As the electric vehicle market grows and strengthens seemingly day by day, it was almost inevitable that EVs would at some point break into the upper echelons and become popular with trend setters and celebrities alike.
Already backed by ex-England cricket captain Michael Vaughan OBE, who took delivery of a brand new Vauxhall Ampera extended-range EV in December 2014, the electric vehicle industry has added another notable name to its supporters. Only this time it is not sporting royalty, but genuine royalty.
The Queen herself has jumped on the electric vehicle bandwagon, picking up the keys to her new Nissan Leaf this morning after agonising over which vehicle to buy.
Sources close to the royals believe that Prince Charles was arguing for the more executive Tesla Model S, but the Queen, rarely cowed, didn’t back down, preferring the more popular, modest and practical Leaf, stating that there was more space in the back for when she needs to travel with her beloved corgis.
One of the most interesting spin-off’s from this story is that Nissan are rumoured to be producing a car in honour of the Queen’s purchase called the Nissan Corg-E; however, there no confirmation was available from Nissan’s press room. We eagerly await Nissan’s confirmation on this claim and specifics of the car itself.
The importance of this purchase has not been lost on followers of the Royals or electric vehicles. It seems that now the Queen has endorsed electric vehicles, supporters are adamant that the flood gates will open and we will see up to 20% of all new vehicle registrations being electric vehicles.
Though this sounds like a huge jump from the current 1%, registrations have been exponentially growing over the last three years and early reports already suggest that manufacturers are struggling to keep up with demand, many people being put on waiting lists since this news was announced.
At Next Green Car hope that the optimists are right, and this Royal backing serves to turbo-boost (to mix technological metaphors) electric vehicle sales in the future. For the time being we are happy in the knowledge that we may have done our part in raising the Queen’s awareness after taking delivery of our own Leaf earlier this year.
