News and EventsNews flash - the first Gridserve electric forecourt opens in early December.
NB - Other news relating to charge point fixes, updates, new installations etc appear here on our Charging your MG page. 20th November - article in the Sunday Times about the surge of AA/RAC calls owing to flat bed rescue needed by EV drivers met my derision from members of the MGEVOC. 300 a year is the estimate, against 800,000 people running out of petrol. 17th November - 30 Electric MG's will be converted the EV-converted MGB by RBW EV Classic Cars 12th November - MG5 review by Robert Llewellyn https://insideevs.com/reviews/454038/fully-charged-first-drive-mg5-ev/ 6th November - new glossary page started 30th October - "Britain’s fastest-growing car brand and rapidly expanding EV marque is marking its best-ever month in the UK, having racked up 3,668 sales in September 2020 – an incredible increase of 169% compared with the same month in 2019. With car sales across the UK down by a third year-on-year, MG is also the only mainstream brand to be forging ahead with growth – its astonishing September result sees the brand’s sales up by 52.1% year-on-year at 14,228 cars, with almost a third of the volume attributed to the zero-emissions MG ZS EV. The company also broke its annual sales record in September with the 13,076th MG of 2020 – an MG ZS EV bought by 30 year-old Londoner Luke Walker – taking the brand over its 2019 sales total with more than a quarter of the year left to go. The incredible growth comes at the same time as MG launches two all-new models that are destined to boost its performance further – the unique All New MG5 EV and the brand’s first PHEV, the MG HS Plug-in, both of which are available to order now. Daniel Gregorious, Head of Sales & Marketing at MG Motor UK said “September was a staggeringly good month for MG in the UK. Firstly, we achieved our biggest ever sales month. In fact, our September result was almost 1,000 sales higher than our previous record month, March 2020." 27th October - annual market share of EV's has more than doubled since 2019 - it is now over 8%. 26th October - the Geniepoint total fix rollout is now complete. 6th October - EVie award finalists in 18 categories announced here. Across the various categories, they include businesses like Gridserve and Engenie, Cleevely EV, Ovo, Tonik, Instavolt and the Mayor of London. The (virtual) awards ceremony will take place on 3rd November. 5th October - SMMT new car sales figures for September and year to date have been released. Battery and Hybrid vehicles are now more than 25% of the market place - compared with less than 10% last year. 21,903 BEV's sold in September, 66,611 year to date - which includes a three month lockdown period when dealerships could not open. 1st October - new MGEVOC gilets and jackets added to our accessories page. 28th September - several dealers now have their MG5 demonstrators and are able to offer test drives. See our MG5 page here. 24th September - news from the across the pond for a change - California has voted to ban ICE cars from 2035, and the US Drive Electric Week kicks off today - mainly virtual this year - it's 10th anniversary. 23rd September - 4,000 members and counting - in 82 different countries - led by UK, Netherlands, Norway, Thailand and India. 18th September - our MGEVOC Facebook Group has reached 3,900 members. We are now heading towards 4,000 and approaching 500 on Twitter! 17th September - in the USA, an area in California as big as Wales is burning, Colorado and Utah are also on fire. Air quality is atrocious. Tens of thousands have lost their homes. 5 hurricanes are on their way to the southern Bay Area. Still the climate deniers refuse to believe the evidence. 15th September - Zero Carbon World set a new record for driving from John O'Groates to Lands End - they completed the trip using 1 hour, 32 minutes and 32 seconds for charging - at only four locations. The whole 855 mile trip took 15 hours and 32 minutes in a Tesla Model 3. They beat the previous record set in 2015. In fact they cut the previous time in half! 11th September - Gridserve unveiled their partnerships for their electric forecourts - you will be able to buy a cup of Costa Coffee, use the Post Office, W.H. Smith, Booths and Gourmade. The opening date is sometime in November. 