GREEN VEHICLE CONGRESS 2010
The inaugural Green Vehicle Congress was held in March at the Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art in Gateshead and Newcastle with the specific aim to promote what is happening in the UK with regard to low carbon vehicle development and deployment.
The event was run by Cenex, in partnership with UK Trade & Investment, ONE North East and Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, over 3 days with over 200 organisations represented and an average of 170 people per day attending the event.
Day one focused was themed as an International Industry workshop sponsored by the LCKTN with 50+ international delegates interfacing with a similar number of UK organisations. All were given an opportunity to make a short elevator pitch focused on collaborative opportunities which could be discussed and explored over the next two days of the conference.
Day two and three the conference focused on 5 main thematic sessions with key note address from Brian Collins. Over the two days of the congress 25 speakers where able to present material covering subjects such as Government and Policy, Technology advancements, Real world trials, Business models and Societal acceptance.
Parallel sessions were run in a small theatre style area with again around 5 themes attracting another 25 speakers from both the UK and international delegation. Sessions included Electrification of vehicles, Green motorsport and how this is being used to promote automotive engineering in academia, International low carbon vehicle developments, Academic research and operating models and finally Hybrid, Hydrogen and ICE developments. All of these sessions proved to be very popular with the delegation.
Strong emphasis was put on providing plenty of opportunities for networking with a fully programme of social events with a Welcome reception from One Northeast and a Gala dinner held at the Discovery Museum.
Industry visits were also arranged in particular for the International delegates and our thanks should be given to Smiths Electric Vehicles and Narec for allowing us to visit their sites on the Thursday afternoon.
Sixteen vehicles were also on display outside the Baltic Centre for the duration of the conference.
Cenex is now looking for “Expressions of Interest” from other regional partners in terms of hosting the event in March 2011. Please contact Nick Clare if you would like to discuss this opportunity further.