Parking provider Apcoa says it opened its first Urban Mobility Hub in the UK. The charging hub offers five AC chargers (22 kW) and twelve Tesla Superchargers of the latest generation. The opening is part of Apcoa pushing 500 EV charging points across the UK.
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The Scottish Government has just awarded over £633,000 to support 45 e-bike projects across the country. The government has also awarded £210,000 to test new ways of improving accessibility across ChargePlace Scotland’s electric vehicle charging network.
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The Scottish government has announced a fund of more than £20 million to boost the number of EVs in Scotland. The money will go to several local authorities to help fund charging points as well as new electric vehicles.
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In Scotland, Edinburgh City Council has given the green light for a plan to build 66 on-street EV charging points in 14 hubs across the city by 2020. This is only the first phase of what is called the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Business Case.
Read moreIndia to buy 10,000 EVs: The Indian government in Delhi decided to turn to local Tata Motors to supply 10,000 electric cars following its successful bid in a tender that saw Mahindra and Nissan partake as well. The new EV will be used to replace government cars over the next four to five years but can only mark a starting point given that India’s official fleet incorporates about half a million vehicles. Tata Motors will supply the EVs in two phases to the Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), a branch of the Ministry of Power, that expects the first 500 units this November. To fulfil the contract, Tata wants to start producing the compact sedan Tigor with electric motor at its Sanand plant in Gujarat.
economictimes.indiatimes.com, reuters.com, indiatimes.com (Tigor)
Biggest H2 bus order to date: 30 fuel cell buses and two hydrogen filling stations worth a total funding of 13m euros have been granted to Cologne’s public transport agency RKV through the federal programme NOW. It will pay 7.4m euros with the other 5.6m euros coming through the EU’s JIVE project. Once the buses will go into service by 2019, RKV will operate one of the biggest fuel cell bus fleets in Europe, especially as there is an option for another ten such vehicles.
rvk.de (in German)
Electric buses roam Edinburgh since bus operator Lothian Buses has put its first electric coaches into service on October 1. The six buses run through the Scottish city’s central air quality management area. Lothian Buses ordered six Street Air buses from Wrightbus for worth 2·7m pounds. These are fitted with 300 kWh batteries that will be charged overnight. There will be five more electric buses added to the fleet next year when the Service 1 will become the first fully electric route.
metro-report.com
Park, charge and pay: Wirecard, a digital payment solutions provider has linked up with evopark to connect their services. In the future they hope to also offer payment for EV charging services.
finextra.com
Renault starts e-carsharing: Working with GreenMobility, the French are kicking off an international electric carsharing scheme. 450 Renault Zoe will hit the roads of Copenhagen in September. An expansion to Norway and Sweden is also in the cards. Copenhagen seems to be a preferred playground for emobility – DriveNow already offers 400 BMW i3 in the city.
newfleet.de (in German), politiken.dk (in Danish)
Supercharging won’t be for free: Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Model 3 drivers will not be able to plug in for free, as drivers of the Model S and X do. For them, the option had already been figured into the total price of the vehicle, while Model 3 drivers can purchase lifetime access or pay as they go.
insideevs.com, electrek.co
Edinburgh goes EV: The Scottish capital has signed a four-year contract with Enterprise Car Club to launch an electric carsharing scheme. Kick-off is July 1st, when at least 12 electric cars will become available to share.
businesscar.co.uk, edinburgh.gov.uk
Electric chauffeur: Australian chauffeur service Evoke only uses Tesla Model S to drive clients around Sydney. It currently has four of the luxury EVs that have already driven more than 200,000 km. Once the Model X becomes available Down Under, Evoke says it will expand its fleet.
gizmodo.com.au
First results: For 18 months now, Toyota has been testing its e-carsharing using the i-ROAD and COMS in French Grenoble. Over 1,000 users have signed up and the satisfaction rate is said to be 92 percent. Moreover, the average trip is only 5 km, a piece of cake for the tiny EVs that can drive between 35 to 50 km on one charge.
cleantechnica.com, newsroom.toyota.eu
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Jaguar XJ reborn: According to Autocar, Jaguar has finally chosen to reinvent the XJ, transforming it into a super-luxury hybrid. The car will be built for total indulgence and is rumoured to contain a hybrid drivetrain built around a new V6 Ingenium engine, as well as come with autonomous driving and connectivity features. A concept version is expected to debut in 2018, the 50th anniversary of the original XJ.
autocar.co.uk
Virtual championship: The Formula E championship does not want to stop at the finish line, offering a virtual championship for eSports lovers alongside the all-electric racing series. It will include at least four online rounds, previewing the races in Long Beach, Paris, Berlin and London. The top two from each virtual race will then go console to console in July.
