Some of the most advanced green cars and electric vehicles available will be at the Copenhagen Summit this week with Peugeot, Citroen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Think, Honda and Renault all displaying their vehicles and in many cases, lending their greenest models out during the international conference.
The conference, which opens today, is the subject of TheGreenCarWebsite.co.uk’s weekly column this week. The COP 15 Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 brings together delegates from across the world including leaders such as Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel to agree emission targets post Kyoto.
What better opportunity for the carmakers to show off their part in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions?
Among them, The Electric Car Corporation (ECC), has supplied 60 Citroen C1 ev’ie electric cars to the COP 15 conference.
The 60 cars have been purchased by ChoosEV, a Danish company set up by three of the major electric power companies to promote electric vehicles.
The chief executive of ChoosEV, who also is the owner of SIXT rentacar Denmark, Henrik Isaksen, commented: “We are making the C1 ev’ie available through SIXT to a selection of delegates. The ev’ie demonstrates the outstanding performance possible from top grade electric cars; it is a joy to drive and feels just like a ‘normal’ car.”
He continued: “We are delighted with our relationship with ECC, who are a leading market player in electric car technologies.”
ECC assembles the C1 ev’ie at a production plant in Bedfordshire. It expects to sell over 1,000 cars in Scandinavia in 2010 and to meet demand has established a distribution agreement with ChoosEV to market the cars in Denmark. Due to the demand in Scandinavia, ECC in conjunction with ChoosEV has set up a facility in Denmark to assemble the cars for the Scandinavian and German markets. ECC has sold cars in the last 6 months to Germany, France, Luxembourg, Norway, as well as to Denmark.
THINK, the Scandinavian electric vehicle (EV) maker, and its largest fleet customer, Move About, the Norwegian car-share fleet operator, are providing 15 THINK City courtesy vehicles to the conference. The low carbon battery electric vehicles will be on hand at the Bella Centeret conference centre from the opening of COP15 today and for the duration of the summit. All conference delegates will be invited to ride in the world’s first urban EV during their time in Copenhagen.
Honda will supply the two-week climate summit with a fleet of low-emission Insight hybrid cars. The FCX Clarity, Honda’s ground-breaking, zero emission hydrogen powered fuel cell electric vehicle, will also be present at the summit as part of a COP15 showcase – ‘Driving the Future’. The cars will be used to transport delegates, VIPs and journalists to key venues at the conference.
Renault will also be on hand to allow delegates and attendees to road test the Renault Fluence Z.E, Renault Van Z.E and the Renault Kangoo be bop Z.E.
Now we will just have to wait and see if the conference, which runs until December 18 can deliver a strong agreement for the reduction of greenhouse gases.
