HRH Prince Charles Start Eco Car Spectacular follows on from the Eco-Rally

I went along yesterday to check out the Eco Cars event that Roger Saul and Kevin McCloud (both Eco-Rally participants this year) curated for the HRH Prince Charles's START initiative "garden party to make a difference". There were lots of familiar faces and cars from the Eco-Rally there so it was very pleasant to catch up with a few people! The Tag Heuer branded Tesla fresh from it's epic around the world journey led the way- no range anxiety there thank you very much.

Sadly, there were only electric vehicles there (bar the Vauxhall HydroGen4 ) including some bikes and scooters organised by the lovely Dru @SolstisBikes, but there was a good selection including the Citroen Survolt- a very sleek looking concept car. Joanna Yarrow, a Eco-Rally regular, was giving her interview to camera on her impressions about it when I caught up with her. I have now made it a personal mission to chase her about green driving lessons. So, watch this space as I will follow her progress on here. Previously living in London, plus being a "good" greenie she didn't need to be a car owner but now living out at the amazing Wilderness Wood (open for lovely day trips etc...) she needs to be independently mobile. Plus there are now so many options for personal sustainable mobility with ev's charged via green energy, bio-fuels etc... it is a great time to start the transition.

The BBC article is in fact is billed as "New Generation of Electric Cars". It was good to see the Westfield i-racer leave the starting arch at the same time as the Survolt giving it a run for it's money. In my Flickr pool of photo's a picture of Andrew from the EV Cup looking pretty cool in the driving seat it has to be said!

The TH!NK electric cars had a good presence and it will be interesting to see the new initiatives they are working on for next year when they go public with these.

Lucy Siegle, another Eco-Rally participant, did a sterling job with Roger and Kevin announcing the cars and stats as they drove up and back again on the Mall and handled a few hiccups effortlessly with grace. She humorously demonstrated that her technical understanding was about the same as mine when it comes down to cars by asking "what is torque?" at one point-useful for the non-techie's in the crowd!

It was a nice touch to have a few awards for the vehicles and of particular note for me was the fab sofa's made out of artificial grass provided by Event Prop Hire and the yummy cupcakes! I don't know if they were made with Roger's Sharpham Park spelt flour or not but I need to source them for my up-coming birthday!

Anyway, enough from me- follow the link to the BBC site where currently the video from the news spot is currently ranking highest viewed! Good news for the move to sustainable transport.

Roll on the 2011 Eco-Rally!