transporter T30 delivery van. I say reluctantly because I had hoped that our next vehicle would be electric powered thereby reducing not only our costs significantly, but also our carbon footprint.
I had high hopes that I might purchase a Smith Edison vehicle from www.smithelectricvehicles.com, but when push came to shove, the price tag which is at the thick end of £35,000 and its size proved too great an obstacle in comparison with the £17,000 of its fossil fuel equivalent.
In addition there is absolutely no publicly available infrastructure on the Island of Jersey which would enable us to charge up the vehicle over night. Tragic really when there is so much rhetoric about eco-friendly activity and so little of significance actually being done.
The Island of Jersey is surely an ideal place to start a culture shift in our attitudes to alternative forms of power? Yet it would appear that it won't be until businesses like mine are prepared to take the financial risk required and only after it has been shown to be financially beneficial that a global change in our psyche will take place.
I hope that as a small business although we haven't felt able to take this risk at present, in 36 months time when we come to replace this vehicle that the world will have moved on.
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