UK gives green light to £25m electric car trial

The government today officially launched the world's largest trial of electric and low-carbon vehicles, announcing plans to roll out 340 cars across eight different UK cities as part of an initiative designed to assess the viability of emerging electric car technologies.

The £25m scheme is being operated by the Technology Strategy Board and will see a range of plug-in hybrid and all electric cars, as well as a small number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, made available to participants in the trial over the next six to 18 months.

The selected vehicles include low-carbon models from a raft of mainstream manufacturers, including electric versions of the Mini, Ford Focus and Smart Car, a new electric car from Peugeot, a plug-in version of the Toyota Prius hybrid, and electric sports cars from a consortium of three independent manufacturers.

Speaking at the unveiling of the new cars, science minister Paul Drayson said that the trials would help establish the UK as a leading player in the emerging global market for electric vehicles, adding that it would encourage firms working in the field to undertake their research and development in the UK.

The largest trial will see Mercedes-Benz make 100 of its electric Smart cars available to drivers in the West Midlands and London. Meanwhile, BMW is to roll out 40 of its Mini E's in Oxford and the South East, Peugeot will make 40 of its new eExpert Teepee electric cars available in Glasgow, and Ford is to trial 15 of its new electric Ford Focuses in the London borough of Hillingdon.

Each of the trials is to be supported by the rollout of new charging infrastructure in the selected cities, as the consortium looks to assess how recharging stations will need to be distributed to support the new vehicles.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Tim Nicklin, project manage for the ultra low-carbon demonstration project at Ford, said the company is aiming to collect detailed information from the trial that it will use to inform the design of future electric cars.

"We want to understand how drivers will use the vehicles and how comfortable they will be with the range and refuelling time," he said. "We can then tailor the end product to suit them, for example, producing a cheaper car with a shorter range or a more expensive car with a longer range."

David Bott, director of innovation programmes at the Technology Strategy Board, said that each of the trials would last a year in order to gauge variations in seasonal performance and behaviour patterns. "The aim is to get people who drive a fair number of miles and really test how viable these vehicles are in the real world," he explained, adding that the intention was to then hold a wider trial involving up to 8,000 cars within the next three to four years.