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Low Carbon Cars Set the Pace
Low Carbon Cars Set the Pace
Low Carbon Cars Set the Pace
Business opportunities opening up from an Living With Environmental Change accredited innovation platform.
“I’m now standing here feeling enormously sad because I now have to give my electric car back…it’s changed my life…I’m uniformly positive that this is the future…” That’s the rave review of motoring expert and TV personality Quentin Willson after taking part in the world’s biggest trial of ‘green’ cars – an initiative that lies at the heart of the Living With Environmental Change- accredited Low Carbon Vehicles Innovation Platform, which is opening up important business opportunities for the UK automotive industry.
With over 300 electric, electric/petrol hybrid and hydrogen-fuelled vehicles participating – vehicles like the Mini E and the i-MiEV, which Quentin Willson drove for 12 months – the trials are generating plenty of valuable data on mileage, emissions, handling and, crucially, driver perceptions.
“All kinds of people are trying out the vehicles, from members of the public to local authority officials,” says Tim O’Brien of the Technology Strategy Board, which is managing this Innovation Platform. “Early data indicates that the vehicles don’t need recharging every day, and that users adapt to the vehicles’ range capabilities very quickly.”
Most of the vehicles undergoing trials are existing off-the-shelf technology now given the chance to prove itself and establish a foothold in the market. But the Innovation Platform is also stimulating and supporting targeted R&D in the shape of over 70 cutting-edge projects, mostly focused on tackling the two main barriers to widespread take-up of low-carbon vehicles: cost (currently around double that of an equivalent conventional model) and refuelling distance. “Within two to three years, this R&D programme could help bring our destination a lot closer,” says Tim O’Brien.