Electric cars, scooters and bicycles will have standardised chargers across the European Union by the middle of next year, dpa cited the European Commission as saying today. The EU's executive is keen to promote electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles for environmental reasons, but also to help the European car industry emerge from its current slump. "Electric cars are no longer some abstract concept ... To pave the way for their commercial success we cannot afford to have incompatible systems leading to a fragmented market in Europe," said the European Commissioner for Industry, Antonio Tajani. Tajani was speaking after meeting in Brussels with the heads of two European standardisation bodies, CEN-CENELEC and ETSI, who are expected to develop the common standards for plugs and connectors over the coming months.
