My 18 day trial of the Mercedes-Benz Electric Smart car has come to an end and I have to say I was very sorry to have to give it back. For those of you who have been following the Blog you will have seen that in my opinion it is the ideal car to commute in and around Sheffield. No carbon emissions, an adequate range of 50-75 miles between charge, 1-2p a mile, road fund tax free, easy parking and free parking in Sheffield.
Electric vehicles must be the future and I hope that the price becomes affordable very soon so we can all benefit and reduce carbon emissions.
I hope you have enjoyed the Blog and as there have been nearly 1100 visitors to the site I think it is fair to say it has generated a lot of interest. Most of the visitors were from Sheffield so we have raised the awareness locally but also from other parts of the UK and as far as the USA and Canada.
All the very best to you all

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.