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

Why we should support electric cars

The UK budget is coming around again next week, and as a preview the government announced plans this week to subsidise motorists up to £5000 to encourage them to buy electric or plug-in hybrid cars. We support the move as it sets a long term market shift for the industry which is sorely needed.

“There is a near-global consensus that something has to replace internal combustion engines, which account for 20% of the world’s carbon emissions, and it needs to happen fast. A perfect storm of technology, design and political will suggests 2009 will be the year the electric car begins its takeover in earnest.” (Guardian, 16 April 2009)

To set the context, the car companies are in a real pickle. Through years of poor strategic planning as well as the global economic decline, many find themselves struggling to stay alive.  On top of that there is a limited reserve of oil and so they simply have to change from the internal combustion engine design. Then there is climate change - the UK government has to reduce CO2 emissions quite dramatically (about 22% of the UK’s carbon emissions come from transport, with 13% of these from private cars). And on top of that the UK has to meet air quality standards for PM10 and NOx (currently the government is in breach of EU limits). The only solution available so far to address all three is to create a giant shift in the design and promotion of cars to electric vehicles.

And judging on how long it takes car makers to alter course, we need to start that change now. Luckily there are several models being put into production already - The Tesla Roadster & the Chevy Volt being two examples.

“Having a lot of batteries plugged into the grid would help the grid with ‘balancing’ the intermittancy of having lots more renewables plugged into it. We have far more wind, tide and wave potential in the UK than we need, but not at the right time, so finding storage is an issue, and having cars plugged in, to be charged when we have spare juice and serve as a buffer when we are short could potentially be a major benefit.” (Sian Berry, Sky news debate, April 2009)

While there are many criticisms of electric cars, including hydrogen and battery technology, incentives like the one proposed by the government are helping to promote innovation in the technologies. In the field of batteries alone there is a spectrum of new solutions, from battery ’service stations’ (Project Better Place) to break throughs in design (new bateries that charge in seconds, not hours).

Blake, for We Are Futureproof

Segway and GM design outside the box

The newest design for personal mobility has been seen this week in New York. The PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility)  is the result of a joint venture between Segway and beleagured General Motors.

Unlike the upright Segways now in use (Legal in Europe, though illegal to use on public roads in the UK), the new vehicle would be enclosed from the elements, carry two or more passengers and have a top speed of 35 miles an hour.

The prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and has a driving range of 35 miles on one charge.

Segway said it had begun informal talks with city planners “from Paris to Singapore” about taking part in tests to see how the vehicle would work in urban environments.

Jon Stewart talks about the future of cars

Well, how excited are we at We Are Futureproof, when one of our favorite talk show hosts discusses the future for automobiles?

Finally, low carbon car policy makes it to prime-time as Dan Sperling of Institute for Transport Studies, UC Davis, talks to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

Sperling is an advocate of alternative energy sources.

According to Sperling, “I think the future is going to be some mix of advanced biofuels, not corn ethanol.” He favors electrification of cars, plug in hybrids and fuel cell technology.

The technlogy is there, but he says we need the industry, the consumers, and the politicians to embrace change.

Watch Jon Stewart’s very informative show here, and enjoy:  Daniel Sperling / Jon Stewart

Blake, for We Are Futureproof

TH!NK City

Following on from last month’s blog about Project Better Place, here’s an electric car company that’s closer to starting production, and closer to home.  (Well, Norway).

The company is TH!NK (yes!  With an exclamation mark!) and if all goes to plan, it’ll be shipping some of its TH!NK City electric cars to lucky UK consumers this summer.  Here’s how they look:

TH!NK, with a different name and in a different incarnation, has been around since 1990, but it was accidentally almost-destroyed by Ford who bought the company in 1999.  They set about throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at it in the hope it would be the goose that laid the golden egg when California’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate came into force.  However, as ‘Who Killed The Electric Car?’ showed, this mandate was repealed and Ford lost no time in dumping TH!NK on a Swiss electronics firm and turning back to producing more polluting cars. Having subsequently been through bankruptcy, the company is now back in business, and gearing up for production.

There are similarities with Project Better Place, in that the batteries would be owned and maintained by the company, and leased to the car owners for a monthly “mobility fee”.  This looks like being in the 200 Euro range, which - last year - would have been a very attractive £130-ish.  Now, it’s more like £200, but that’s still less than many people pay for petrol a month.  The website also states, ambitiously, that this fee “includes a full maintenance service agreement, carbon offset payments and in some countries even all electricity used, and insurance.”  Which would make the running costs even lower.

As the TH!NK City is a brand-new design for a car, built around its battery, it has a number of other innovative features.  Although it’s available in lovely bright colours (the photos show ‘Red Energy’ and ‘City Citrus’), those are unpainted plastic panels you’re looking at, not toxic paint.  Incidentally, this also makes any scratches or scrapes (god forbid) easier to repair.  The vast majority of its components are recyclable, and a good proportion are recycled in the first place.

Also innovative is its sales strategy.  If you click the ‘Buy a TH!NK’ link on the website, you’re apologetically informed that the car is currently only available in Norway.  However, they will start shipping overseas soon, with the rider that “the initial distribution of TH!NK city will be targeted to the most `EV friendly’ cities in Europe.”  So your chances of getting one depend very much on whether you live in a bad, good, or better place.

In fact, coming soon is TH!NK’s ‘EV Friendliness Index’, where they will rank European cities depending on how amenable to electric cars they are.  It’s explained here, but the basic gist is that if your city has decent tax breaks, good availability of charging points and free parking, and is making an effort to provide electricity from renewable sources, then you might just qualify to be one of the lucky owners of a TH!NK City.

Owen, We Are Futureproof