I work in the Ecotricity offices in Stroud and live in Worcestershire, a daily commute of about 51 miles in each direction, assuming that I take no detours on the way home. My normal mode of transport is either a diesel VW or a motorcycle that each do around 50mpg for the journey (over £12 per day in fuel).

Well, the chance to drive a car like the Nemisis was too good an opportunity to miss so of course I welcomed it with open arms, I mean the chance to drive a super car that would do 0-100mph in 8 seconds doesn’t present itself every day!

So then the reality dawned on me, this was a prototype that hadn’t been used much more than the few miles from Dale’s house to work or the odd test for promotional purposes and now I was planning to do over 100 miles per day including a 25 mile stretch in each direction on the motorway. The first thing that I did was to get my warm coat and the numbers for the recovery company as I fully expected some late nights sitting on the side of the M5 waiting for a recovery truck.

I tentatively took it on its first trip home from Stroud about 3 weeks ago and spent the whole trip watching the volt reader on the dashboard as I didn’t think it would get me home, every sound convinced me that it was about to come to a painful halt and leave me stranded.

I got it home and put it on charge. That meant running the cable the 5 feet from the parking place in my rear garden to the wall socket that was to be the charging point – it was on charge quicker than it would have taken me to open the fuel cap on my VW and put the diesel gun in the hole. As I generally don’t use my vehicle in the evening it was no big deal, I just left if on charge until bed time when it had charged enough to ensure that I would get back to Stroud the next day.

The next morning was pretty straight forward, no worrying about whether I had enough fuel, just get in and drive. The only change to normal was the lack of a heater or radio but a pair of gloves and my iphone soon sorted those issues out.

By about the 3rd day of commuting I found that I had stopped thinking about how many volts were left on the battery, no more than the odd glance at the fuel gauge in my own car anyway, and I was able to relax into simply enjoying driving a small sports car. The practice of charging it when I get home at night and again when I arrive at work added little to my journey time and soon became the norm.

I didn’t realise how much the charging routine had become the norm until last week when I needed to take my VW to work and upon leaving home at 5.45am to go to the gym before work, I found the fuel light was on and I had to find a petrol station that was open at that time – what a pain that was. I had very quickly become confident that I didn’t need to even think about it in the electric car and the experience was literally the opposite to what I had expected when I started driving it.

I do get a buzz from turning heads when I drive the vehicle as it does look special and sounds unlike anything else on the road. As for the performance, the only way I can describe it is like putting your foot down in this car as being similar to a jet accelerating down a runway! The sound and the sheer torque of the power delivery is a very similar experience.

I do take every opportunity to take friends and acquaintances for a drive in the car so that they can experience the drive and spread the word, but I need to mention one particular occasion when I took a friend out in the car who races cars on the track and works at a BMW dealership. He had the opportunity to drive an Audi R8 only the day before and when I took him in the Nemesis and let him experience the acceleration, he just sat there astonished by the sheer thrust and felt that he needed to re-calibrate his own understanding of what could be achieved as it simply blew the Audi out of the water!

After 3 weeks of commuting to work, plus some weekend leisure driving I have now covered over 1500 miles in the car and the biggest compliment I can give it is that it’s nothing out of the ordinary! It is just a very quick 2 seater sports car that happens to be powered by electric. It has a range of around 100 miles and with a charging point at work I am able to easily make it fit into my normal daily routine, even with my longer than average commuting distance to work.

I certainly would consider having an electric car as one of the two vehicles in my family. My wife could easily use an electric vehicle as her daily car as she rarely covers more than 100 miles per week.

I know that if we were to do longer journeys for holiday or visiting family who live in the North of England, then we would currently need to use a conventional petrol/diesel engine, but I am certainly a convert and as the Ecotricity Electric Highway becomes more widespread and fast charging technology becomes the norm I see no reason why my next car will need to be anything but electric.

I would like to try a normal saloon car like the Nissan Leaf for a week or two to see how they compare when you have the additional benefits of rear seats and some boot space as if I’m honest, that is all I have missed during this experience.

——————————————————————————————

Half the man I used to be. Well, almost

(How turning vegetarian almost saved my life)

I was always a fairly active kid, as most kids are; enjoying running around, kicking the football and the classic game of cherry knocking. Well, up until about the age of 9 or 10.

I started to become fairly overweight for my age and from about the age of 10 onwards I was struggling to find suitable clothes to fit. I don’t know exactly how big I was but I was certainly bigger than the average 10 year old.

I remember my dad came to watch me at primary school playing football and saying; ’Just get stuck in’. It was hard to do so when all the kids your age were much fitter or slimmer. This only impacted my confidence further and made me less willing to participate.