7th September - the inaugural World EV day takes place on 9th September. Where will you be driving to then? World EV Day is a global movement, a day of celebration of emobility, and a day to shift the transition to sustainable transport with consumer, business and policy outcomes. In its inaugural year, 2020, World EV Day is a largely social media led campaign to engage consumers around the sustainability benefits of EVs. 4th September - DPD reaches its goal of 10% electric fleet 5 months early - it now has 500 electric vehicles delivering parcels around the UK. The service has added, in only 7 months, over 700 electric vehicles to its other 130 EVs on the road. So far this year, DPD has delivered close to 5 million emissions-free parcels, saving over 2 million kilograms of CO2. The firm estimates that, on its current zero-emissions trajectory, it will deliver well over 10 million parcels on its clean, green fleet by the end of 2020. 2nd September - James has just been driving the new MG5. It's the first estate EV in the UK and he is pleased to say it's lovely. It's really well refined and has fantastic range. 26th August - Amazon has announced it will build a third wind farm in Ardderroo, County Galway, Ireland which will double its green energy capacity in the country and support their data centres. The three wind farms will add 220 MW of energy to the Irish grid. It is expected to be online by 2022, with 27 turbines. 25th August - Greene King (living up to their name) will install EV Charge Points at all of its suitable pubs. Raw Charging and Drive Energi are installing them and they will be PAYG with contactless payment. First one debuted at the Churchill in Royal Wootton Bassett, powered by solar, earlier this month. 24th August - Exxon Mobil is booted off the Dow after nearly a century - oil stocks are plummeting - the writing is firmly on the wall. Only one oil major still left, and that's Chevron. 22nd August - the solar powered electric forecourt being constructed by Gridserve at Braintree (their first of several planned) is due to open to the public in the Autumn. We will need pictures of MGZSEV's charging there! 20th August - the SMMT have forecast that EV sales in 2020 will equal 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 combined. Europe is the beacon of EV sales in 2020 with 57% growth for H1, in a vehicle market which declined by 37%. France leads with 9.1%, followed by UK with 7.7%. Germany posted 7.6%, Spain 3.2%. 19th August - EDF energy announce a new tariff - click here - half priced electricity for those with an EV who want to charge at 8p per kWh. (Octopus beware - other companies are waking up to this important market sector that is growing exponentially.) They are also talking about EV leasing deals - is that a first for an electricity supplier? 18th August - a north London bus garage is set to become the largest V2G (vehicle to grid) trial site. The electric buses will be providing energy when not in use, becoming a virtual power station. The initial trial will involve 28 buses capable of returning 1 megawatt of energy to the grid. 17th August - Hyundai has just achieved a milestone that the rest of manufacturers, including MG, can only dream of. For the first time ever, the Kona has reached a range of 620 miles on a single charge. Three identical cars were tested on a circuit in Germany, travelling at an average 30 miles per hour to replicate urban driving. Hyundai are expecting to sell 1 million EV's globally by 2025. 15th August - Apple announces addition of EV charging information to the next iteration of Apple Maps App. (Google Maps already has EV charging built in.) 14th August - UK charge point numbers grew by only 2% in Q2 20, in comparison with 9% in Q1 20, owing to the pandemic. 12th August - the Government announced an additional £2.5 million in funding for public on street ev charging infrastructure, claiming it will pay for 1,000 extra charging points installed in residential areas. 11th August - the MG5 (estate model with 200 miles range) is due in a few week's time. You can now sign up online to register your interest, dealers are taking orders and are expecting to receive demonstrator models in the near future. We will publish an update when we know. Recent Event News - 20 MG ZS EV's gathered at the British Motor Museum on the 8th August
to celebrate all things EV at the second UK EV Festival. Planning is under way for a couple of casual meets in the future - outdoors with plenty of space. Info to follow. |
It was one of the hottest days of the year, 36 degrees, but we had a gazebo and ice cream! Miles Roberts, of the Chorley Group, ran a very successful Tombola featuring some great MG merch as prizes. (Photos contributed by various club members and EV Clicks.)
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As well as the MG's, there were Kia Souls, Jaguar iPaces, e-Golfs, e-Niros, a few Teslas, Nissan Leafs, a Hyundai Kona, an e-Mini, a Peugeot 208 e, BMW i3's, one Renault Zoe and the smiley Honda-e made it's debut.