fiaformulae.com
Supercar teaser: Beijing Auto has released drawings of a new electric supercar concept. The vehicle will be based on a NextEV Team China Racing Formula E race car, which could mean strict regulations for the design. The mysterious vehicle will have a 300 km range, and sports a racy look. The concept is set to debut at the Beijing Auto Show next month.
carnewschina.com
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Electromobility powered by Siemens – Siemens is presenting its drivetrain solutions for hybrid and electric cars on the “Vehicle Show Electromobility” in Bad Neustadt a.d.S on 16th and 17th. Find Siemens at the fairground of the demo city for electromobility and take a glance on the latest innovations.
www.siemens.com/electriccar
On fire: A mystery is afoot in Edinburgh, where an EV simply burst into flames after being plugged in. The Edinburgh City Council confirmed that it was a company car is currently investigating the incident. At least one witness guesses the electric car had been plugged in for too long…
liveedinburghnews.org
Twizy 40 hits Canada: The Renault Twizy has been certified by Transport Canada, and is set to hit stores there this summer. It will be sold at the company’s local partner, AZRA Canada. The quadricycle can reach 40 kph (25 mph). If the window-less design is ideal for Canadian winters remains to be seen.
greencarcongress.com
The last Phaeton: The very last Phaeton has rolled off the factory line at the VW Transparent Factory in Dresden. While this spells bad news for employees, the factory will be renovated and reopened in the future. From April 8th, it will also be revamped as a showcase arena for electric mobility and digitization. An electric Phaeton, however, will not see the light of day.
worldcarfans.com
Paris charges ahead: Parisian public transport operator RATP is following up its plan to electrify its 4,500-strong bus fleet until 2025. Within the Bus2025 scheme, RATP is to test electric buses from providers like Bolloré, Solaris, Ebusco and Dietrich Carebus beginning this year. From 2017, serious bidding is to start with buses expected to be bought by 2019. Paris is en route.
route-one.net; automobile-propre.com (in French)
France is not only Paris and so the country has inaugurated the first two fast-charging stations at the Bosgouet Nord (A13) and Tardenois Nord (A4) motorway service stations operated by SANEF within the Corri-Door project funded by EU´s TEN-T programme. 200 such multi-standard stations will be installed along French motorways by December 2015 with Renault-Nissan, BMW and VW all taking part.
electriccarsreport.com, automotiveworld.com
H2 stations coming up: India now has its first hydrogen station powered by the abundant sun. The station is supplied by Air Products, which operates a total of three H2 fueling stations in the country. Also, France strikes yet again as Air Liquide opened another hydrogen pit stop at its Sassenage site in Isère (Rhône-Alpes) as part of the HyWay framework. A second station is planned in Grenoble.
greencarcongress.com (India), gasworld.com (France)
Fast charging on the go: To charge its 100 electric vehicles for the shuttle service at the Champions League finale in Berlin, Nissan employed a total of twelve mobile fast-chargers MDC22 from Swiss company Designwerk. The MDC22 turns any charging station into a DC charger, allowing vehicles to charge quicker at up to 22 kW almost anywhere.
greencarcongress.com
Hermes delivers electrically in Berlin from today as it employs a custom-made electric Sprinter van. It is part of the showcase project DisLog, which deals with resource-saving deliveries in urban environments. The prototype by German E-Cars has a range of 120 kilometres. Hermes is testing various EVs in different cities and delivers 100 percent electrically in London since 2014.
emobileticker.de (in German)
Electric college catering: Scottish Fettes College in Edinburgh has taken delivery of a second electric utility vehicle from ePower Trucks. The ClubCar Carryall 500 electric truck has been customised for the college. It has a payload of more than 350kg and runs on lead acid batteries.
commercialfleet.org
Plug-in grant revision? Britain’s current government is considering revising the 5,000-pound EV subsidy to avoid a premature “exhaustion of the budget.” The Government’s ‘Office for Low Emissions Vehicles’ says it would introduce new grant levels per category following a review this May. But nothing is set in stone, as the country’s general election will take place in Britain this Thursday.
dailymail.co.uk
Rail and ride, electrically: The British First Great Western rail company is now offering a chauffeur service to and from stations in London. The service is provided through eConnect cars, whose fleet consists only of electric vehicles. Train travellers get 10 percent discount when booking eConnect.
