Electric vehicles

Electric Battle Bus rolls into Burneside

The good people at Burneside Community Energy (BCE) hosted the only Cumbrian stop on a UK tour of film makers documenting low carbon initiatives in a big, blue zero-carbon bus. The government-funded Zero Carbon Tour stopped by to feature the successful partnership between BCE and James Cropper PLC, which has seen a range of solar PV arrays installed at the firm's plant. BCE held an event showcasing their success and welcomed representatives from multiple organisations involved in Cumbria’s sustainability efforts.  The Zero Carbon Tour is a project from Planet Mark, a team of sustainability certifiers. They are embarking on a [...]

By |2021-10-21T15:48:20+01:00October 18th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Homepage, News, Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership|

CAfS celebrates achievements of EV partnership

The end of this month marks the end of CAfS' involvement in the electric vehicles project that we've been working on since late 2019 and we thought that it would be a good time to mark a few of the most significant parts of the brilliant progress that has been made over the past 18 months. During our involvement with the project, over thirty installations of chargepoints have been completed, allowing locals who don't have access to off-street parking to countenance switching from a petrol/diesel car for the first time. Because of a successful collaboration with the city council, [...]

By |2023-04-14T14:32:33+01:00July 29th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Homepage, News|

Over 9,000 new chargepoints may be needed for Cumbria by 2030

A new study by Cumbria Action for Sustainability has found that an estimated 70 public chargepoints would need to be installed every month for the next 9 1/2  years in Cumbria to meet expected demand for electric vehicles by residents and tourists. CAfS undertook the complex task of forecasting the potential demand for publicly accessible chargepoints across Cumbria by 2030, as a partner in a project to install community-owned chargepoints across the north of England, led by Charge My Street and funded by Innovate UK. Nigel Jenkins from our EV team created the report, with peer support from several [...]

By |2021-07-06T12:08:54+01:00June 29th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Fossil fuels, Homepage, News|

First public chargepoints in South Copeland launched

Thwaites Village Hall has become the first in South Copeland to install two community funded Electric Vehicle (EV) chargepoints as they place themselves on the cutting edge of the future of transport. The sockets are the first publicly accessible chargepoints to be activated in South Copeland and the installation marks a huge step forward for residents who may have been considering when they will switch to an EV. The people from Thwaites Village Hall are eager to welcome new visitors to the area who otherwise might not have been able to drive through as well as to provide a [...]

By |2023-04-14T14:32:32+01:00April 28th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Homepage, News|

Cumbria bicycle mayor launches Penrith chargepoint

Two electric vehicle chargepoints and two charging sockets for e-bikes have been installed at Blain House in Penrith. The electric vehicle chargepoints are the latest in a series of similar installations by Lancaster based community benefit society Charge My Street who, over the past year, have launched chargepoints in Carlisle, Kendal, Barrow and Aspatria among others. This is the first of the installations to have integrated charging facilities for e-bikes, a prospect that Richard Ingham, Cumbria’s bicycle mayor saw as an important step forward. He said: “It makes a statement that cyclists, whether they be on e-bikes or non-assisted [...]

By |2021-04-19T12:58:18+01:00April 7th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Homepage, News|

CAfS Annual Report 2019-2020

We are delighted to announce that our annual report for the financial year of 2019-2020 is finished and now available to download from our website. As we've been adapting to the unique challenges of the most recent year, one of those challenges has been to look back beyond last March and continue the process of evaluating and celebrating our successes that were achieved. This report has details on our largest ever Green Build Festival as well as our Cold to Cosy Homes service which as since gone from strength to strength. Also included is the partnership with the Carbon [...]

Are EVs too expensive?

You certainly wouldn’t be blamed for thinking so. In a recent series of surveys we ran in association with Charge My Street, when asked what the biggest factor was that was holding them back from buying an electric vehicle, around 40%-50% of respondents answered “the cost”. This was by far the biggest concern among respondents, some of whom viewed EV driving as the exclusive preserve of the lavish and well-off. On the face of it, it’s easy enough to see why. Glancing at Nissan’s website one can see a new Leaf EV retailing at just under £28,000 whereas their [...]

By |2021-03-29T12:52:15+01:00March 26th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Fossil fuels, Homepage, News, Renewable energy|

Upcoming: The cost of EVs

How much does it cost to buy/run an electric vehicle? That's the question that we're going to be investigating over the next few weeks. Over our time working to expand the Cumbrian charging network, this question is always one that surfaces during any discussion with a petrol or diesel driver. And it's a fair one. Certainly from initial impressions, buying an EV can look like a daunting financial endeavour. A lot of the time they appear to be a lot more expensive than their equivalent in the petrol/diesel world. We're going to be looking at some of the options [...]

By |2021-03-19T16:19:02+00:00March 19th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Homepage, News|

New EV video series from CAfS

Along with the help of some of our fantastic EV volunteers, we are delighted to announce that our new video series on electric vehicles is now complete. At CAfS, we are keen to delve deep into some of the popular ideas surrounding EVs, especially seeing as a lot of us in Cumbria will have no choice but to adopt the technology fairly soon because of the governments impending ban on petrol and diesel cars. This is why we have begun this series to become more informed on this topic and hopefully to help some others who are struggling with [...]

By |2021-03-15T15:11:43+00:00March 12th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Homepage, News|

Calling all EV drivers and enthusiasts!

Anyone who follows the things we like to get up to here at CAfS may remember around about a year ago, we put out an appeal for electric vehicle (EV) owners on this very site. Our request was aimed at anyone who has experience owning an EV to give us a hand in some focus groups all concerned around the oncoming revolution in our personal transport. These focus groups and meetings were going to take place all over the county and even include a spot of lunch. Well, we all saw how that went. 2021 is a fresh year [...]

By |2021-03-04T09:33:34+00:00February 9th, 2021|Electric vehicles, Homepage, News|
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