It is thus no surprise that the current explosion of EV demonstration projects is concentrated in cities. It is hard to be precise about the number of city-based projects taking place, but it is likely to be in the hundreds. The Renault-Nissan Alliance alone is reported to be involved in more than 50 demonstration projects, with other manufacturers working on numerous initiatives from Beijing to Los Angeles.

The projects take varying approaches. In Brussels, a business start-up, Zen Car, is making available about 30 zippy Tazzari ZEROs through a car-sharing scheme. Zen Car CEO Regis Leruth says that the aim is to encourage the roll-out of EV charging points by dangling before motorists the carrot of the stylish Italian Tazzari. Once the charging points are in place, they will be "available for everybody who has electric cars," Leruth says.

Zen Car aims to break even within three years by signing up 5000 car-pooling subscribers. The initial focus will be companies with parking lots where charging points can be installed. Later, public charging points will be set up. Brussels residents are familiar with car-sharing because of Cambio, a well-established conventional motoring scheme. Zen Car will "show the opportunity for electric cars in this kind of concept," Leruth says. "We are the first major city to propose this".

Zen Car is financially supported by the local development agency and the Belgian state, with the aim of creating a profitable company and a network of charging points. The car itself is not the main issue.

Nevertheless, says Philippe Aussourd, president of the European Association for Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (known by the French acronym AVERE), "the great automotive companies want to open the market". City-based demonstration projects are "a way of testing infrastructures [and] show to the general and professional public that concretely it is possible to make it work". Setting up the infrastructure involves many interests and municipal authorities "are the best conductors of the orchestra," Aussourd says.

It takes two

Mia Nielson, spokeswoman for Nissan, says demonstration projects are a "two-way thing". She says that there are "lots of cities that are calling us up," but in some cases it is the manufacturer that takes the lead.

The Renault-Nissan Alliance has for example gone into partnership with the Irish government to promote the Nissan LEAF and the Kangoo Z.E., a light commercial vehicle. For its part, the government will subsidise purchases of the cars to the tune of €5000, and will exempt them from registration tax. Ireland's Electricity Supply Board will provide the charging points in homes, businesses and public places, with activity concentrated in the cities of Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Waterford.

The Irish aim is that EVs should make up 10 percent of the country's car fleet by 2020, part of a broader strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The partnership with the Renault-Nissan Alliance will also see pre-production Fluence Z.E. electric sedans supplied for a specific pilot project.

Other Renault-Nissan Alliance demonstration projects in Europe are the Switch EV scheme in the north east of England and the SAVE project in Paris. The former will lease EVs to organisations, councils, car clubs and individuals so that driver behaviour and the environmental benefits can be tested, while the latter will provide cars to business and private users for testing, so that data can be built up about the performance of EVs and factors such as the ideal density of charging points.

Ready to roll-out

Demonstration project typically last from one to three years. The SAVE project will run until mid-2012, while the Irish government wants its initial charging network to be in place by the end of 2011. A large-scale US EV project, setting up charging stations in 18 cities, and supported with nearly $100 million in Department of Energy money, started in late 2009 and will run until late 2012.

The stage should then be set in many cities for the broader roll-out of EVs. The path will not necessarily be smooth. "Larger experimentation will uncover new problems," says AVERE's Philippe Aussourd.

Aussourd adds that the barriers are unlikely to be technological, but will crop up in relation to urban planning, legal restrictions and private/public cooperation in which electricity utilities, local authorities and automakers are required to work together. The car and infrastructure industries "are speaking different languages," says Aussourd, but "it is necessary to have everybody around the table".

He cites the experience of a mid-1990s EV pilot project in Paris, which had as its objective the setting up of charging points (which are still in place). The project found itself with an unexpected problem. It was "not at all the electricity network or protection of the plug; the problem was the parking place," says Aussourd. "The occupation of the public place in a city is the object of very strong competition," and obtaining permission to reserve places for EV charging proved a major barrier. The current crop of EV demonstration projects will hope to overcome such obstacles.

A version of this article was published by EVupdate.com.