Well I have had an uneventful last 2 days since my last Blog, which is how it should be. This car is so easy to charge up and drive making motoring in and around Sheffield very normal. That’s if you call zero emissions, 1-2p a mile, free Road Fund Licence and free parking in Sheffield normal. For those of you who have just joined the blog then scroll down to each of my blogs and click on the comments to see what people have been talking about and questions people have raised.
I have had a note from Katie Steels at Diva who is assisting in running the blog and she says that by last Friday there had been 290 visitors to the blog.
Perhaps if the interest and demand for electric vehicles increases then technology will move faster and they will become affordable.

Good morning and welcome to the Blog that is designed to get people talking about the practicalities of driving electric vehicles. I am now into my second week of testing the Mercedes-Benz Smart 2 seater Electric Vehicle. I have decided to continue the trial for a second week as there is a lot of interest out there and I want to give more people the opportunity to contribute to the discussion. Also I am enjoying driving the car so much.
There was a comment/question on the Thursday 19th Feb Blog from Pete B asking about the life of the battery etc. You will see my comment on the Blog for that day but in short the batteries for these vehicles are returned to the supplier at the end of their useful life for recycling. The engineering challenge is to match the life of the battery to the life of the car but even after say 12 years vehicle life the battery is unlikely to stop working only lose some of it's efficiency and therefore have some use after the life of the vehicle. I guess only time will tell!!.

In order to really test the electric car for normal use I feel it is essential not to be having to put it on charge every available moment but to be confident the full charge in a morning will be sufficient to get you through the day and back home at night.
Yesterday was a good test as I was not in Howden House but at the Sheffield Assay Office in Hillsborough for an Away Day. (Good venue and top facilities for meetings etc if you are interested call 0114 2318167). The car sat in the car park all day without the facility to charge.
I was however confident that I would be doing an approx 38 mile round trip and therefore well within the 50-70 mile range. One thing you have to remember is that the battery loses up to 10% of its charge when it is stood for a full day.
It does make you realise that before electric vehicles come into general use we need an infrastructure in the City to recharge the battery.
Have a good day and a pleasant weekend.

Good morning and welcome to the continuation of my Blog. For those of you new to the Blog I am testing a Smart Electric car which is great fun. There have been several questions on the cost of charging the battery. I purposely let the available charge on the battery go very low yesterday so I could assess the cost of the overnight charge.
The result is from a virtually flat battery it took 12.7 kwh to fully charge. This equates to 60p on Economy 7 charging 4.69p/kwh and £1.63 on normal day rate at 12.84p/kwh. At between 50-70 miles on a charge that makes for very cheap motoring and of course zero emissions from the vehicle.

Good morning everyone. The house was full when I got home yesterday as it was my mother-in-laws 86th birthday. Happy birthday Betty Boyle known by most as 'Gran'. It gave me the opportunity to show off the car and answer the inevitable questions. How far does it go? How fast? How much to buy?
It is when you talk about 'how much to charge up and therefore cost per mile' that people get really interested. I need to do some detailed analysis but last night I had it on charge and it took 5.11 kwh.but it was only 30% down on it's charge. Tonight I will be running the battery as low as possible and putting it on for a full charge. Let's see what that brings!! Watch this space.

I am amazed how easy this car is to charge up and drive. I had an uneventful drive home last night and back again this morning. I am told that without government subsidy the electrical adaptation makes the car £30,000 instead of the normal price of £8,000 for a two Smart. This clearly makes the car unaffordable at the moment but I presume this price will come down as the car goes into mass production. I am also told by Andrew Whittles of CENEX that the approx. cost of charging the vehicle is between 50p and £1. I am getting a Smart Meter delivered today so I will be able to use that to tell me exactly how much electricity is used to charge and therefore the cost. I will report back. If there are any technical questions relating to the Smart EV then Andrew has kindly agreed to help. You can contact him on andrew.whittles@cenex.co.uk

Hello everybody-I had a very easy ride into Sheffield this morning. The car had been on charge all night in my garage at home and by the time I had done the 15 miles the charge was down nearly 30%. That did include lights and radio on so I presume that takes more electrical power.
The maximum speed was 53mph up the long hill on the Dronfield Bypass. I will be contacting CENEX, who leased the car to Sheffield City Council, today to get some idea of the cost of charging the battery overnight. Watch this space!!

Hi everyone here goes on the first experience of driving an electric Smart car.
Thanks to Bernd Hoermann from our team for delivering it to Howden House in Sheffield City Centre where I am based. He plugged it in to the nearby 3 pin socket with the bright yellow cable to top up the charge but I think also so people would see it in the car park and ask 'What's that then!!'
Couldn't wait to start the trial so I decided to work from home in the afternoon which also allowed me to travel home to Chesterfield in the light and before too much traffic around.
I went the same route as I normally would if I was driving home so I could compare like with like. I can see that there was very little difference in performance, acceleration was good at those tricky roundabouts and points in the traffic when you want to accelerate to change lanes.
I had to accelerate quickly on East Bank Road for example as a Bus bound for Bradford came thundering down the hill passed the parked cars.
Driving up the hills of East Bank Road and Blackstock Road was no problem. Tested the maximum speed on the Dronfield Bypass which I can confirm was 63mph going downhill which is enough for Urban driving.
The car battery dial was showing 100% full when I set off and with the heater on for the first 5 miles and radio on all the way, when I got home after 14 miles it had used 30% of it's charge. This is something that I will be testing during the 10 days I have the car. Radio, heater, lights on/off etc. Watch this space.
Well so far so good, this blog is longer than I would expect to post but hope it stimulates discussion and questions.
Have a good weekend. Back in Sheffield and more from me on Monday
Gary McGrogan

Leading council official Gary McGrogan will be putting an electric prototype car to the test on Sheffield's roads this week and updating this blog daily with his experiences. The Smart Electric Vehicle (Smart EV) is currently on trial with Sheffield City Council's fleet and will be put through its paces in real world conditions by Gary - the Council's Director of Environment and Regulatory Services.



Sheffield Council's Smart EV is one of the first of just 200 cars to be delivered in a UK trial for the introduction of a fully electric version of the popular two-seater Smart car. The Smart EV is powered by a 30kW electric motor, has a top speed of 70mph and is exempt from both Vehicle Excise Duty and congestion charges as it does not produce any harmful emissions that damage the atmosphere.

Makers Mercedes-Benz claim that the electric car is designed to bring a breath of fresh air to the streets and offers nippy in-town performance with 0-30 mph in 6.5 seconds. To put this to the test Gary will be driving the car around Sheffield's hills for ten days from Friday 13th to Monday 23rd February. Keep your eyes on this blog to find out how he gets on!