A key player in the creation of London’s electric recharging network is “disappointed” with the 2012 Olympic organising committee’s decision not to substantially promote the use of electric vehicles at the games.
The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) told Autocar last week that it doubted the capital would have a suitable electric infrastructure in place in time for the games.
Elektromotive, the British-based firm behind the installation of all of London’s more than 100 recharging points, has confirmed was involved in discussions with Renault-Nissan about creating a network in time for 2012.
It planned to install scores of recharging points in three key locations in London – one in central London and two near the Olympic village in the east end. The points were going to be used to recharge around 2000 Nissan Leaf electric cars, which were going to be part of the Alliance’s proposed Olympic fleet.
Hilton Holloway blog: An Olympic-sized scandalBMW joins 2012 OlympicsBlow for London’s electric network
“It’s a great shame,” Elektromotive’s UK managing director Calvey Taylor-Haw told Autocar. “It would have kickstarted the electric car market in the UK.”
Taylor-Haw believes BMW will deliver an incident-free games on the automotive front, but he questioned some of LOCOG’s comments regarding the feasibility of setting up an electric network.
“It would have been perfectly feasible to do that project by 2012,” he said. “Nissan were going to put an awful lot of cars into that project and they could have coped with the daily grind of the charging.”
Taylor-Haw now feels the take-up and acceptance of electric cars in the UK will take longer.
“It will take longer now,” he said. “It could have been a really good legacy for making London a world leader in the field.”
Mark Tisshaw
Twitter - follow autocar.co.ukSee all the latest Nissan reviews, news and video
