First trials to get green cars onto Britain's roads get underway

The initiative will put 340 vehicles on the UK’s roads within the next six to 18 months – everything from electric Minis and Smart cars to sports cars, taxis and electric vans. Most of the vehicles on trial will be fully electric, with a small number of plug-in petrol/electric hybrids.

The initiative is led by the Technology Strategy Board, as part of the Low Carbon Vehicles Innovation Platform, and is co-funded by Department for Transport, Advantage West Midlands, One North East and the South East England Development Agency.

The trials, which will take place in Glasgow, the North East, the West Midlands, Oxford, London (in three locations) and across the country, are not just about the vehicles, they are about the infrastructure too. The eight demonstration projects will involve car manufacturers working alongside power companies, regional development authorities (RDAs), councils and academic institutions.

In each of the eight demonstration projects that successfully bid for a share of the Government funding, these relationships have already been established, and the Government’s money will be additional to that already committed by the industry-led consortia.   

The eight successful bidders were selected because they were judged to be in a position to bring significant numbers of vehicles onto the roads quickly.

It is intended that the information gained from the eight trials will make an important contribution to the way that manufacturers and their partners develop low carbon vehicles for the mass market in the future.

Announcing the funding – which is part of a £250 million package of support for low carbon vehicles promised by the Government in April – Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis said: "Our aim is for ultra-low carbon vehicles to be an everyday feature of life on Britain's roads in less than five years. This is a challenging target and there is still a long way to go. However, if we continue to work closely with motorists and the industry with initiatives like the demonstrations project, I believe it is achievable."

The initiative, which involves a large number of vehicle manufacturers including Ford, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Allied Vehicles, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Nissan, has attracted a positive initial response from a wide range of interested parties.

“Today’s announcement is a great leap forward on the road to a lower carbon future,” said Edmund King, president of the AA, adding that the programme "has the potential to spark a personal transport revolution in UK cities.”

While Dax Lovegrove, head of business and industry relations at environmental campaign group WWF, said: "This is a superb initiative and WWF welcomes the convergence between power and car companies and local authorities to drive the electrification of vehicles. We also need to accelerate the scaling up of such mobility systems, the de-carbonising of power supply and the phasing out of gas guzzlers."

The eight demonstration projects chosen are designed to test the full range of low carbon vehicles from vans and taxi to family cars and high performance sports cars.

One of the projects, EEMS Accelerate, aims to put 21 cutting edge high specification electric sports cars on the road for 12 months. The consortium is made up of climate change and data management consultancy AEA, car manufacturers Delta Motorsport, Lightning Car company, Westfield Sports cars and Ecotricity cars, as well as Green-Motion, which will be providing fleet management and support services to the project.

EEMS Accelerate claims its vehicles have the potential to outperform most of the conventional competition due to the instant torque delivered from electric motors and superior weight distribution offering better chassis dynamics. The hope is that by demonstrating that the latest ’aspirational’ cars are actually electric cars, it will turn around current assumptions about electric vehicle technology.

Some are already convinced, it seems. Motoring journalist Quentin Wilson supporting the launch, said: "For me this announcement signals the start of an exciting journey that will see a radical change in the type of cars that we see on the UK's roads in the next half century. The fact that there will be a move towards making these cars as appealing and as powerful as petrol consuming vehicles makes the next few decades a very interesting time for the environmentally conscious UK car driver.”