There's (green) gold in them there hills....

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By Adrian Tink, RAC Motoring Strategist on 30 July 2010 at 08:00

..or at least there's going to be cash incentives to buy an electric vehicle for a little while from 2011...but get in quick...

I don't know about you, but at my age very little surprises me anymore...but surprised I was, and I should add just a little delighted, to hear that the planned incentives for electric cars wasn't going to fall victim to the swinging axe of cuts.

Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you this will mean queues out the showroom door akin to the launch of a new iphone or xbox for example...but it is a step in the right direction.

Price/costs and range anxiety are the two biggest worries for people when it comes to considering buying an electric car - you told us that in this years RAC Report on Motoring - so this can't be a bad thing. The range issue will I believe lessen as the technology improves and we become more comfortable with the best uses of this type of vehicle.

We also saw with the scrappage scheme how well we respond as motorists to incentives... looks like somebody finally realised we kind of like our carrots...

The one disappointment...it doesn't look like there'll be a massive amount of carrots to go round....with the minimum number of grants availble slashed from 46,000 to under 10,000...so lets be honest, this a small step in the right direction...

PS by the way - range anxiety.... is it me or does the phrase sounds painful? kind of similar to what I get every time I venture out on my push bike... can't go too far, may not make it back!