Last week, the Government announced it would be investing £25 million in eight ‘real life’ trials of low carbon vehicles in different parts of the country that will involve car manufacturers working alongside power companies, regional development agencies, councils and academic institutions. Peta Hodge reports on one demonstration project set to take place in the South East.
In 2010, 60 members of the public in London and the South East will be able to try out a
Smart electric car for a year. It may not seem like many, but the feedback they provide could help shape the support infrastructure for UK electric-powered motoring of the future.
The trials, which will use the next generation Smart electric car with lithium-ion battery, will be run by the London and South East consortium made up of
Smart,
Elektromotive (which makes recharging points),
EDF Energy, Westminster City Council and the Greater London Authority. Among other things, they will examine the ‘recharging behaviour’ of private drivers.
Smart meters will be installed in the homes of those taking part in the trials enabling the consortium to measure the impact of different tariffs and controls on charging times. “This information will be valuable in modeling the future impact on the electric grid ahead of mass market take-up of
electric vehicles,” a spokesperson for the consortium said.
Although the trial will focus on home-charging, participants will also be able to make use of other recharging options. For £75 a year, for example, they will be able access Westminster City Council’s on-street car recharging points. Boasting the largest on-street charging service in the UK, the council has 14 on-street points (Elektrobays supplied by Elektromotive) – expected to rise to 20 by the end of the year – and another 48 recharging points in its carparks.
A spokesperson for the council said: “Westminster Council hopes to gain a better understanding of consumers recharging behaviour which may help us to find ways to improve our
electric car charging scheme in the future. This includes the number of times electric car drivers charge their vehicles, the length of time for it to be charged and where in the borough they are going to charge them.
“It is hoped the trials will help the council to find new ways to continue to support the take-up of electric vehicles in London. For example, the trials may highlight areas where we can introduction new charging points or make them more accessible to electric car drivers.”
Earlier this year Mayor of London Boris Johnson pledged to make the London the “
electric car capital of Europe” with 25,000 charging points across the city by 2015. There is clearly a long way to go to meet this target, but data from the London and South East consortium trials could at least help ensure that new recharging points are sited in the most useful places.
The
funding won by the London and South East consortium was part of a £25 million pot that the Government-backed
Technology Strategy Board (TSB) divvied up between eight low carbon vehicle demonstration projects, between them designed to put all types of low carbon vehicle through their paces. In all,
Smart has been awarded £2.5 million by the TSB to trial 100 vehicles – the 60 in London and South East and another 40 as part of a consortium in the West Midlands.
Although Smart said it wasn’t able to get into specifics about the total cost or funding split of the London and South East consortium project, its spokesperson said: “The TSB grant is based on matched funding principles, where the consortia members are expected to contribute to the project to a similar value to that of the public sector funding.”
The eight demonstration projects – part of a £250 million package of support for low carbon vehicles announced by the Government in April – are seen as a first step to making
low carbon driving the norm in the UK.
Announcing the TSB funding last week, 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 continuing to work closely with motorists and the industry with initiatives like the demonstrations project, I believe it is achievable."
Although Smart had pre-existing relationships with the other consortium members, “the TSB grant provided a catalyst for these relationships to be strengthened,” the spokeperson said.
“The grant means that we will have electric Smarts in the UK market earlier than probably would have been the case. Globally, Daimler [Smart’s owner] had planned for small scale production in 2010 with trials in Paris, Milan and the US. The UK has now been added to this list.”
“We’re delighted that Smart has been awarded this funding,” added Dermot Kelly, managing director Mercedes-Benz. “It means we can offer electric Smarts with state of the art lithium-ion battery technology at affordable monthly lease rates to participants.“
The eight demonstration projects receiving TSB funding have been chosen with an eye to providing data on a whole range of vehicles – everything from city runabouts and sport cars to taxis and vans – from a whole range of manufacturers, using different technologies.
By monitoring things like speed and distance driven, recharging practices and more general driver feedback, the idea is that motor manufacturers will be able to adapt their vehicles to give the driving public what it wants and move low carbon vehicles from the margins to the mainstream.
Critically though, these demonstration projects are not just about the vehicles, but also about the infrastructure that supports them. So data will also be produced to help local and central government decide what type of recharging or refueling points they should have, how many they need and where they should put them and help electricity companies tailor their tariffs according to demand and usage.
What is interesting about the Smart trial project in London and the South East, is that it will put ordinary members of the public behind the wheel, rather than fleet car drivers, as trials have tended to do in the past.
There is clearly the expectation amongst the consortium that this will produce different, more valuable feedback for the future design of electric cars and the infrastructure that supports it.
Drivers taking part in the trial will be required to sign up to ‘vehicle data logging’ for a year – where a ‘black box’ inside the vehicle will transmit what is expected to be vital information about the car’s usage patterns and performance.
In what the consortium says is “a unique opportunity for users to influence the future product development”, drivers will also be asked to participate in workshops, interviews and surveys to provide feedback. They may ultimately get to shape the future of electric-powered motoring in the UK.
Related News
Green Cars and Eco-Travel News