Twenty five drivers in the West Midlands will be given keys to Mitsubishi i-MiEVs electric cars today, which they will test-drive over the next 12 months as part of the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) user trials.
The trial of the i-MiEVs will be conducted by the CABLED (Coventry and Birmingham Low Emission Vehicle Demonstrators) consortium, one of eight winners in the £25 million TSB Ultra Low Emission Vehicle Demonstrator Competition, announced in June.
The £15 million CABLED project is the largest of the user trials and will put a total of 110 low carbon vehicles on the road in the next few months – including 40 Smart electric cars, 25 Tata Indica electric cars, ten hydrogen fuel cell powered Microcabs, five plug-in hybrid Land Rovers and five LTI electric taxis.
Neil Butcher, of engineering consultancy Arup, which is leading the CABLED consortium said: “Today’s launch is a landmark occasion for the UK automotive industry, and this project will begin to examine the points where the vehicles meet the built environment – energy generation, battery charging and driver behaviour. This is an important first step on our roads to a low-carbon future.”
One of the 25 drivers to get to test drive a Mitsubishi i-MiEV will be journalist and car expert Quentin Willson who believes they could represent a significant step towards the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
“At last here’s an electric car that doesn’t look like a church pew, seats four, does 80 mph and costs less than a quid to charge. What is there not to love?” he said.
Genichiro Nishina, president and ceo of Mitsubishi Motors Europe, added: “Mitsubishi Motors takes an holistic approach to environmental and sustainability issues at every stage of the vehicle’s design, production and in-service lifecycle. The i-MiEV is the most prominent element of our basket of environmental solutions, which makes the prospect of ultra low carbon transport a present-day reality.”
CABLED is the second of the consortia to get its driver trials on the road in the last few days – at the weekend 40 electric-powered Mini-Es were handed over to drivers in the Oxfordshire area as part of the MINI E Research Project.
Iain Gray, chief executive of the TSB said: “We created the Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstrator competition to act as a catalyst for industry, the public sector and academia to collaborate to provide low emission vehicles and solutions to powering them.
“The journey towards low carbon transport will not be easy, but the demonstrator programme is the biggest project of its kind to date and is a major step in the right direction.”
The Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstrator competition was run under the TSB’s Low Carbon Vehicles Integrated Delivery Programme. Last week Business Secretary Peter Mandelson announced that a new competition would be formally launched under the Integrated Delivery Programme in February next year.
More details are expected to be announced by the business-led, Government-backed TSB over the next six weeks, but the new £19 million competition will be focused on low and ultra low carbon vehicle technology and on developing the UK’s supply networks for components and sub-systems for low and ultra low carbon vehicles.
Speaking last week at the first meeting of the Automotive Council – recently set up by the Government to address the long term strategic challenges facing the UK car industry – the Business Secretary said: “This latest competition will reinforce the Automotive Council’s focus on both supply chain and technology. Both these areas will be vital if the mass production of low carbon vehicles in the UK is to become a reality.”
The results of a third Integrated Delivery Programme competition are expected to be announced early in the new year.
Source Green Business News
