Electric vehicle companies are reporting a surge of interest and sales in the midst of the fuel supply crisis.

With service stations around the country running low on petrol, EVision Electric Vehicles in Strood said an increasing number of drivers were turning to electric power.

Aaron Homes, sales engineer for EVision, said the firm had seen an increase of about 75% in people hiring vehicles.

"People who wouldn't have considered driving an electric vehicle before are starting to think about them," he said. "The figures haven't come in yet but on Saturday we had over 25 hires and on Monday alone we had 132 enquiries on the phone."

And while those customers might just be looking to avoid queues in the short-term, he believed the fuel crisis could be the moment many look to swap over to electric in the long term.

"We like to think that after about three weeks of driving an electric vehicle you don't see yourself driving a petrol vehicle again," he added. "Personally I think it's an eye-opener for people, showing it's possible to do their day to day driving in an electric car."

Yesterday the firm's general manager Josh Cockett told KMTV there were enough charging points installed around the country to cope with a steep rise in electric car usage.

"The infrastructure for charging is very strong at the moment for the amount of electric vehicles that are on the road," he said. "The only issue would potentially be if suddenly 20,000 to 50,000 people were buying a vehicle every day, the charging infrastructure may not be able to keep up with that, but as the government have set out their plans they are improving the electric charging infrastructure almost every day.

"The only way it would have a massive impact was if suddenly everyone decided they wanted to buy electric, but it's not going to get to that point for a good 10-15 years yet."

And while he said the fuel crisis couldn't be seen as 'fortuitous', he added: "it just shows the benefits of what having an electric vehicle can do and proves as a company what we can do help alleviate the issues of people not being able to get hold of fuel."

Nationally the picture was the same across the country, with LeaseElectricCar.co.uk reporting a huge increases in enquiries while thousands of drivers have turned to Google to research electric cars.

In September the company has seen a 228.57% increase in electric car orders compared to September last year.

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