Isra-Mart srl:Mayor Boris continues hunt for electric car, despite Liberty Electric pitch

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London mayor Boris Johnson's dream of owning an electric vehicle (EV) to ferry around his four children looked if it could finally materialise last week when Liberty Electric offered him the chance to buy one of its new battery-powered Range Rovers. But in the end, the mayor balked at the zero-emissions car's hefty £160,000 price.

Back in 2008, Boris laid down the gauntlet to automakers to produce a zero-emissions family sized EV to replace his clapped-out Toyota people-mover.

"Come on, folks: you must be able to do it," he wrote in his Telegraph column. "I don't want to buy another internal combustion engine; there is a market waiting to be satisfied, and if that isn't an economic stimulus I don't know what is."

Carmakers have so far failed to deliver an electric car large enough for six people, despite the emergence this year of a number of smaller EVs such as Nissan's Leaf and Mitsubishi's i-MiEV.

However, when Liberty Electric's chief executive Barry Shrier heard about Boris's quest last week, he insisted he had the answer in the form of the company's newly launched E-Range, a converted battery-powered Range Rover.

Shrier and his team pitched to Boris via email, and tried calling one of his advisers, claiming they have developed "the world's first pure electric high-performance family-size car".

However, the company was left disappointed after Boris's office rejected the pitch on the grounds that the E-Range fails to meet his "affordability" criteria.

"The development of a realistically priced, family-sized, seven-seater car has not yet come to market," a spokeswoman for the mayor told BusinessGreen.

But Liberty has not given up hope of securing a sale just yet, and is now urging the mayor's office to buy a luxury E-Range to ferry round dignitaries while demonstrating London's commitment to low-carbon transport. "It certainly is something that the City of London should be doing to provide zero-emission transport for VIPs that they host," said Petra Beitl, Liberty marketing director.

Meanwhile, Boris continues to wait for the industry to meet his challenge and deliver an affordable family EV, although it still remains unclear how much the mayor, who last year dismissed his £250,000-a-year contract with The Telegraph as "chicken feed", would be willing to pay.

Despite insisting that he remains an enthusiastic champion of electric driving, Boris's rejection of Liberty's offer could further fuel criticism from green groups, who last week slammed the Mayor's decision to reduce the number of EV charging points that will be installed in London from 7,500 to 1,300 by 2013.

He has also angered green campaigners by dropping plans to make 2011 "the year of walking".