New products, bold plans and DIY enthusiasm 'fuel' transport revolution
By Jerome Simpson and Joshua Simpson
My 15-year-old son spends a lot of time surfing the web. YouTube often finds itself at the top of his list of favourite sites, and one of the clips that captivates him most has to do with something called the Aptera.
Neither a garden insect nor the latest sci-fi flick - though it has features characteristics of both -- the Aptera is a new electric vehicle just launched in the US. It's a slightly bizarre-looking three-wheeler that whirrs along at a top speed of over 85 mph/137 km/h (it also does 0-60 mph in less than 10 seconds), and in terms of fuel economy it achieves the equivalent of more than 100 miles per gallon.
This efficiency is due partly to its composite shell, which at 680 kilograms is super-lightweight; yet Aptera manufacturers claim that their vehicle is "likely safer than most others on the road." Indeed, at Aptera Motor's manufacturing facility in Carlsbad, California, visitors are given a sledgehammer and encouraged to swing away. Nobody thus far has been able to claim the USD 100 prize on offer for denting the shell.
Aptera Motors is a private company that, like many major manufacturers, is investing heavily in research and development in order to expand the capabilities of hybrid and electric vehicles. This is a response to a global push for further emissions reductions, which is itself a political and social response to a warming climate and air pollution in towns and city centres. With the Copenhagen summit on climate change now taking place, the European Union's own "push" in this area came on September 30 via its new Action Plan on Urban Mobility.
Fresh initiative
The plan "talks up" the idea of electric vehicles -- for instance, by promising to support research and demonstration projects that will enable introduction to the market of lower- and zero-emission vehicles. It also promises to fund new projects related to electric vehicles, and an important aspect concerns related infrastructure in urban areas. Specifically, the plan aims to help integrate national initiatives and support the standardisation of recharging infrastructure. And infrastructure has surely got to be the greatest challenge in reducing our dependency on fossil fuels. Most electric cars, like the Aptera, can't travel much farther than 100 miles on a single charge -- which takes anywhere between four and eight hours.
Demonstration projects are therefore crucial in helping convince local authorities and citizens that electric is the way to go. Thanks to the help of the European Commission's "CIVITAS Initiative" for clean urban transport, the city of Brighton & Hove in Sussex, UK could forge ahead with its own plans to promote energy-efficient vehicle use and increased ownership and usage of electric vehicles.
Through CIVITAS' "Archimedes" the city will spend £130,000 to install 10 on-street electric vehicle charging points. It will then offer free electricity during a trial period to registered electric car users. The city's first electric vehicle charging point was inaugurated on October 2, 2009 by City Council Leader Mary Mears. Among other things, tests will be run under the scheme to learn whether widespread electric vehicle charging infrastructure will encourage more citizens to use electric vehicles.
DIY-not?
Fortunately, my son does much more than sitting in front of a PC. In his free time he's busy in another part of the UK -- Bedford -- building his own electric vehicle with grandfather. The two are part of a growing DIY movement involving people building electric hobby motors or removing petrol engines from standard cars and replacing them with electric motors that can be recharged with home generators.
So far they've yet to cash in on any government assistance for their own 1950s Formula One racing car lookalike, but are encouraged by the news that a £10 million fund has been announced by the UK secretary of state for energy and climate change, Ed Miliband, for local carbon-cutting initiatives such as charging stations, as well as grants of up to £5,000 for would-be electric car-buyers. The EC too, through its "European Green Cars Initiative" is keen to stimulate consumer demand by reducing car registration taxes on low CO2 cars. It will also offer an internet guide on clean and energy-efficient vehicles.
Clearly it will take a combination of measures and actions to convince consumers to switch from fossil fuels to fuel cells and clean electricity, but as Geoffrey Theobald, councillor for Brighton & Hove, mentioned while sharing the city's experiences at this year's CIVITAS Forum in Krakow, Poland, such problems can only be resolved "by taking the public with us. That's a greater problem than the one of money."