My parents would always feed me healthy, balanced meals and it was only for the amount of snacking that made me gain weight. It got to the point where my parents used to hide food and lock the freezer to prevent me from eating the treats.

Going into my teens, and moving to ‘big school’ was a huge step for any kid, especially when you’re overweight.

At secondary school every child experiences the stages of puberty; body odour, crazy hormones, spots, and crushes on your teacher (no?). Getting spots didn’t help with my appearance and the bullying soon started. Mainly name calling but also physical bullying – things being thrown, tripping up etc. Many nights would be spent crying, and many meetings with the school and my Mum only came to nothing. It’s something I just tended to accept, this was me and there was only so much other’s could do. ‘I’m James & I’m just a fat kid.’

It was then I started to realise that being overweight was an issue and was starting to cause me problems.

I had adopted an approach of “Every kid gets fat and I’ll lose weight at some point” and this massively impacted any motivation or desire to change the way I was.

At about the age of 15 you have to choose what GCSE’s you’d like to take. Things like maths, English and science are standard. I decided to take drama and sport as my two optional ones. I’d always been fairly loud and flamboyant and so drama seemed like a logical option. Sport, not so.

I remember telling my head of year that I wanted to do sport and she was very shocked. It didn’t make me feel too great but wanted to proceed and try and attain certification in it. Turns out no previous sport experience or desire to be sporty impacted this and I dropped it after about 6 months.

I left school at the age of 16 with some GCSE’s, no A-levels and still overweight. I went straight into work and went through a few jobs before joining Ecotricity when I was 18.

By this time I was very overweight for my age – I don’t know exactly what my BMI was, and to be honest, I dread to think. I didn’t do any exercise and my diet consisted mainly of take-aways and fried food and if I wasn’t inside playing computer games I would be out for dinner. Cost me a fortune!

My standard lunch would consist of; A salad bowl (containing; chicken tika, egg mayo, potato salad/coleslaw, and bacon on top), a cheese topped roll with butter, a pasty of some description, a bag of crisps and a slice of chocolate brownie/cake.
My evening meals weren’t much smaller and part time work at Dominos pizza, and a free pizza every shift didn’t help matters! I didn’t eat breakfast and tended to snack between meals.

In 2009 a few Ecotricity colleagues and I decided to start a weight loss challenge for the summer. The idea being that everybody pays a tenner and the person who loses the most weight at the end of the 4 months wins the cash. I started doing this and managed to lose a couple of pounds until I got ill and pulled out. My colleague Dave won, scooping the 50 quid.

I’d been trying so hard to eat healthy food by this stage but it just wasn’t working. I couldn’t resist the temptation for muck. It was here I decided to turn vegetarian.

I figured by cutting out meat in my diet I would have to think about what I was ordering for lunch. This was one of the hardest things I’ve done. To be a meat eater for 21 years and suddenly stop is a huge shock to my routine. I would say I was a meat addict and I’d never chosen or even looked at the vegetarian section of a menu. I had to have meat.

I remember the last thing I ate was a bacon roll from a local bakery. All I remember was how salty it was.

The summer of 2010 was approaching and I really wanted to do the challenge again. The being vegetarian thing was going ok but I was still craving meat. My diet was still pretty poor however, still having pizzas, chips etc.

It was May. Time for 2010’s weight lost challenge labelled: ‘get buff or get out’. This was my time to shine. This was my time to show everyone at work, everyone from school, my friends, my bullies (of which some are now my friends), my family and myself that I can do it. But I wasn’t expecting the results that were to come!

I realised that not eating breakfast was impacting hugely on the size of my lunch and so I started to eat breakfast. Normally a piece of brown toast or a bowl of cereal. Even if I wasn’t hungry, I’d get it in me. It set me up for the day.

I’d take great care in what was in my food, the amount of saturated fat, and the amount of carbs. My diet changed rapidly – a small bowl of cous cous, or a bowl of soup and piece of brown bread for lunch was the norm now. I’d also given up butter / spread by this stage. No sweets, no chewing gum, no fizzy drinks, not even orange squash. No more chicken or bacon for me! Oh, and no more beer on the nights out (but vodka and slim line tonic was fine – doubles OFC)

Dinner was much smaller too, and mum made everything super low in fat and still keeping everything balanced with a good amount of protein in the meal. The company ‘Quorn’ must love me.

It was the start of week 1 and time to weigh in. 20 years old 17st 7lb’s and a 40 inch waist

Then - 20 years old 17st 7lb’s and a 40 inch waist

I paid my tenner and the challenge had started. I decided to hit it hard.

4 nights a week at the gym, one night a week playing football, low fat food, smaller portion sizes and no meat. It was a huge body shock but I saw the results instantly – first week and 3lbs lost.

