POLL: Would you buy an electric vehicle?
Shetland Islands Council spent more than a quarter of a million pounds to fuel its fleet of petrol and diesel vans and cars in the 12 months to July, it can be revealed.
This newspaper discovered that information after it was given the figures through the Freedom of Information Act .
This comes after The Shetland Times also told this week that motorists had spent £170,000 to charge their electric vehicles at public charging stations across the isles in the last two and a half years.
In the response to this newspaper, the SIC said it owned 213 petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles - with an additional 26 electric or hybrid cars or vans.
It had spent an eye-watering £165,593.79 to fill up its fleet of diesel vans, £69,609.43 to fuel its petrol cars and 21,516.89 on its diesel ones.
Staff had been reimbursed £805 for fuelling the vehicles they used too but it was not clear if this was included in the larger total.
The council also said that its electric and hybrid vehicles had been charged at "dumb" meters, which meant the costs of charging the fleet were included in the running costs of the buildings charging stations were located.
With that in mind, The Shetland Times is asking you, would you buy an electric vehicle?
As revealed this week, Shetland Islands Council introduced a levy to charge electric vehicles in April 2023 - before which, it was free.
Drivers have spent £169,939.21 in the time since the levies were imposed.
The station which had collected the most cash since then was the one at the car park at the Hillhead, or the "swimming pool car park".
Until July 31st, £36,908 had been spent by drivers there to top up their cars, according to figures from Transport Scotland - equivalent to 1,513 full charges.
However, the charging point which had sed the most energy was at the Lerwick Health Centre.
Drivers had used 181,850 kWh at the health centre station - twice as much as the swimming pool car park, which had the second highest figure.
This equated to between 2,600 and 3,600 full charges.