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HOTWIRE:
CAR-tels & CAR-bolics
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March, 2001
Letter to the Mayor of London:
Sir/Madam,
Since I see that members of the publicare invited to submit comments and suggestions on London's various Transport strategies - here are a few:
1) The Mayor has looked to New York for Tube solutions - perhaps he could look to California's ZEV Mandate to force carmakers at long last to bring zero emission, near-zero noise, electric vehicles to the capital? No national government has the courage to take on automotive vested interests....
Zero Emission taxis (from Zevco) were promised for 2001. Will this promise be broken? If Mexico City can go ahead and convert to zero emission taxis in record time (compressed-air variety - see company website http://www.zeropollution.com ) surely London can get there too? And how's about electric pedicabs and electric rickshaws (see Hotlinks) - if they can work in hilly San Francisco and trailblazing New Delhi - let's get 'em rollin' in London too!
Also: various cities in Europe have trialled satellite-tracked ELECTRIC VEHICLE 'quickie' hire (drop off/pick up anywhere) schemes....on Jersey in the Channel Islands it's possible to rent the latest generation of zero emission, quiet, long-range electric Toyota RAV4's....and throughout California("Budget EV Rental") you can do the same. So: could you please look at the possibility of bringing this pollution and noise-reducing solution to London? It would also be a first for the UK.
Does Mr. Livingstone have the power to persuade Ford chief Ian MacAllister(who's also co-chair of the DETR's "Cleaner Vehicles and Fuels" Committee) to put his products - not just prototypes - where his mouth is and actually start mass-producing the universally applauded state-of-the-art zero emission, zero noise electric Ford e-Ka (at 125 miles offers twice the battery range of any 'EV' available in Europe this is an 88 bhp version of the increasingly popular 59 bhp 'Ka').
2) We also wonder how smart and state-of-the-art is the proposed congestion/road-use charging technology? A uniform £5 charge seems like a very BLUNT/unsophisticated instrument which could do far more harm than good as far as the wider public perception of congestion charging goes in the country as a whole. After all the technology exists to base road-charging on:
1) time-of-day (ie. peak and off-peak)
2) a vehicle's "ECO-RATING" (with Zero Emission electric paying least of course)
3) distance travelled (pay-as-you-go) and time spent(moving) on road.
....and many other factors/variables.
Will the latest third generation mobile phone networks and technologies be used for payment/billing purposes? Are there any plans to use the new, more accurate GPS Galileo satellites? (After all one of their intended uses is in traffic management. ) Surely it will be possible to avoid the need to litter London with a whole new crop of 'street furniture' such as congestion charging beacons, transmitters, transceivers? In an era where Japanese kids can pay for goods and services by simply passing a smart wristwatch over a sensor - I hope that London's new millennium transport solutions are also truly at the cutting edge.
Yours, Jim CARLUCCI
editor@EVUK.co.uk
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