Sydney Morning Herald
Monday 19/7/2010 Page: 7
ELECTRIC cars will cruise into the sacred turf of petrol heads this month, as renewable energy experts converge on Bathurst's Mount Panorama. Seventeen local councils representing western NSW are gathering for a climate change summit under the banner "recharge the region" to co-ordinate plans for a network of recharge points for electric vehicles across the NSW outback, as well as linking Sydney and Canberra. The growl of the V8s will be temporarily replaced by the softer purr of electric engines as low emission vehicles from across Australia converge for a demonstration race on the Mount Panorama circuit from July 29.
"Sustainable transport is incredibly import for regional NSW, and when fuel prices rise it hits the country harder than it does in the city", said the summit organiser, Elisabeth Bastian. The aim is to have a functioning network of recharging stations across much of the state's west by 2015. For now, the cars would still mainly be plugged into the electric grid, although the summit is also examining the feasibility of more renewable energy generation in towns including Bathurst and Orange.
At the moment, recharging from power points is rather slow, so we are trying to turn that into a benefit for tourism", Ms Bastian said. "People can relax and use the time to explore different towns while they hop from point to point. We want to link up with public transport as well, so that people from Sydney can catch a train west and then hire a car when they get there". Rudimentary electric car charging stations already exist in some places around the state, including at some Westfield supermarket car parks in Sydney, but at the moment most are not marked on maps or linked with other stations.
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