Alejandro Agag, Andy Eastlake, Darran Messem, Christophe Arnaud, Edmund King.

– Quotes from the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership Conference in London –

“There should be a regulation that bans people from using combustion cars in a city because people breathe the exhaust.”

Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E, is calling for strict regulations but also emphasises that the government should have “a limited role,” at least when it comes to incentives for businesses. He describes his racing series as a “100% commercial entity.”

“Air quality is one of the primary driving forces for local governments to take on the promotion of low carbon vehicles.”

Agrees Andy Eastlake, Managing Director of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (Low CVP). His organisation aims to help with this exact promotion, working together with central and local governments, manufacturers, organisations etc. to foster EV uptake in the UK.

“There is only a finite number of ways of how to get there but not a crystal-clear one.”

Darran Messem, Chairman of the Low CVP says that while it is clear that the UK government is “bound to decarbonise transport until 2050,” the question of “how” remains.

“In Paris, we have almost 4,000 electric cars and more than 6,000 charge points. And we only launched 4 years ago. It helps to fight against carbon emissions, traffic, and noise. Today, we know that 31,000 cars have been removed from Paris. [Dwellers] are getting rid of all their second cars.”

Christophe Arnaud, Managing Director of BluePointLondon, was one of the few panelists who actually offered action, as Bolloré’s electric carsharing scheme was just introduced in London. Given that infrastructure problems will be solved, Arnaud said that he expects the service to go public later this year or at the beginning of 2016.

“2.5 million cars today could be electric cars today without any disadvantage. (…) We need to address range anxiety and target second car owners.”

Edmund King, President of the Automobile Association (AA), also hopes to tackle second car ownership, since they are rarely used for long rides and could thus be replaced easily.

Source for all the above quotes: Nora Manthey for electrive.com on site.