In the UK, Birmingham's first public charging points for electric cars have been unveiled at the city's Bullring shopping centre. The four charging points are the first of 36, which will be spread across Birmingham and Coventry as part of the CABLED project, a trial of 110 vehicles being tested by a range of users in the two cities.
CABLED consortium partners include companies Arup, Jaguar Land Rover and Mercedes Benz along with the universities of Birmingham and Coventry. Energy supplier E.ON is providing the charging infrastructure for the project's electric vehicles. During the trial, a total of 340 vehicles will be tested across the UK, with 110 of those based in Birmingham and Coventry. The intention of the project is to find out how the cars are used - and when they need charging - to get a better idea of the driver's experience of electrical vehicles.
This represents the latest of many electric vehicle initiatives of Jaguar Land Rover under its Indian owners Mahindra Tata. Jaguar Land Rover is developing hybrid versions for both brands but its strategy puts hybrid Land Rovers first on for launch in 2013.
Hybrid Jaguars will include the XJ and XF and eventually every model. Hybrid Land Rovers will trim emissions and plug-in hybrid versions will enable them to drive in zero-emissions mode into central urban areas. The XJ will receive the hybrid power packs first because large cars reap the greater benefit and justify the additional cost, at around £10,000.
JLR's Midlands engineering bases in Whitley and Gaydon now employ 100 engineers in the expanding hybrid powertrain business unit launched 18 months ago. They are developing both gasoline and diesel hybrid electric powertrains for use across both model ranges.
Jaguar Land Rover are also researching range-extending hybrids, using an onboard combustion engine purely to charge the battery like the Chevy Volt. However, more elegantly, the new concept is essentially a pure electric car with a compact little back up charger engine to allay range anxiety. This program includes a leap forward by using a tiny Bladon Jets Ltd turbine instead of a less reliable, noisier, larger, heavier internal combustion engine that can only run on one form of fuel.
