LCV11 – a matured event in the UK

By Robin Haycock, Head of Transport, The Climate Group.

September 13, 2011. 

OK, so I got over excited about the EV racing car in my last blog post and I totally missed out talking about why I found LCV11 a great event…

In short, this is because it has really matured in the four years of its existence.

When Cenex worked with UK government departments on this four years ago, we were all talking about how we needed to move ultra-low carbon vehicles forward. But this event was all about reviewing data from trials, analysis from major players working in the field and studies testing whether EVs are still the right way to go in carbon terms.

It also talked about all the products in the market that were available and how the grants were being taken up.

The results so far are really promising.

TSB UK trials of multiple vehicles from range extenders to pure EVs, and niche sports cars through to main stream product, give us results that show people love the cars.

Even more important for our analysis is the evidence that shows range anxiety of EVs goes away after less than three months usage and charging becomes less frequent.

It has allowed us to think about charging infrastructure, the business models, the rate of charge and how people actually charge (when where and why).

We have found that people are most likely to charge at home – as it’s easy – and therefore the public accessible option will become an opportunity charge and maybe better as rapid or fast charge.

The business models around this will be very different to those based around slow charge and long periods of time parked up – maybe linked to a ‘free’ parking spot... highly interesting stuff.

We have also found that people will modify behaviour with changes to tariff that are quite modest, which is great news when we consider simple methods for grid balancing.

Ricardo – a consultancy with origins in engine design and development – produced analysis of the carbon benefit of EVs.Even with hard boundary conditions and fixing energy carbon intensity - and not even counting the cost of existing gasoline’s and diesels when they meet Euro 6 legislation in a few years’ time - has still shown that EVs are the ultra-low carbon future!  Thank you Ricardo.

More from Robin about that EV supercar