The Volkswagen Golf electric car due to go on sale in Ireland at the end of next year was one of the products from eight carmakers on show at the Fully Charged 2102 Electric Vehicle Summit held in Dublin today, writes Brian Byrne.
The other makers included Nissan, Renault, Toyota, Opel, Mitusbishi, Tesla, and Volvo, a representation which Government minister Pat Rabbitte said was a 'testament to the transformation underway in the industry'.
Also at the summit were five Irish companies showcasing electric vehicles products and services that have been trialled in Ireland in conjunction with ESB ecars.
Among them was Dublin-based M2C, which has developed a smart home charge point that operates as part of a home energy management system and allows the end user to charge when electricity is at its cheapest or greenest.
Wicklow company JTM have developed one of the first mobile chargers for electric vehicles for use with rescue fleets. Eveo solutions presented their public charger, the first of which was recently installed at the Topaz service station in Dublin Port.
The conference also heard that Ireland is to be the first country to test a system that will manage an EV owner's charging while travelling in other countries on a 'roaming' basis.
Delegations of specialists in electrical transportion attended from the US, Japan, France, Germany, Turkey, Norway, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, Italy and Latvia.
