Report: Nissan’s Olympic bid might have been useful too…
By Andrew C., 27 Aug, 2010. 0 Comments
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Elektromotive, the British-based firm behind the installation of all of London's more than 100 recharging points, expressed disappointment in the lost opportunity to "kickstart the electric car market in the UK." The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) had decided to choose BMW over Nissan to be the official automotive partner of the 2012 Olympic games.
Nissan would have let loose around 2000 Nissan Leaf electric cars, which were going to be part of the Alliance's proposed Olympic fleet. In an interview with Autocar, LOCOG said that it doubted the capital would have a suitable electric infrastructure in place in time for the games. Elektromotive opposes this observation and has confirmed that it was involved in discussions with Renault-Nissan about creating a network in time for 2012. It had planned to install numerous recharging points in three key locations in London (one in central London and two near the Olympic village in the east end).
Elektromotive's UK managing director Calvey Taylor-Haw told Autocar that it's a "great shame" that Nissan wasn't chosen. Taylor-Haw said that he believes BMW will deliver incident-free games on the automotive front but he contests LOCOG's comments on the feasibility of setting up an electric network. He is confident that the recharging network project would have been "perfectly feasible" to be done by 2012. He said that Elektromotive "could have coped with the daily grind of the charging."
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