Regional development agency, One North East and carmaker Nissan has teamed up with its European equivalents to accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles.
In a unique joint effort, 19 European cities and regions including three in the UK alone, 17 major European vehicle manufacturers and 12 European electricity providers – together with leading research and IT organisations and companies –submitted a project proposal on Thursday coordinated by the city of Rotterdam on the deployment of electromobility across Europe.
The EVA (Electric Vehicles for Advanced cities) consortium answered the call for proposals for an integrated EU demonstration project on electromobility published last 30th of July by the European Commission as part of the Green Car Initiative for economic recovery.
Funded by the European Commission, the new consortium would seek to increase the number of electric vehicles on European roads, and provide a demonstration fleet and research platform which gathers experience from the deployment of over 9,500 electric vehicles.
With over 14,000 charging points installed in EVA cities, the proposal offers the possibility of demonstrating different vehicle-to-grid interaction scenarios and maintenance facilities. The project would also accelerate the progress of the development of smart grids for electromobility and a common platform for related ICT services.
The EVA collaboration proposes the establishment of the largest ever European demonstration on electromobility and would assess for the first time on such a scale and in real life conditions the impact of electric vehicles on users behaviours, the mobility networks and grids. This necessary step will further support the definition of standards, recommendations, scenarios and roadmaps for the sustainable deployment of electromobility.
Chris Pywell, One North East Head of Strategic Economic Change, said: “This would integrate North East England into the largest European electric vehicle research programme to date and we are pleased to be sharing expertise with other leading European centres.
“The proposals from the EVA Consortium would greatly increase the number of electric vehicles on Europe’s roads and accelerate the development of key technologies like Smart Grids.”
The 19 demonstration sites are Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, London, North Brabant, Rome, Edinburgh, Hamburg, Lisbon, Ljubljana, London, Lyon, Madrid, Milano, the North-East of England, Paris, Pisa, Poitou-Charentes and Vienna.
The 17 vehicle manufacturers and automotive companies included in the collaboration include; BMW AG, Fiat Research Center, Daimler, Duracar, Heuliez, MAN, Mitsubishi R&D Europe, Nissan, Opel, Piaggio, PSA, Renault, Volvo Technology.
