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Power chiefs are already in talks to build a network of charging stations at locations such as hotels and shopping malls.

Dewa, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, intends to test 100 electric cars in its own fleet over the next two years.

“We just started our strategy,” Saeed Al Tayer, Dewa chief and vice chairman of Dubai’s Supreme Council of Energy, said on Monday.

Electric cars are cleaner and noise-free alternatives to conventional combustion-engine vehicles, but they require frequent charging and any scheme to encourage their use will have to rely on an extensive infrastructure of charging stations.

“Dewa will start, of course, with purchasing electric vehicles and our target is initially 100 vehicles maybe for the next two years,” Mr Al Tayer said.

Experts say electric cars are more efficient than their convention-fuel powered equivalents because of the greater efficiency with which power plants produce electricity.

If the power used by electric cars is produced by renewable sources, then they become a carbon-neutral transport option, meaning no harmful greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere.

No fully electric cars are on sale in showrooms in Dubai.

Dewa is also pushing ahead with plans for a 100-megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant in Dubai, capable of producing energy from sunlight.

International companies interested in building and operating the plant, selling the clean energy to Dewa, met government officials on Monday.

The project is part of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum solar park, which the Government wants to see grow to a capacity output of 1,000 megawatts by 2030.

source: http://www.thenational.ae/uae/environme ... -18-months

Electric car would only be successful if their is good number of electric recharge centers just like we have petrol pumps people are afraid to buy an electric car or scotter because they are afraid about the situation of getting stuck between the road with no power.