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Electric Vehicle Registrations Continue to Soar!
The UK has experienced it’s best ever quarter for Electric Vehicle reservations, with an average of 1 EV registered every 13 minutes between January to March 2016, a rise of 23% on the same period 2015 according to Go Ultra Low
During this period, 10,496 plug-in cars with registered averaging at 115 per day and is set to continue this trend despite the recent slashing of the government grant from £5000 to £2500.
Using figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), Go Ultra Low’s analysis showed the sales of plug-on vehicles rising steadily against the previous five year trends.
Motorists are beginning to see the benefits of electric vehicles and growing to understand the idea of ‘topping up’ overnight on home charge points and during the day at public chargers, along with the Plugin Car Grant which has been utilised by more than 58,000 motorists since its inception in 2011.
When asked to comment, Transport Minister Andrew Jones was quoted as saying: “These record figures show that hundreds of people every week are coming round to the fact that plug-in cars are cleaner, greener and cheaper to run. The UK is a world leader in the uptake of low emission vehicles and our long-term economic plan is investing £600 million by 2020 to improve air quality, create jobs and achieve our goal of every new car and van in the UK being ultra-low emission by 2040.”
Notably the month of March seems to be one of the strongest months for Electric Vehicle sales, this year 7,144 electric cars with registered compared to the previous monthly high of 6,104 for March 2015.
Poppy Welch, Head of Go Ultra Low, said: “This continued and steep growth in uptake of plug-in cars is testament to how electric vehicles are becoming a natural choice for increasing numbers of new car buyers. With low running costs, tax exemptions and free parking in many locations, many more motorists should be considering a plug-in vehicle as their next car. As registrations records continue to be set and the rate of EV growth carries on, it’s no longer a question of will more motorists choose electric, but when.”
The UK is now a market leader for Electric Vehicles in the European Union with one fifth of the European Union’s collection EV Sales, runner up to Holland.
Goultralow.com provides a one-stop shop for information about owning and running electric vehicles, the makes and models available and the locations of the thousands of publicly available charge points.
The Gadget Man – Episode 52 – Google Cardboard and Google I/O 2015
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This week I talk about Google Cardboard and Google I/O Extended from Adastral Park. The event was the brainchild of Mark Thomas at Coderus, they are situated on the Innovation Martlesham also.
Google I/O Extended are events which enable people to experience the keynotes of I/O in Silicon Valley in their own countries. BT provided some amazing facilities to web cast the event to a large auditorium and Coderus were on hand to demonstrate some amazing Google products such as Chromecast and the Nexus Player. We also enjoyed Google themed cupcakes and sandwiches which were delicious.
After the keynotes were finished, there was a question and answer session hosted by Jim Milne from Innovation Martlesham and featured guest speakers from the tech area to answer questions and queries about the direction that Google is taking and there were some very interesting discussions about the nurturing role we can all take with young people to help encourage a new generation of UK based IT expertise.
For those of us that waited until the very end of the evening, we were very pleasantly surprised to receive our very own Google Cardboard to take away.
Google Cardboard is a VR system developed by Google engineers David Coz and Damien Henry in their 20% time. It was first released at Google I/O 2014 developers conference.
This year, Google have updated ‘Cardboard’ to support phones of up to 6 inches screen size and now it works with the Apple iPhone (but check your screen size is big enough!). Google Cardboard headsets cost about £12 to construct and the plans and specifications are freely available to buy online for about a tenner.
They are very simple to use, you install the Google Cardboard app on your smartphone, then slide it into the back of the ‘device’. There is normally an NFC tag with the headset which automatically identifies itself and tells your phone it is ready to work in ‘3d’.
The two lenses built into Cardboard focus onto the screen on the phone and produces the impression of stereoscopic 3d.
The apps are the real gem in the whole idea and there are hundreds available and most provide and incredibly immersive experience, it’s a fantastic opportunity to try out VR and at a low entry cost it means it’s accessible to everyone with compatible smartphone.
Thanks to Mark Thomas and everyone at Coderus for the evening, it was very interesting. You can find out more about the company by visiting their website here or following them on Twitter here
The Gadget Man – Coming up after 11.40 this morning, we talk about the “Selfie Stick”
Later this morning I will be chatting to Mark Murphy at BBC Radio Suffolk about the Selfie Stick.
Is this going to be the gadget gift for Christmas 2014?
The Selfie Stick is a reasonably low cost gift to for anyone that loves taking photos of themselves. Always problematic when trying to cram everyone into the photo, the selfie stick extends your arm up to a metre allowing you to frame the photo more easily.
For under a tenner, shoppers can buy a selfie stick with integrated bluetooth remote shutter that works with both iPhones and Android devices. You can also remove the phone clamp from the top and attach your camera via standard screw mount. This is great for owners of GoPro cameras.
Tune in on air or online to hear all about my featured Christmas Gadget gift of the week. To listen online click here
App of the Week – 30th December 2013 – Vine + others
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This week Matt joins Ronnie Barbour who is sitting in for Mark Murphy. We discuss New Year apps and the apparent lack of them. We also discuss Smartphones and Phablets. Rounding off with Facebook and stories concerning younger members leaving for the likes of Snapchat and others. This weeks App of the Week is VINE!!!