The 2021 World EV Day, which highlights and promotes the role of electric vehicles (EVs) in the move to net-zero and decarbonisation, was a huge global success. It has become the world’s biggest sustainable mobility campaign and harnessed the social media engagement of the world’s embolism business community.
Businesses around the world got behind the day created by Ade Thomas and his team at green.tv who also deliver the hugely successful EV Summit. Even before the event day itself, there was a buzz in the air for people of all ages. To engage children, ABB, who are World EV Day’s headline partner, created a competition to design the world’s first EV emoji.
This was part of World EV Day’s commitment to consumer education around electric vehicles (EVs). The winner of that competition, 11-year-old Lucía from Central America, was announced on World EV Day. ABB and Green.TV are calling on the Unicode Consortium to recognise the need for an electric vehicle emoji.
Lucía, the EVmoji challenge winner, said: “I’d love my first car to be an electric car because I know they care for the environment. I’m very excited to have participated in this contest to help create the first EV emoji.”
Judges for the EVmoji design challenge included Ade Thomas, World EV Day creator, Frank Muehlon, President of ABB’s E-mobility Division and Simona de Silvestro, a driver for the IndyCar Series and Formula E.
Frank Muehlon, President of ABB’s E-mobility Division, said: “We are thrilled with the response to the EVmoji design challenge and to World EV Day. Both initiatives offer a fantastic opportunity for people of all ages to learn more about electric vehicles and to generate excitement and collaboration on developments. Judging by these design submissions, the future is indeed electric.”
Nissan, a founding partner of World EV Day, announced on the day they’d reached 250,000 electric vehicle sales in Europe. The Japanese carmaker, who recently announced their £1 billion flagship EV36Zero electric vehicles hub, revealed on World EV Day that the new Nissan ARIYA is now available to pre-order in Norway.
Nissan’s EV36Zero is a game-changing £1 billion investment in green electric vehicle infrastructure. They are accelerating the journey to carbon neutrality by building a cutting edge manufacturing plant that brings together electric vehicles, renewable energy and battery production.
World EV Day was far reaching around the globe at all levels and India were one of the countries supporting the movement. On LinkedIn Rakesh Srivastava reiterated Nissan’s commitment to electric vehicles and helping the environment.
Rakesh Srivastava, managing director of Nissan Motor India Private Limited, said: “This World EV Day, we are pleased to have the legendary Cricket Captain Kapil Dev drive this message of sustainability in our all-electric Nissan LEAF.”
Also in Bangalore, India at a grassroots level the community got behind World EV Day with a zero emissions rally. The rally was designed to help spread the word and push for electric mobility, both now and in the future.
Many new and progressive businesses and start-ups also got involved with World EV Day. For example, Paua, who offer the electric fuel card to make charging easier, joined in on World EV Day. They used the day to announce a major new partnership with leading electric vehicle charging company Fastned.
Business drivers using the Paua electric fuel card solution will now be able to access Fastned’s high power chargepoints both in the UK and across Europe. These stations are compatible with all brands of electric cars.
Everatti, an Oxfordshire-based electric converter, announced in conjunction with World EV Day that it had opened its order book for bespoke electric vehicle (EV) conversions of classic cars.
When it comes to developing cars Autovia, the motoring content hub that includes Auto Express, DrivingElectric, Carbuyer, Carthrottle and evoke, got creative designing a concept electric car. To celebrate World EV Day they created the EV-21.
The EV-21 is a hypothetical battery electric vehicle (BEV) that blends the best qualities of today’s existing electric vehicles in one car, to prove that the EV breakthrough is already within reach.
In line with World EV Day’s education focus for 2021, leading UK automotive digital title, Auto Trader, released an online electric metrics game, as part of their World EV Day takeover on their website.
For World EV Day the AA (Automobile Association), who are Britain’s biggest breakdown association, released a report saying that only a tiny fraction of the emergency assistance calls it receives were from electric car owners. Only four percent of its call outs from EV drivers was due to running out of charge. This should help dispel the range anxiety myth.
Edmund King, AA president, said: “EVs and combustion cars share the same top two reasons for breakdowns which are tyres and the smaller 12-volt battery.
“As more charge points, especially rapid chargers, are installed across the UK, the number of cars failing to reach one will further reduce, providing more confidence to drivers to help them make the switch.”
Leading global vehicle leasing company, LeasePlan, also used World EV Day to announce a commitment to set science-based reduction targets across all emission scopes of its business.
This process of setting clearly-defined and measurable science-based long term and interim targets marks a big step forward in LeasePlans’ net zero ambitions. It is the cornerstone of the company’s upcoming ‘Driving to zero’ sustainability strategy update.
Ade Thomas, founder of World EV Day, said: “In creating World EV Day, Green.TV Media has played a small but significant part in shifting the sustainability dial by helping to create, what I call, the ideas infrastructure.
“We’ve created a real institution for global change with World EV Day, with the support of our international partners.
“World EV Day has engaged media, car companies, charging infrastructure companies and governments, worldwide. It’s a super powerful platform to deliver sustainable transport change.’
