victorian electric vehicle trial mid-term report - Department of Transport

In addition to the EV School program,an education partnership has beenformed with the Centre for Educationand Research into EnvironmentalStrategies (CERES). CERES is anot-for-profit sustainability centreand Australia’s largest delivererof environmental education. Inrecognition of CERES’s role in hostingregular visits by schools, conductingincursion programs into schools, andbeing a community hub for sustainableliving, trial vehicles have been providedfor the CERES fleet and a solarchargingstation has been built at theirfacility to form part of the Victorian EVcharging network – refer to Figure 62and the break-out box.The trial has also partnered with alocal school for an EV-themed WorldEnvironment Day event. An electriccar showroom was created for theYear 11 students to ‘sell’ the vehiclesto their Year 7 ‘buyers’. The strongengagement from the studentsinvolved provides further evidenceof the effectiveness of EVs as anexample of ‘clean technology’.The department also delivered two EVsand Fleets 2012 workshops as outlinedin Section 4.3.4 and Appendix B – EVsand Fleets 2012 Practical roll-out plan.These workshops were intendedto address the knowledge gap onsuccessful EV deployment by educatingthose responsible for the vehicle rollout.Surveys of attendees returneda 98 per cent approval rating on theworkshop (“Would you recommendthe EVs & Fleets 2012 workshopattendance to colleagues looking toroll-out EV technology?”, n = 53).While this result is encouraging withregards the workshop design anddelivery, promoting and securingattendance was and remains thegreater challenge. This findinghighlights the need to address otherstakeholders within organisationsto secure support for electricvehicles. With reference to Table5 (page 46), a major educationalopportunity to promote fleet EVuptake would be to target seniormanagement/executives. To this endthe Department has conceived asmall project to be delivered in 2013aimed at investigating this further.Select which features you like the most about electric cars(more than one option may be selected)Green and moresustainableLess or nopetrol requiredThey are coolHigh-techEnvironmentalcredibilityPrior brandexperienceOtherFigure 61. Results of the Year 11 ‘sellers’ survey of their Year 7 ‘buyers’ from the Kingswood College 2012 World Environment DayEV showroom event (n = 57).CREATING A MARKET 119