Posted on 4th July 2019

Cutting Carbon, Saving your budget

Find out how electric cars can help you cut carbon

The Interceptor used fully electric cars for their 19 week shoot (these run exclusively on their battery until it runs out, then they switches to petrol).

The interceptor had five cars which travelled 13,629 across the 19 weeks. This is an average of 29 miles per day. Generally the cars will travel 30 miles on their batteries, this was obviously exceeded on some days so some petrol was necessary.

Across the shoot The Interceptor estimate that they made around £7,900 of fuel savings. They weren’t charged for electric recharging at the unit base. This fuel saving was the equivalent of approximately 11 tonnes of CO₂e, this is reduced to 8 tonnes once electricity used to charge them is accounted for.

The Interceptor found that with careful planning (and a couple of charges per day) it was possible to reduce the amount of petrol needed considerably. This was advantageous from a carbon perspective also as the cars were not the most efficient when running on petrol alone. Unit Drivers stated that they were happy with the cars performance, and were amazed by the small amount of fuel that was needed. Issues lay around charging the batteries at the end of the day, but the production got around this by setting up temporary charge points at the production office, and a competition arose around which unit driver could make their fuel last the longest. A couple of the drivers said that by using these cars it had opened their minds to fuel efficiency when driving, as these particular cars had a dash display showing how driving speeds and braking helped/affected the overall fuel consumption and electrical charge. One of the drivers even said they were planning on buying one once their normal car had run it’s course.

As filming happened in London, the team also estimate congestion charge savings between £3,000 to £5,000.