EcoVelocity, the UK’s first eco motoring festival held at Battersea Power Station last week delivered the UK’s largest eco test drive event with almost 7,000 consumer drives of electric, low and ultra low carbon vehicles driven round the bespoke test track.
Visitors and their families fully embraced the hands on / bottoms on seats opportunities
the show offered. Over 1500 visitors participated in the Honda Racing Bug Activity, Get On - the campaign to encourage more people to ride motorcycles introduced 350 visitors to the benefits of riding a bike and took numerous bookings for the future.
The SEAT Young Driver scheme which allowed children 11 years an older to drive a car, were inundated every show day and the Honda ‘my first licence’ scheme was fully-booked each day within 15 minutes of opening.
The show was officially opened by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who said: ‘It is tremendous that EcoVelocity, the biggest eco car show in Europe, is demonstrating what is available right now as well as the future of clean, green motoring. It fits perfectly into my plan to make London the electric vehicle capital of Europe.”
Membership to the Source London electric charging scheme almost tripled during the show. Annual membership enables card holders to charge up their electric vehicle at any Source London point as many times as required.
Giles Brown, event organiser, said: “EcoVelocity was a first of its kind; the objective was to raise the profile of the latest low and ultra-low carbon cars by providing a very hands on environment for visitors. The event culminated in a very busy ride-and-drive event.
He went on to say: “As a launch show, it was impossible to predict visitor numbers; our original forecast was too high. The currency exhibitors use to judge the event is with quality test drives and leads, not just footfall. It was abundantly clear that we delivered those in spades, with car makers providing, on average, 400 test drives during the show period.
“Our objective going forward is to find a way to increase event capacity and, in turn, increase overall visitor numbers.”
Neville Staines, National Events Manager for Citroen, commented: “EcoVelocity proved to be a big success for Citroen, with more than 440 test drives completed over the four days. We also took a considerable number of high-quality sales leads, with interest not just in C-Zero (our full electric car) but also for our full range of low-emission vehicles. Considering this was the first time the show has taken place, I could not be happier with the results.”
Volkswagen UK’s Kate Thompson commented: “Volkswagen UK was very pleased with the
EcoVelocity event. We were able to meet a large number of visitors, who showed a keen interest in our BlueMotion products and brand as well as the chance to demonstrate these vehicles’ performance on the test track.”
Sue Goddard, Conference and Events Manager, Honda Cars, said: “EcoVelocity provided an excellent platform for Honda to showcase its Hybrid range of cars.”
Lance Bates, Toyota and Lexus GB commented “For us it was a cost effective way to not only build awareness of but also to showcase and demonstrate our Hybrid technology. It also gave the opportunity for visitors to the show to be among the first in the U.K to test drive the all new Yaris.
Considering this was the first time the event has been staged we were pleased at the number of test drives achieved across both brands”.