Leasedrive Velo Blog

It’s all well and good us in the West getting all hot under the collar about climate change and the need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions but if the rest of the world doesn’t follow suit, it’s check-mate and game over.

That’s ignoring the fact we had to contend with the direct opposition of ex-president Bush, who should have been leading the way, not holding us up.

With president Obama fully committed to a pro-active approach, the next dark mutterings were directed at the rising economic superpowers, namely China and India. Now unexpectedly, we’ve had a giant U-turn from China, the world’s biggest polluter.

On Tuesday, the Chinese President, Hu Jintao promised a ‘notable’ decrease in the amount of carbon emissions per unit of economic output from his country by 2020. Disappointingly, no figures were disclosed but the adjective ‘notable’ used. The only specific example of action was the commitment to plant forests covering an area equivalent to the size of Norway and generating 15% of China’s energy needs from renewable sources within 10 years.

According to the Chinese President: “At stake in the fight against climate change are the common interests of the entire world. Out of a sense of responsibility to its own people and people across the world, China fully appreciates the importance and urgency of addressing climate change.”

Warm words on the previously chilly approach to the climate change summit in Copenhagen in December.

The latter looked as if it was heading for a disastrous start but, after India changed its tone and now the Chinese, there is renewed optimism that progress will be made in the Danish capital. It seems heads of state are at last waking up to the impact of climate change and the need for action now after a decade of delay and prevarication.

Vehicle manufacturers have been investing huge sums of money in research and development into alternative fuel vehicles and making massive strides in cleaning up the good old reliable internal combustion engine but it would be for nothing if the industrialised countries did not get their act together.

After the electric and hybrid unveilings at IAA Frankfurt Motor Show, we have the fresh impetus of the UN general assembly meeting.

Let us hope that the climate change summit in Copenhagen proves the real deal and we can start making real progress to stemming the tide of climate change.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

The car scene is hotting up. One could even say it’s electrifying.

The IAA motor show in Frankfurt has seen a raft of new electric and hybrid car announcements with the number of models available in the UK set to double. Currently, Toyota/Lexus lead the way with four models and Honda with two but that’s all about to change with new French arrivals too.

The Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid, Honda CR-Z and Toyota Auris hybrid will be available within 12 months while in 2011 we’ll see a Lexus LF-Ch, a Honda Jazz hybrid and a Peugeot 3008 Hybrid4. Yes, that’s right, a Peugeot.

Newspaper adverts this week also feature an electric Peugeot BB1 project car. Measuring only 2.5 metres long, the BB1 concept car is capable of transporting four people and emits zero carbon emissions. Currently on a European promotional tour, it looks more like a squashed bug that’s just had a head-on accident.

Furthermore, in 2011, we’ll also see Europcar offering electric Renaults for rent ahead of the anticipated arrival of the Nissan Leaf a year later.

As I mentioned only last week, one major factor preventing the widespread uptake of electric vehicles is having a proper network infrastructure in place for re-charging these vehicles.

Government and, indeed local councils, will need to lead the way with initiatives if they want to ensure cleaner air in our towns and cities.

So far, we’ve had an announcement by the Energy Technologies Institute that a number of UK major cities are to gain charging points for electric and hybrid fuelled vehicles under an £11m development plan. Under the Joined-Cities Plan, ETI will initially set up charging points in a total of nine UK cities – Birmingham, Coventry, Glasgow, London, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Oxford and Sunderland.

And, just this month, it was announced that the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change would be offering up to £7.2m of competitive funding in support of hydrogen and fuel cell technology development.

Meanwhile, besides lobbying governments worldwide, Nissan and Renault are planning nationwide ’fast-drop’ battery centres by 2012 for their next-generation electric vehicles. These will see drivers have the option to exchange batteries, which will be leased rather than bought outright. Optimistically, a battery exchange time of five minutes is being quoted.

So electric car drivers could have the option of fast kerbside charges at public electric re-charging points, providing an 80% battery charge in 30 minutes, a battery swap at specialised dealers or outlets or a four to eight-hour overnight home charge.

With 43 breakdowns a day on UK motorways, owing to drivers running out of fuel, I would still expect that figure to skyrocket as electric vehicles crawl to a halt as their battery power fades. Perhaps, the emergency phones on the hard shoulders could also be converted to re-charging points for those in distress?

