Birmingham's electric cars - in use by council staff

Birmingham’s commitment to eco-friendly transport has received a boost after the city council picked up the keys to a pair of electric cars for use by staff.

The Smart Fortwo electric drive cars have been supplied to the council through the Coventry and Birmingham Low Emissions Demonstrators (CABLED) consortium, which is co-ordinating the UK’s largest public trial of low carbon vehicle, to learn more about the best ways that low carbon vehicles can be turned into a mass market form of transport.

As part of the CABLED project, energy company E.ON has installed a network of public charging points in Birmingham and Coventry city centres as well as workplace charging points at Birmingham City Council’s Lifford House offices in Stirchley. They will be complemented by additional points at Lancaster Circus to help the project develop further. Further points will be installed in the city over the next two years with approved funding from the Plugged in Places programme announced in December 2010.

The two new vehicles are the final smart electric drives being delivered into the national programme. They represent the 104th and 105th cars delivered nationally by smart, being the 44th and 45th cars to be delivered in the Midlands regional project.