The American can an
EV Trial ‘Debunks Range Anxiety’
A
Ampera/Volt Sales Boost UK Production Hopes Major vehicle fleet buyers including Europcar, Europe’s largest car rental company, and several police forces have been impressed by the Ampera electric car. So much so that sales projections have been increased and GM is considering manufacturing the second generation version of the model in Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant near Liverpool as well as the current plant in Detroit. 70 per cent of Amperas are expected to be sold to fleets. The hybrid EV will soon be available in Europe from Opel and in the UK from Vauxhall – in the U.S it will be called the Chevrolet Volt. The Ampera has a small petrol engine that cuts in when the battery charge drops, adding range and versatility.
San Diego Goes Electric San Diego will be the first American city to have a 100% electric vehicle car-sharing program. Daimler subsidiary car2go N.A is providing a fleet of 300 Smart Fortwos for the scheme which will start by the end of 2011. They can be charged at 1,000 charging stations which are being installed by Californiabased tech company Blink EV. car2go N.A. president Nicholas Cole said, “Our goal is to complement the existing transportation infrastructure by providing an emission-free car sharing service for short and spontaneous oneway trips”.
50
12-month trial of electric vehicles called CABLED (Coventry and Birmingham Low Emissions Demonstrators) claims to have found that range anxiety – the worry that if you’re driving an electric vehicle it will run out of energy and leave you stranded – is unfounded. CABLED is one of a number of government strategies aimed at increasing the number of low carbon cars on UK roads, and helping to decide how e-infrastructure and Smart Grid technology should develop. The largest of eight trials taking part, it monitored the use of 25 Mitsubishi i-MiEVs and 20 Smart fortwo electric cars over a total of 147,000 miles (3,267 miles per car per year, or under 9 miles a day). The study found that over three quarters of daily journeys took less than 20 minutes, with just two percent using more than 50% of the battery charge. So in the majority of cases, drivers had more than enough power for a return trip. As drivers began to have more confidence in the car’s actual range potential they began to use more of it. Drivers didn’t recharge as the car ran out of juice, but plugged in anywhere with
a handy socket. The average driver plugged in with between 81 and 87 percent of charge remaining. But – and it’s a big but – you still have to guarantee that you won’t need your car for a moment, or a mile, longer than your alloted battery charge. Otherwise you might need a second car, with a regular engine – not too ecofriendly when you include the pollution invloved in its manufacture, let alone the extra costs. It could be argued that EVs are ideal for town-dwellers making local journeys. But perhaps they should be making use of bicycles, public transport, car share pools or taxis rather than expensive cars, with un-green manufacturing and decidedly environmentallyunfriendly batteries. We do need to replace fossilfuelled vehicles for environmental, political and financial reasons, but the great leap forward will not happen until we invent smaller. lighter, less-polluting batteries that can give a decent range and a fast recharge. Or go down another route entirely – perhaps fuel cells?