Our Activities

A lot of discussion occurs in e-mobility about the need to use rare earth metals in the production of batterys. A main issue being will we swap oil dependency for these metals. Toyota may have a solution?

The first highlights coming from the Detroit motor show are clearly indicating EVs as a serious part of the automotive industry. For a more interesting vehicle however, check out the VW E-Bugster.

A new report by MEC Intelligence has been produced looking at the drivers and inhibitors of EV adoption. It looks at these from the perspective of pricing, charging and the electricity grid.

Among its findings, is an interesting observation that to avoid excessive infrastructure investment in the electricity grid, vehicles will need to be plugged in at all times when parked. With EVs identified as very beneficial in dense urban environments, this could have significant ramifications due to the lack of off-street parking. How should this be managed?

Tesla set the standard for a high performance EV with its flagship Roadster that has a range of of over 400km on a single charge and could reach 100km/h in 3.7secs. However, priced at £70,000 (~€80,000) it was only destined for a limited market.

Tesla's new model S will look to change that with a starting price of approximately £50,000, the 4 door saloon will have an entry level range of 250km that may be increased to over 480km depending on the battery choice. Will this become a viable challenger for the Opel Ampera?

The cars21 website interviewed 45 industry stakeholders asking them to formulate a global action plan for the rapid introduction of EVs on the market. Click here to see the results and read the transcripts.

The Green Car Congress has produced an interesting summary of decisions following the Durban Climate Conference.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) awarded nearly $7 million (€5.36 million) to four projects aiming at slashing EV charger costs this December. Delta Products Corporation, Siemens Corporate Research, General Electric Global Research and Eaton Corporation are the four organisations to receive funds. Preference has been given to projects that provide efficient and reliable management to the grid.

For more information please click here

The Government is to invest a total of £25 million on projects to accelerate the commercialisation of low carbon vehicles, following the announcement of an additional £10m to be targeted through a funding competition, delivered by the Technology Strategy Board working alongside the Office for Low Emission Vehicles. The funds will go to research and development projects focused on energy storage and management and lightweight vehicle and powertrain structures.

Interesting comments from the ParisTech on EV infrastructure

Please click here to be taken to a summary of the new EVs on display at the Frankfurt motor show!

The first analysis has been published of data collected from the Technology Strategy Board’s UK-wide demonstrator programme, involving 340 ultra-low carbon vehicles.

BMW has just released the outcomes of their MINI E field trial. With over 250,000miles driven during the period, which included a very severe winter, the results are very interesting.

Following on from the successful London Bike Hire scheme, car rental firm Hertz has now made available electric bikes available from the central London branch at Marble Arch.

ELVA - the Advanced Electric Vehicle Architectures project has released the results of its review...

The first results from CABLED - the UK's largest study into the long-term low carbon vehicle use have now been published.

The European Commission has released its latest white paper on transport.

Check out the link to find out more

You will soon be able to charge your electric vehicle with Solar power - David Williamson from the Evening Standard tells us

A new report by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership has found that while electric and hybrid cars create more carbon emissions during their production than standard vehicles they are still greener overall.

Prospect of limiting the global increase in temperature to 2ºC is getting bleaker

Black current sets electric vehicle street body record

See the results of the inaugural Royal Automobile Clubs Brighton to London Future Car Challenge

A new high power charging network has been implemented across Great Britain

Check out our Lead Expert Sally Kneeshaw in a news article on the Expert Seminar in Katowice 

Here is a first hand account of a consumer who owns a Nissan Leaf

New figures released by WWF-UK today show that at least 1.7 million electric vehicles will be needed by 2020 and 6.4 million by 2030 if the UK is to achieve its climate change targets and even higher numbers of EVs would enable us to reduce our dependency on oil further.

This article is taken from the WWF-UK website.

EVUE has been officially endorsed as a partner of the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign.  http://www.sustenergy.org

In 2006, as many as 5,000 modern electric cars were destroyed by the major car companies that built them. Today, less than 5 years later, the electric car is back... with a vengeance. A new film of Chris Paine is scheduled to come out in spring 2011.

The filmmaker Chris Paine who probed the death of the electric car in the 1990s (Who Killed the Electric Car?) is set to revisit the subject with a new documentary called Revenge of the Electric Car.

We have uploaded new activity reports and the second edition of the EVUE newsletter in the Project documents section of the website.

Sally Kneeshaw, the Lead Expert for the EVUE project has recently completed the article, Plugging In to Go Green: A Revolution in Electric Mobility, introducing EVs and the potential for cities.

As part of the European Car Free day held on the 22nd of September, Beja has unveiled their first public Electric Vehicle charging points.

It is with great pleasure we can announce that the URBACT II Monitoring Committee approved the EVUE project for implementation. All participating Cities are now looking forward to delivering the project and contributing to the sustainable uptake of electric vehicles in Europe,

An application by Transport for London supported by private companies including Sainsbury's, Tesco, Siemens, Nissan and Hertz has helped secure a £17m (€19m) funding package.

The ambitious plans to make London the electric vehicle leader of Europe took a major step forward today with the confirmation of up to £17 million for electric vehicle infrastructure. This will deliver a network of around 7,500 charging points by spring 2013 with 1,600 charge points to be installed over the next twelve months.

For more information visit:

http://www.london.gov.uk/media/press_releases_mayoral/london-secures-%C2%A317-million-funding-uk%E2%80%99s-largest-electric-vehicle-charge

It is with great pleasure we announce that we have expanded the EVUE partnership for the development phase to include the cities of Oslo, Lisbon, Beja, Madrid and Katowice.

Over 20 very good applications were received from cities across Europe who sought to participate in our project but we could only select a few. However, if cities are still interested in participating and are able to self-finance their activities, we would be very keen to work with you. For more information, please contact Matthew Noon or Sally Kneeshaw.

EVUE was approved by the Urbact II monitoring committee in November 2009.

Cross River Partnership, Westminster City Council and Transport for London have been working on a European URBACT funded project called EVUE: Electric Vehicles in Urban Europe (www.urbact.eu/evue).

Check out some of the newer electric vehicles on display in September

Contact: Oscar Rodrigues (o.rodrigues@emel.pt)

Contact: Adam Lipinsky (adam.lipinski@katowice.eu)

Aim: To discuss the different business model approaches to electro-mobility and the opportunities for cities.