Daily Archives: August 10, 2017

Electric Avenue: MK City Centre Hub

Electric Car Heaven 4: Future Benefits

Blog, BP Chargemaster, Charging, Electric Cars, EVEC, Milton Keynes

In January 2016, Milton Keynes was awarded Go Ultra Low City status alongside Bristol, London and Nottingham and secured multi-million pound investment from the UK Government. The cities and regions each received a share of £40 million funding by proposing innovative ideas to encourage drivers to choose an electric car.

Electric Avenue: MK City Centre Hub
Electric Avenue: MK City Centre Hub

Milton Keynes Council received £9 million funding to further its work developing modern vehicles to tackle harmful emissions, reduce its carbon footprint, and continue to make Milton Keynes one of the most sustainable cities in Europe.

The Green Parking Permit scheme was the first proposal from any winning bid to be delivered using Go Ultra Low Cities funding. The Electric Vehicle Experience Centre is the latest proposal to be delivered.

Future plans for the funding in Milton Keynes include:

  • Charging Hubs, where electric vehicles can be fully recharged in around 30min: EV Rapid Charging Hubs are being established at the Coachway at M1 J14 and in the City Centre
  • Charging posts close to residential areas: Milton Keynes will commit to providing a charging point to any resident of the City who buys an EV, either at home or on a nearby street if the buyer does not have off-street parking
  • Priority for EVs in bus lanes
  • Destination charging at popular locations including supermarkets, hotels and leisure facilities
  • Trialling the latest developments in technology such as inductive charging
  • Information and signage: Signage will be provided giving motorists clear information on facilities for EVs.


With regard to the Charging Hubs, this project will see Chargemaster supply its latest charging infrastructure to set up two filling-station-style EV rapid charging hubs and 50 destination chargers across the town.

The Complete Guide to Electric Car Benefits in Milton Keynes

U.K. Law Would Require EV Charging at Gas Stations

Charging, News, Reviews and Comment

The legislation will allow the government to require the installation of charge points for electric and hydrogen vehicles at motorway service areas and large fuel retailers, and to establish common technical and operational standards.

The U.K. government introduces legislation requiring that every gas station and motorway service center install electric charging points.

The Queen’s Speech, marking the start of the post-election Parliamentary session, included the introduction of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill.

Government briefing papers say the legislation will ensure the U.K. remains at the forefront of developing new technology in electric and automated vehicles.

The legislation will allow the government to require the installation of charge points for electric and hydrogen vehicles at motorway service areas and large fuel retailers, and to establish common technical and operational standards.

The legislation is designed to make the regulatory framework keep pace with the fast-evolving technology for EVs; extend compulsory motor-vehicle insurance to cover automated vehicles; and to ensure compensation claims continue to be paid quickly and easily.

It is intended to allow innovation to flourish and ensure the next wave of self-driving technology is invented, designed and operated safely in the U.K.

The government says the aim is to

“ensure a world-class infrastructure which supports the rapid adoption and use of electric vehicles by consumers as more mass-market models become available, helping improve air quality.”

This supports government ambitions for the U.K. to

“lead the world in EV technology and use,”

with almost every car and van to be zero-emissions by 2050.

Read more: Wards Auto

Electric Car Heaven 3: Free Electric Car Driving Lessons

Blog, BP Chargemaster, Electric Cars, EVEC, Milton Keynes

We have written at length about the new Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (EVEC) that has just been opened in Milton Keynes by Chargemaster. It provides help and advice on electric cars, and provides the opportunity to test drive a range of vehicles.

In association with the EVEC, the AA has launched an electric car driving course. In an AA-Populus Survey of 16,000 drivers, one third said they want to start learning to drive again – but in an electric car.

AA Driving School and Drive Tech trainers have developed the Drive Electric experience in conjunction with Chargemaster. It provides a free one-hour electric driving lesson and it is aimed at showing people how to get the best out of an electric car.

It may eventually go nationwide but is being trialled initially in the Milton Keynes area. More information is available here: AA Trust Launches Drive Electric.

The Complete Guide to Electric Car Benefits in Milton Keynes

Red Tesla Model S (Image: T. Larkum)

All New Vehicles Sold In Europe Will Be Electric From 2035

Electric Cars, Sales

By 2035 all vehicles sold in Europe will be electric, at least that’s the prediction made by the major Dutch bank ING.

Red Tesla Model S (Image: T. Larkum)
Red Tesla Model S (Image: T. Larkum)

The report predicts a huge increase in the adoption of electric vehicles, potentially overtaking many country’s own regulations which promise to cut out the sale of petrol and diesel cars.

While this is fantastic news for the environment, ING’s report points out that it could potentially have a major impact on the European car industry.

According to ING, America and Japan are well ahead of Europe when it comes to electric car technologies including the development of batteries.

With companies like Tesla already leading the way, the Dutch bank warns that unless European manufacturers pick up the pace of their R&D into the technology they could be left behind.

It goes on to warn about the potential effects on manufacturing as well. Electric cars require a lot of advanced materials, but constructing an electric motor is actually far less complicated than building a conventional combustion engine.

The main catalyst for the rise in popularity though will be a huge reduction in price.

Read more: Huffington Post

 

Driving the Future of Blockchains Part One: From Car to Super Computer

Blockchain, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment

It is becoming clear that the fundamental concepts of car ownership, ridership and even the physical asset of the automobile itself are about to transform, particularly with the horizon of fully-autonomous vehicles now estimated to become a market reality in 2020.  

This new universe will not only be one of more instrumented vehicles, but one that is a critical part of the distributed and data-driven ecosystem. Getting there will require what Chris Ballinger, director of mobility services and chief financial officer at the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), termed “minimum viable partnerships.”

Future Roadmap

In this four-part series, “Driving The Future of Blockchains,” we will explore the automobile ecosystem at large and the role that these “minimum viable partnerships” might play in shaking up an industry that sees the future automobile as not just as another physical asset, but a machine driven by software, with intelligent sensors bringing data from physical endpoints to actionable and monetizable insights, turning a depreciating asset whose value plummets as soon as it’s driven off the dealership lot into a data-fueled profit center.

The future model of traditional cars, electric and autonomous, will be embedded with more sensors than ever before and able to capture data that make them more aware of external environmental factors and allow them to become “super-connected” intelligent devices.

These sensors will not only integrate with a driver’s other intelligent devices, but they will collect data about the car, navigation and external elements like weather and road conditions. This will make our cars their own computing machines, profound and far-reaching, as the data collected by them are exposed to analytics software to extract actionable insights.

This vision is precisely in line with blockchain technology, which truly lays the foundation for this future avalanche of data. It is precisely this data which is valuable for a broad ecosystem of stakeholders which begins with the driver and moves to the manufacturer and the insurer, interested not only in the state of the vehicle for safety, maintenance and insurance premium pricing, but for accident reporting and registration.

Read more: Distributed