Yes, the air keeps getting cleaner in the Midlands, South West, South Wales, and Milton Keynes. Electric vehicle awareness and the EV market are growing. And better news is that Electric Nation is sustainably recruiting any hesitant new adopters. New EV owners can now have one of the very latest home smart chargers installed – for free.
“Electric vehicle (EV) owners in Milton Keynes have become the latest to benefit from free smart chargers provided by the Electric Nation project,” an Electric Nation press release notes.
“Milton Keynes is part of the Go Ultra Low City Scheme and it has a high level of electric vehicle ownership, which is helping to improve local air quality. In order to ensure that local electricity grids can cope with charging increasing numbers of electric vehicles at peak times, the Electric Nation project is recruiting new EV owners and providing a free smart charger, so it can learn from the data – and the feedback – from trial participants.
“The project is seeking to recruit 500–700 people buying or leasing new electric vehicles (of all makes and models, pure electric and plug-in hybrids) to take part in the largest trial of its kind. Trial participants will get a free smart charger installed.”
As one of the first Electric Nation participants in Milton Keynes, Keith McLeato had one installed for his BMW i3. Keith says: “I’m delighted to be able to help with the Electric Nation research project, which aims to ensure that the UK’s local electricity networks can continue to charge the ever-growing numbers of electric vehicles. This 7kW smart charger is one of the latest, most intelligent on the market and can provide useful data on your charging history – as well as being able to charge an EV up to twice as fast as a 3kW home charge point. It has the most up to date functionality, with software updates being carried out remotely.”
Photo courtesy Electric Nation
Keith was actually the Mayor of Milton Keynes. At that time, he tried several electric vehicles. What a place it was to try out an EV — the small city had over 200 public charging points! Incredible. Despite not having home/workplace charging, I’m quite satisfied with the 50 or so EV charging stations in Sarasota, but 200 stations would be amazing.
“When he was ready to acquire another vehicle, Keith reviewed his family’s needs and realized that in his new role working for Iain Stewart, MP for Milton Keynes South, from an office about two miles from the centre of Milton Keynes, most of his journeys would be within the Borough. Having promoted the virtues of EVs when he was Mayor, Keith decided to purchase an electric BMW i3, and join the Electric Nation project.”
A BMW official said: “Since its launch in 2013 the BMW i3 has been at the vanguard of electro mobility. Since that time we have sold more than 100,000 electric vehicles globally, a figure we will achieve again this year alone, such is the uptake. We are therefore delighted to support the Electric Nation trial with a view to wider use of low and zero emission vehicles in the future and the development of a smarter charging infrastructure.”
So, where exactly did this Electric Nation thing come from? We recommend the video and article about it here, but here’s a short summary:
“Electric Nation is a Western Power Distribution (WPD) and Network Innovation Allowance funded project. WPD’s collaboration partners in the project are EA Technology, DriveElectric, Lucy Electric GridKey and TRL.
“The Electric Nation trial is taking place in the WPD network areas in the Midlands, South West and South Wales. This area includes Milton Keynes, which has been awarded £9m of Go Ultra Low funding to become a showcase of what can be done to encourage the increased uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles.”
For more information, head over to www.electricnation.org.uk
Related Stories:
Pod Point & Fully Charged Talks Past, Present, Future EV Charging And 100% Electric Vehicles
Electric Car Road Trip Causes Angst For Chevy Bolt Owner
How To Get More UK Drivers Into Electric Cars: Improve Awareness & Install More Charging Stations
Automakers & EV Charging Companies Stand To Benefit From Each Other’s Investments
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Former Tesla Battery Expert Leading Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Era — Podcast:
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
