Car hire company Europcar underlined its commitment to moving its fleet to 5 per cent electric vehicles by 2020, with the launch of a new electric vehicle service in Birmingham City. The 100 per cent electrically powered Nissan Leaf cars will be used for delivery and collection of hire cars in Birmingham and will be available to hire at Europcar branches across Birmingham, allowing customers to experience the greenest motoring technology.
The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV), has clarified the status of the Plug-In Car Grant (PICG), which is available for vehicles emitting less than 75g/km CO2. It has confirmed that the current version of the grant, worth up to £5,000, will end this year, at a date yet to be confirmed. Until that date, OLEV has said that it will honour any deal placed on its system for a qualifying car, provided that the vehicle has been allocated to a customer and is delivered and registered within nine months.
The Mini Plant at Oxford is showcasing a high-efficiency street lighting system that doubles as a charging station for electric vehicles (EVs) during the city’s second Low Carbon Oxford Week. Known as Light & Charge and demonstrated for the first time in the UK, this innovative system is the outcome of a pilot project developed by the BMW Group and is a state-of-the-art LED street light that combines energy-efficient lighting with affordable EV charging.
Formula E’s eighth round was staged over the weekend at Berlin’s former Tempelhof Airport; an unusual backdrop for a track described by tyre supplier Michelin as one of the most delicate of the season for tyres. The twisty 17-turn, 2.47km course was dusty and dirty early in the day due to the relative lack of traffic, while its concrete slabs were particularly abrasive. The circuit’s width also allowed drivers to run three abreast in places, meaning heavy braking and hard acceleration were a feature of the event. These conditions present an obvious challenge for tyres to which Michelin’s grooved Pilot Sport EV rose.
The National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA) is urging the Government to review urgently the funding and infrastructure plans associated with alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) to make them a viable option for mainstream motorists.
As a luxury class saloon, the Tesla S stands out from the electric vehicle crowd, making it an interesting vehicle for aftermarket wheel supplier Alutec. The manufacturer has announced that its Pearl alloy wheel will be available for the car in stylish carbon grey in the dimensions 8.5×19 inch and 9.0×20 inch.
Following a positive report from Nissan about the performance and reliability of the battery for its Leaf model, Rupert Pontin, Glass’s head of valuations, said: “This is something of a watershed moment for the EV sector, with a major car manufacturer being able to report on the long-term reliability of batteries for the first time – and the results are very, very good.
Cenex – the UK’s first Centre of Excellence for low carbon technologies – has announced the publication of the ‘Low Carbon Vehicle Public Procurement Programme (LCVPPP) Reports’.
Consumers will be able to receive a Government grant of up to £1,500 off the sale price of electric motorcycles and scooters, in a bid to encourage the purchase of zero emission two wheeler vehicles, the Government has announced.
Research commissioned by the SMMT has found that the development of connected and autonomous vehicles will help generate 320,000 jobs in the UK. Researchers from KPMG found that these new vehicles will deliver a £51 billion boost to the UK economy and reduce serious road traffic accidents by more than 25,000 a year by 2030. It also forecasts the UK will be a global leader in the production of this next generation of vehicles.
Five years and more than 35,000 European sales since the launch of its all-electric Leaf, proprietary data released by Nissan for the first time shows that 99.99 per cent of its battery units remain entirely fit for purpose.
Millions can’t imagine life without their iPhone and iPad, and now a watch is tempting the hearts, minds and wallets of Apple devotees around the world. And if the rumour mill is churning out anything half approaching the truth, the US firm is also working on producing an Apple-branded car with the help of ex-Tesla engineers. If an Apple car does come to fruition, Continental may play a contributory role in its development.
Nissan has become the first manufacturer to apply glow-in-the-dark car paint to showcase how its market-leading, all-electric Leaf is helping more and more people convert to solar energy at home. The manufacturer worked with inventor, Hamish Scott, creator of Starpath, which is a spray-applied coating that absorbs UV energy during the day so that it glows for between eight and 10 hours when the sun goes down.
The hybrid batteries used in Toyota and Lexus models can last longer the vehicles themselves, so often they are only recovered when the cars reach the end of their useful life, or if they have been involved in an accident. Toyota already has a battery collection rate of more than 90 per cent, but is now widening its strategy and targeting a 100 per cent result.
A project is bringing Bosch, the BMW Group and Vattenfall together sees the companies reuse old electric vehicle batteries to form a large-scale energy storage system in Hamburg. Bosch, BMW, and Vattenfall believe in the concept to the extent they have launched the Second Life Batteries alliance. BMW is supplying batteries from its ActiveE and i3 electric vehicles, while Vattenfall has agreed to operate the massive storage system at its site for a period of 10 years. Bosch is in charge of integrating the batteries and managing the system. The storage solution will become part of an already existing Vattenfall virtual power plant. This allows the partners to combine various small, decentralized power generating systems to market them as a shared power plant.
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