Update 24/02/2021 at 1pm

This event is now fully booked. No more participants can be admitted.

Online event:

What is RBKC doing to encourage electric cars?

Wednesday 24 February 2021, 5:45 pm link-in; start 6:00 pm

On-line from you home (or wherever you are at the time)

Electric vehicles (EVs) are the future or are they? Will you buy one? If you do, how is it to be charged? Where to be charged? What is our council doing to facilitate this?

Councillors Johnny Thalassites and Cem Kemahli have agreed to explain all this to us. Johnny Thalassites is responsible for our streets and Cem Kemahli is an EV enthusiast. Together they will explain what is happening and what is planned.

By 2030 the sale of all new petrol or diesel cars or vans will be ended in the UK. Hybrid vehicles can continue to be sold for five more years, but by 2035 all new cars and vans must be ‘fully zero emission at the tailpipe’, according to a government briefing issued in November last year. What does this mean?

The reason for this is, of course, Parliament’s commitment to reduce all UK carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 – at the latest. By stopping the sale of new petrol and diesel cars 20 years earlier, most of those will have disappeared from the roads by 2050.  Will EVs help in achieving the net zero goal? What about cost? What about charging sites and charging speed? What about range? How far can you go in a new EV?

Sadly, because of Covid, we cannot hold this meeting in the Town Hall, as we would have done normally. So instead this will be an on-line talk. 

If you wish to take part, please book here online, and we shall send you an invitation link and log on instructions in time for the event.

If you wish to submit a question, please email us at events@kensingtonsociety.org . You can submit questions in advance or while the event is happening.

For practical reasons, the number of participants will be limited, so do sign up early!

This is a free event for all!

Online booking

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While the market growth for electric cars may be encouraging in Britain, it is phenomenal in Norway. In 2020, 54.3% of all new cars registered in Norway where BEVs (battery electric vehicles) and a further 20.4% where PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles). Of all cars on Norwegian roads, more than 15% are now BEVs or PHEVs, jointly known as plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). The picture shows five Tesla Model S cars participating in the 2015 EV Festival in Geiranger, Norway.

There was much talk about street charging from lampposts or special charging points a few of years ago, but most such points only deliver 3.75 or possibly 7kW, and are, just like most home charging points, mainly intended for over night charging. So the main effort when expanding the network of public charging points is to install fast (22kW), rapid (43-50kW) or ultra-rapid (150kW) charging points, which are mainly situated at petrol stations or supermarket parkings. An ultra-rapid charge point which can deliver an extra 100 miles of driving in just 15 minutes. However, Tesla introduced their V3 Superchargers (250kW) in 2019, which can deliver more than 250 miles in 15 minutes, and one can expect that other car and charging point manufacturers soon will increase their capacity as well. The picture shows a Nissan Leaf being charged at a BP Pulse (until December 2020 known as Polar) ultra-rapid charge point.

Page first published 18/02/2021