ECOVELOCITY PROVES TO BE A HIT

ECOVELOCITY, the UK’s first eco motoring festival held at Battersea Power Station last week, delivered the UK’s largest ever eco test drive event, with almost 7,000 consumer drives of electric, low and ultra low carbon vehicles on the bespoke test track.

Visitors and their families fully embraced the ‘hands on’ opportunities the show offered. Over 1,500 visitors participated in the Honda Racing Bug Activity, while Get On - the campaign to encourage more people to ride motorcycles - introduced 350 visitors to the benefits of riding and took numerous bookings for the future.

Meanwhile, the SEAT Young Driver scheme, which allowed children 11 years and older to drive a car, were inundated across all four days of the show and the Honda ‘my first licence’ scheme was fully-booked each day within 15 minutes of opening.

The show was officially opened by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who said: “It is tremendous that EcoVelocity, the biggest eco car show in Europe, is demonstrating what is available right now as well as the future of clean, green motoring. It fits perfectly into my plan to make London the electric vehicle capital of Europe.”

Membership to the Source London electric charging scheme almost tripled during the show. Annual membership enables card holders to charge up their electric vehicle at any Source London point as many times as required.

Giles Brown, event organiser, said: “EcoVelocity was a first of its kind; the objective was to raise the profile of the latest low and ultra-low carbon cars by providing a very ‘hands on’ environment for visitors. The event culminated in a very busy ride-and-drive event.

He went on to say: “As a launch show, it was impossible to predict visitor numbers; our original forecast was too high. The currency exhibitors use to judge the event is with quality test drives and leads, not just footfall. It was abundantly clear that we delivered those in spades, with car makers providing, on average, 400 test drives during the show period.

By By Press Association reporters