Info via email, firstgreatwestern.co.uk (booking)
Edinburgh embraces electric cabs: The Scottish capital approved electric cars to be used as taxis and private hire vehicles. A public consultation was all in favour of changing licensing (and suggested to ban diesels), whereas before only cars running on liquid fuel had been allowed as cabs.
airqualitynews.com
EV chargers for Iceland: Fortum has received an order for its Charge & Drive system through the Icelandic utility On Power. Until the end of the year, at least ten charging stations like those used in Norway, Sweden and Finland, will be erected on the volcanic island.
fortum.com
Charge as if you refuel: German utility RWE has come up with an e-mobility solution that could be integrated into the existing gas station infrastructure. Its “intelligent” EV charging station is connected to the filling station’s cash register, where energy used per charge is displayed.
auto-presse.de (in German)
Eight to enter the USA: The German manufacturer of modular solar charging stations has entered a distribution agreement with Zam Energy. The company from Colorado will distribute and market Eight´s Point.One and Point.One S charging stations in North America.
automotive-business-review.com
EV tax: Wisconsin is pondering the idea of charging electric and hybrid car owners 50 dollars annually under a road funding proposal. Since 2005, the state has seen a 1,000 percent increase in electric and hybrid vehicles, a trend environmentalists fear could be weakened by the backward proposal.
sfgate.com
Georgia Power now launched its EV charger programme that offers business customers a 500-dollar rebate for installing 240-volt Level 2 chargers (we reported). The two-year initiative is part of a bigger framework that also includes i.e. charging stations for homeowners and educational promotion.
prnewswire.com
Electric cabs in Edinburgh: The Scottish capital has lifted a ban on electric taxis dating back to 2006, now making their use possible. The previous legislation was based on the assumption that EVs would not ensure reliability although the city itself already operates a fleet of nine fully electric cars.
edinburghnews.scotsman.com
Semi-private EV initiative: Premier Cabs from Blackpool is seeking planning permission from the council for eight fast charging stations. The company plans to introduce 12 Nissan Leaf cabs by January and is investing half a million pounds. In the future, the chargers might become publicly available.
blackpoolgazette.co.uk
Building the future: In Perth, Australia, a 19-level apartment complex is to be build. Construction is set to start mid 2015 and is said to take three years. The finished building will accommodate 20 bicycles as well as two shared electric cars for residents.
perthnow.com.au, heraldsun.com.au
e-clearing.net kick-off: The new interoperability platform by German Smartlab and Dutch foundation ElaadNL counts 4,500 chargers from the get-go. The target is a fully operational roaming network across Europe. Smartlab also confirmed to electrive.com that there will be talks with the competing roaming platform intercharge from Hubject, to enable communication between the two systems.
elaad.nl, e-clearing.net
Sharing the E-up: As part of the showcase project in the German federal state of Lower Saxony, Volkswagen provided 50 of the EVs to selected universities for carsharing programmes. Depending on demand, the number of vehicles can be increased.
auto-medienportal.net, motorvision.de, volkswagen-media-services.com (all links in German)
Cork plugs in: The city wants to become the capital of electric mobility in Ireland. The Drive4Zero programme will allow EVs to park for free, double public charging points and create incentives for buying an EV. The first 2,000 buyers will even receive a rapid-charge home point.
irishexaminer.com
Scotland gets first Supercharger: The Tesla fast-charger was installed at Edinburgh Airport. Tesla UK manager Georg Ell hinted that there is more to come, saying one should “watch this space for more activity.”
edinburgh.stv.tv
VGI test a success: Last week, eight manufacturers and a number of utilities came together to see, if energy providers could tell EVs to stop charging via a cloud, in order to not overload the grid (we reported ahead of the event). Using technology provided by Sumitomo Electric, the test was declared a success.
usatoday.com, transportevolved.com
‘My Electric Avenue’ is a British project funded with nine million pounds (14.9m dollars) by Ofgem. In June last year, seven neighbourhood clusters with ten families each have been chosen to share a Nissan Leaf. The aim is to see if the grid can cope with the charging activities. Now, project leader EA Technology Group is looking for a company to join the scheme.
fleetnews.co.uk
Complimentary Caddy charger: GM offers early buyers of its luxury electric Cadillac ELR a free 240-Volt home charger, including installation. The ELR, which is a more luxurious and re-tuned version of the Chevrolet Volt, starts at 75,000 dollars.
electriccarsreport.com, hybridcars.com
EV trip London to Edinburgh: EV advocates Robert Llewellyn and David Peilow crossed Britain south to north in a Nissan Leaf in just over 13 hours along Ecotricity’s Electric Highway. They stopped eight times to fast-charge for free. Three years ago, the same 400 miles took BBC journalist Brian Milligan four days in a BMW Mini E.
thegreencarwebsite.co.uk
