HUNDREDS of car drivers across North East England have been switched on to clean, green motoring after the successful first trial of electric vehicles in the region came to an end.
CENEX, the UK’s Centre of Excellence for low carbon and fuel cell technologies, in conjunction with Regional Development Agency One North East, deployed four electric two-seater Smart ForTwo cars over six months in the region from September 2009.
These were placed into 10 different vehicle fleets, featured at three public events and in total were driven by 264 different people.
A major report on the trial has now been compiled by Cenex, finding that getting people behind the wheel of one of the Smart cars made a major difference to their preconceptions about electric vehicles.
Following three public test drive events, 72% of the people who took part said they would use an electric vehicle as their regular car, compared with just 47% before the test drive, and 82% said they would consider owning an electric vehicle. Test drivers in the 20-30 age group experienced the highest opinion shift in favour of electric vehicle ownership.
The trials showed that vehicle fleets could provide a successful early market for electric vehicles, having left 58% of fleet users feeling more positive about electric vehicles and 88% of fleet managers feeling more positive about incorporating electric vehicles into their fleets.
One of the most significant findings of the trial was that so-called ‘range anxiety’ meant drivers were over-cautious when planning journeys. The maximum journey length was 17.8km, just 25% of the average range of the vehicles, which was 72.4km. Manufacturers are already fitting more sophisticated range-prediction aids to electric vehicles to address this issue.
The electric Smart cars emitted an average of 81.4g CO²/km when recharged with UK average grid mix electricity. This represents almost half the average emissions from new internal combustion engine cars in the UK, which last year was 149.5g CO²/km. If charged with alternative sources of electricity, the electric vehicles could achieve average emissions of 45g CO²/km from Combined Heat and Power (CHP) sources, and 0g CO2/km from renewable electricity.
Robert Evans, CEO at Cenex, said: “The Smart Move trial has done a great deal to change perceptions of electric vehicles among the fleet managers and drivers who took part. There is clearly a need for better understanding of the advances that electric vehicle technologies have made in recent years, and we will be working with partners across the country to spread this message.”
Chris Pywell, head of strategic economic change at One North East, said: “This trial has shown that there is real enthusiasm in North East England for electric vehicles, and that charging the car was not seen as a problem by drivers who used them.
“It has however highlighted that range anxiety remains a major issue, and we will be seeking to address this through educational programmes and by making quick progress on the 1,300 charging points that we are installing in our region. This will help inform other parts of the UK as the national network is installed.”
The information gained in this study will be disseminated by Cenex to allow organisations to gain an understanding of the capability and performance of electric vehicles in fleets nationwide.
Cenex and One North East will soon be in the next phase of electric vehicle trials in North East England, which is also part of a national demonstrator project, part-funded by the Technology Strategy Board, which will see new electric passenger vehicles developed in the North East.
