An Eco Car Spectacular was held at the Mall in London last Sunday & The Pod Movement we’re asked to represent Chipping Sodbury School at the event. This is the first time such an event has been held & was supported by Prince Charles's environmental charity initiative Start.
The Mall was closed to traffic & an interesting array of cars were on display all day with various celebrities milling around and having a drive. Greenpower had been invited to display and had gathered 8 cars from various schools around the country, so had a most impressive collection. We were able to round up 4 team members, and took Y-Pod?! along instead of R-PodS SSC, to avoid the hassle of finding somewhere to park a trailer in central London. The cars on display included the TELSA roadster, the first public viewing of the Citroen Survolt, along with various runabout electric cars by THINK, Mitsubishi, Smart, and Mini. There were loads of electric motorbikes, scooters & a few Segways. One of the more impressive exhibits was a Krieger electric car from 1904, brought along by the science museum - if was pretty slow (up to 20mph), but had front wheel drive and a range of up to 50 miles…!
Most of the morning was taken up with the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace, but this certainly attracted the crowds…! After lunch all the cars drove the length of the Mall & back as a demonstration run before setting up as a static display again. The public were separated by low barriers so were able to talk to the team & discuss the cars & their performance. We managed to attract a fair number of celebrities for photos, including Sir Stirling Moss, Robert Llewellyn, Ellen McArther and Gaby Roslin. The day wrapped up with a final demonstration run, more questions from the crowd & finally, some excellent cupcakes from the VIP tent.
