Gee…that’s NICE.

We were delighted to read today that the electric car company, NICE, have resumed trading as the London sales arm of AIXAM-MEGA Ltd. NICE, who had some of their vehicles at last year’s ‘Green Motoring Pavilion’ at the British Motor Show, went into administration in November. ‘Where was their bailout?’ we asked at the time. So much for the Government rescuing the ailing car industry. Here was a company who were trying to solve the problems we have with cars and the pollution they create, rather than burying their heads in the sand, like some (most) manufacturers I could mention.

So it’s good news that they’re trading again. Electric cars certainly face a tough challenge when it comes to gaining street cred, but there are signs that things are starting to go in the right direction.

I think of the furore last year over the G-Wiz, built by the Reva electric car company based in India. With their limited range (40 - 75 miles) and limited speed (51 mph), they seemed an option for only a few people (or perhaps that should be one or two relatively slim people – their size being a perceived problem too). But the average speed of traffic in London is 9 miles per hour. Do we really need a car that goes 120 mph?

When the motoring journos started harping on about safety: ‘You’d be safer crouching in a wheelbarrow!’ one screeched like an over-zealous health and safety inspector, I actually bought in to the worries. Being a mother, I figured you’d never catch me in one with my family. But then I looked at the figures and found that there have been NO serious accidents reported with G-Wizes. A bit of spin to scare people off, methinks… New ideas are so scary, after all.

It’s interesting to see that there are going to be subsidies available for those who are wanting to buy a cleaner car. There are some problems with the scheme but that’s no reason to dismiss it out of hand. Let’s see what the uptake is and the outcome – we may be pleasantly surprised.

Sarah, for We Are Futureproof

Budget comments - car makers to share the £2k car scrappage payment?

In a lead up to today’s budget report, the Telegraph reports that “the SMMT is bracing itself for an announcement on cash-for-bangers scheme, which it believes is crucial for the future of UK vehicle manufacturing.”

The FT reports: “Britain’s car industry is to be forced to share the costs of a £2,000 “cash for bangers” scheme in Wednesday’s Budget, a move dismissed in advance by manufacturers as a disaster for the sector. Alistair Darling, chancellor, has reluctantly agreed to fund the scheme to boost demand for new cars, following France, Germany and Italy in introducing a so-called scrappage plan to persuade motorists to trade in their old cars vehicles.”

The industry believes this would be a disaster. Paul Everitt, the SMMT chief executive, said last week: “Bluntly, I don’t want to be standing up and saying: ‘It’s sort of all right’. I want to say: ‘This is fantastic, this is the best possible time for you to buy a car’.”

Battery news

One of the big sticking points in any debate on electric cars comes when the issue of the time it takes to charge a battery rears its slow and complex head.  Put simply, a petrol driven car can be ‘recharged’ with enough fuel to last it hundreds of miles in a matter of minutes, whereas electric cars currently need to be plugged in overnight, or while you’re at work.  Improving the performance, durability and charge-speed of batteries is going to be a necessary step on the road to practical electric vehicles.

That’s why these two recent stories on new battery technology are so exciting.  The first suggests that with only a slight change in the manufacturing process, lithium ion batteries can be constructed to charge in minutes rather than hours - or even seconds rather than minutes, in the case of a mobile phone battery.  The rapid discharge time these batteries exhibit is also of benefit to electric vehicles, where a sudden demand for power (during acceleration) is quite common.

The second story initially confused me as it came out on 2nd April, and the headline looked like a hangover from the day before.  ‘Virus battery could power cars‘ does look like a spoof, but the science seems sound, and the great benefit of this battery is that because it’s technically alive, it can’t be made from toxic materials.  Although the nervous sci-fi fan in me does worry about the idea of genetically engineered viruses that are programmed to evolve and create electricity.

Owen, for We Are Futureproof

Electric car plans need new energy source first

There is an interesting debate on about electric cars at the moment.

At first glance I thought that everyone would support a transition to electric vehicles (EV’s). They are the future, aren’t they? Who could resist, for instance, the allure of owning a new Tesla Roadster?

These are exciting times for electric cars. There are many projects across Europe to support new EV technology. Denmark is partnering with Project Better Place and has raised € 130 million to build a new  electric car charging network by 2011. The network will consist of around 100 stations where drivers of electric vehicles can swap out or top up their depleted batteries. In France the government has pledged €400m (about £310m) to help carmaker Renault and French energy firm EDF get a nationwide electric recharging network off the ground by 2011, and Paris is set to introduce a new rental scheme for electric cars by 2010, similar to the succesful Velib bike hire scheme. Ireland recently announced that 10% of vehicles will be powered by electricity in 2020, and has set aside more than $1 million for demonstration projects. In the US, Obama’s stimulus bill announced major new funding for plug-in vehicles, including $600m for federal procurement of plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles, $400m for state procurements of acquisition of alternative fueled vehicles or fuel cell vehicles and a $1bn advanced battery loan guarantee scheme. Hong Kong is renewing the tax break for electric vehicles for a further 5 years, while in Portugal, drivers of electric cars aren’t charged for vehicle  registration. And in Sweden, fast food giant McDonalds plans to roll out recharging points at its outlets.

Electric technology has a lot of good things going it. Electric (battery) engines are 65% efficient compared to old internal combustion engines (ICE), which are at best 23% efficient. The batteries can be recycled, where an ICE can’t.

But not everyone supports EVs. In fact, in a recent meeting in Brussels, some environmental NGOs were resolutely against them. While at We Are Futureproof, we remain optimistic and supportive, we ask, what are the issues?

Perhaps the most obvious gripe is that electric cars are increasingly tagged as ‘green’, which in fact they aren’t. Electric cars still have a ‘carbon footprint’ from their manufacturing stage, as well as from the energy they use (more on that below). There are also concerns about the production of the electric batteries - this process is apparently quite polluting, and uses rare materials like lithium.

In terms of the energy they use, critics point out that if you drive an electric car but charge up on electricity produced from dirty coal power (brown energy), then you may as well be driving a petrol vehicle which will get a lower overall emissions. What’s important is to look at the future carbon intensity of the energy mix.

The argument often used that electricity from nuclear is somehow ‘clean and green’ also gets the shackles up. Very few campaigners would like to see electric vehicles promoted if this resulted in a green light for new nuclear stations.

So what is the way forwards? The only way to ensure that electric cars emit as little CO2 as possible is to make sure the electricity comes from alternative energy sources - solar, wind, biogas and tidal.

Professor Julia King recently reported that if all the cars in the UK were converted to EVs, then the extra demand on the energy grid would increase only by 17%. Whist that figure still seems significant, she said that with the use of smart metering systems, cars could be powered up at night when the demand on the grid was low.

It’s obvious that the electric technology needs to develop and grow. At this point we should embrace the evolution to EVs, whilst also monitoring the energy sources used for electrical charging points.

Blake, for We Are Futureproof