While the UK Government does not expect electric vehicles to appear as mass-market alternatives until 2017 at the earliest, Bosch estimates some 500,000 electric vehicles will be sold worldwide by 2015 and Renault believes its next-generation electric vehicle range will appeal to 30% of the buying public, predicting that by 2020 between 15 and 20% of cars could be electric.

In France, with its nuclear power stations, there is a much better support for the carbon-free electric car argument. In the UK, with predominantly coal-fired power stations supplying our national electricity grid, the argument becomes far more tenuous.

However, make of it what you will but if the necessary re-charging infrastructure is put in place, we can expect a silent revolution on the way.

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

One major factor preventing the widespread uptake of electrical vehicles is having a proper network infrastructure in place for re-charging these vehicles. Now it seems, the Spanish have come up with a novel idea to potentially overcome this major drawback quickly.

It has just been announced that as part of a test network of 546 state-subsidised recharging points in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville, telephone boxes in Madrid are going to be brought into play. Thirty to be precise. Obviously, with most people now using mobile phones, public telephone boxes have more or less become redundant.

Phone boxes are located close to the kerbside and are reliant on electric supply, which makes them ideally situated and easy to adapt as re-charging points.

What brilliant lateral thinking. Hats off to the Spaniard who came up with the idea!

Meanwhile, in Barcelona, the council proposes installing recharging points attached to what they call ‘intelligent lampposts’. It plans to have 191 re-charging points in place within two years.

The Spanish Government has allocated £8.7m to promoting the use of electric vehicles over the next two years, £1.3m to be spent on re-charging points. So serious is the Government over the project, that companies tendering for public service contracts will collect extra brownie points if they operate electric vehicles.

The aim is to eventually have a predominance of electric vehicles in city centres although initially 2000 are planned over the next two years with incentives including a 75% cut in car taxes and free parking. There is already an extensive network of wind-powered generators across Spain so we can anticipate a major push to bring about an equally important revolution in vehicle power on the Spanish mainland.

Sounds as if ex-pats living on the Costa Brava will be greener as well as browner than their fellow countrymen suffering congested, polluted city centres and the good old British weather!

Roddy Graham, Commercial Director

We’ve had plenty of drink-driving ad campaigns, now we’re seeing the first drug-driving campaign. Considering how prevalent drug taking is these days, if only recreationally, it’s well overdue.

Latest research shows that one in ten young male drivers admit to having driven after taking an illegal drug. Company car drivers are much better, only two per cent having admitted doing so in a separate piece of research. Probably more worrying still is that one in five drivers killed in a road accident may have taken drugs.

The above facts should really come as no surprise when you consider that nearly two million people in this country take illegal drugs at least once a month with Department of Health research showing that more than one-third of the population has experimented with a banned substance at least once.

Worryingly is the growing popularity of cocaine among teenagers and young adults with the number of recreational users taking cocaine or ecstasy at the weekend rising. Interestingly the use of cannabis has actually declined since it was downgraded from a Class B to C drug five years ago.

One in four of the drivers of tomorrow, secondary age schoolchildren, have admitted trying drugs with ten per cent having taken a drug in the previous month.

The hard statistics show three million people aged between 16 and 59, almost one in ten, took drugs between 2007 and 2008 with 1.9 million classified as regular users. Drug use is highest among 16 to 24 year olds, over 20 per cent having taken illegal drugs in the previous year. And use of cocaine more than trebled in the previous decade. Hospital admissions for drug poisoning rose by 43 per cent over a ten-year period.

Depressingly, in the UK, we have some of the highest levels of drug abuse in Western Europe.

The new drug-driving campaign is costing £2.3m and highlights the fact that the Police can and will stop drivers suspected of driving while under the influence. Emphasis of the campaign is on the enlarged pupils of a drug taker. Anyone found guilty faces the same tough penalties as those convicted of drink-driving a minimum 12-month ban, heavy fine and criminal record.

It won’t be long hopefully before drivers face roadside drug tests when Police are equipped with a device for detecting illegal substances in saliva. In addition to the drug detector, the Government plans to have a roadside device developed to detect legal sleep-inducing drugs such as sleeping tablets and cold cures sold over the counter that can result in impaired driving. Any new ‘drugalyser’ would be able to detect drugs such as cocaine and amphetamines.

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis wants to make drug driving as anti-social as drink-driving. He’s also looking at changing the law so that it simply becomes an offence to drive after taking illegal drugs, which can impair the ability to drive – a subtle and important change from the driving or attempting to drive while unfit through drugs.

If fleets haven’t already got a policy in place relating to drug-driving, they should do so now.