Electric vehicle fleet covers more than 100,000 zero emission miles at COP21

With delegates frantically negotiating a legally-binding climate deal in Paris earlier this month, the Renault-Nissan Alliance has announced that its fleet of 200 electric vehicles saved more than 18 tonnes of carbon equivalent emissions over the two weeks.


A fleet of Renault ZOEs Nissan Leafs and Nissan e-NV200 people carriers travelled 110,000 miles acting as the official vehicle sponsors for COP21, transporting delegates around the city.

The Alliance confirmed that over the course of the conference the vehicles saved almost 182 barrels of oil – equivalent to 18 tonnes of tailpipe emissions. This marked the first time the U.N. used a 100% electric fleet for its entire passenger-car shuttle at a climate summit.

Over the two week period the fleet made 3,800 journeys as it transported more than 7,500 delegates from hotels to venues. Employees from the alliance acted as voluntary drivers and ‘electric vehicle ambassadors’ of the cars.

As part of its role as EV ambassadors of the conference, the Renault Nissan Alliance also deployed 90 new charging points for EVs throughout the city. The stations – able to charge an EV from 0 to 80% capacity in about 30 minutes – were powered by low-carbon electricity provided by French electric utility company EDF.

Thirteen of the 27 quick charging stations will remain in Paris for public use including two at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, two on the Paris périphérique highway and one at Orly Airport.

If you can see this, your browser doesn’t understand IFRAME. However, we’ll still <a href=”http://www.media.blog.alliance-renault-nissan.com/cop21/document/videos/” data-mce-href=”http://www.media.blog.alliance-renault-nissan.com/cop21/document/videos/”>link</a> you to the video.UK policy shift

In the aftermath of the Paris climate talks, the UK government announced that it would extend grants to subsidise the purchase of electric and other low-emission cars by at least two years. The extension, which brings the total funding to £400m, could encourage more than 100,000 UK motorists to buy greener vehicles.

The Nissan and Renault Alliance announced its support for the grant extension by seeking to improve infrastructure in order to develop on the wave of momentum that the plug-in car grant looks set to create.

James Wright, Nissan Motor (GB) managing director, said: “With Government support and Nissan’s investment of over £420m into electric vehicles in the UK, our British made Nissan LEAF has increased in popularity with many UK customers already enjoying the benefits of zero emission and low cost driving.

“This announcement, together with ongoing infrastructure developments, should see the growth and wider deployment of this technology continue.”

If the growing popularity of EVs does continue an Ofgem-funded project has warned that almost one third of UK local power networks could be overloaded due to increased electricity demand.

Matt Mace

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