Second week with the same routine a further couple of pounds lost. I thought it was a fluke and did not expect to lose much more in the next few weeks. Turns out I did

By week 4 I’d lost just over half stone. Week 5 weight in – I’ve lost a stone! Absolutely over the moon with the progress and I made sure I kept at it.

A few more weeks had passed and by week 9 I’d lost two stone. I was in the lead and loving it.

With only a few more weeks left until the challenge was over I wanted to maintain my lead.

By week 14 I had lost 3 stone. I was absolutely over the moon and didn’t expect to lose any more weight. But sure enough – I did.

The challenge was over by now and it was clear I’d won. I was so happy with myself and didn’t even care about the money. I’m not even sure I got it to be honest.

I made the decision to continue with the challenge myself to see how much further I could get. I maintained the weekly weigh-in’s at work and received huge amounts of support from friends and colleagues – they all said how different I started to look. I kept on at the gym, and eating healthy.

As time went on the weight dropped off at a good rate, along with hundreds of pounds worth of clothes being given away. Without a doubt changing my diet impacted this hugely!

I was a vegetarian for several months now and at this stage I didn’t think being vegetarian was going to be a permanent thing, however, I was getting used to it. It was quite fun actually because I’d tasted and experienced new foods I’d never eaten before. My main worry was that vegetarian food was going to be plain and boring – FAR from it!

By week 20 I’d lost my 4^th stone – overwhelmed and I couldn’t quite believe it. I was feeling fantastic in myself.  I felt more energetic, I was tired when I was supposed to be, and more awake and alert at the right times. I had soon got used to not eating meat, and it had become part of my lifestyle

I continued, and more weight came off – ensuring I kept healthy and balanced and consumed exactly what I needed to.

By week 30 I’d lost another stone! I couldn’t believe this progress but there were concerns.  I was worried that the weight I’d been losing will go back on as soon as I stop the diet – I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

None the less, I kept going and kept working. 7 more weeks had passed and by week 37 I’d lost a total of 6 stone.

I kept going but it was clear that was it. I wasn’t losing any more weight. I’d reached my peak and exceed my own expectations beyond belief.

October 2010 – 21 years old: 11st 7lb’s and a 32 inch waist

Now - 21 years old, 11st 7lb’s & a 32 inch waist

My transformation was shocking. I received, compliment after compliment from friends and family. People who hadn’t seen me in a long time didn’t even recognise me and I was overwhelmed with the way I felt and looked. I felt much healthy, much cleaner, much more alert and I genuinely felt like a different person.

It’s now December 2011, a year on and I’ve only gained a couple of pounds – from working out and building muscle. My main concern had not happened – I’d not re-gained the weight I’d lost. New lifestyle, New diet, New me. Oh, and new wardrobe!

Without a doubt, cutting out meat changed, and potentially, saved my life.

I’ve continued my new lifestyle, I still attend the gym, eat healthily and I have personal training every 2 weeks. There is NO WAY I would have ever imagined myself doing this 2 years ago. And likewise, I can’t ever imagine going back to the way I was – burgers, no exercise and an unhealthy lifestyle.

If you thought, like me, that you’ll never be able to do it – then you can. You actually can – because I did.

I’d proved to my family and to my friends that I could do it. But my biggest achievement was proving it to the bullies from school; proving it to those who did not believe in me, proving it to those who called me ‘fat’, who put me down and had no faith in me. To those who left me out of games and activities.

I proved it to myself.

I’ve never really told anyone this, so thanks.

Cheers,

James.

P.S.  You may have noticed that I turned 21 during these months. And yes, I treated myself to a cheeky piece of birthday cake – you don’t have to cut everything out!

Just a quick heads-up – Dale is just about to take part in this week’s Guardian Environment ‘You ask, they answer’ Q&A session – could be interesting… If any of you fancy chipping in your 2 penneth, dive on in – the water’s lovely!

EDITED TO ADD: The Q&A session is now closed now but it’s still worth reading.

The ASA said:

” ..we considered that consumers were unlikely to infer from the ads that EDF was a ‘green’ company, we concluded that the ads were unlikely to mislead.”

“..we considered that consumers were unlikely to infer that EDF Energy was a British company. We therefore concluded that the ads were unlikely to mislead.”

EDF had this to say:

“EDF Energy welcomes the decision by the Advertising Standards Authority regarding our Green Britain Day and Team Green Britain advertising, in which neither challenge has been upheld by the authority… We are committed to leading the energy change to bring about a low carbon future and we have led the way among energy companies in making long-term commitments to the environment and to sustainability… EDF Energy is the UK’s largest generator of low carbon electricity.”

Dale had this to say in response:

“To most people a green union jack represents something or someone Green and British. And to most people EDF are neither, being Nuclear and French. And however many sugar coated low carbon blandishments EDF comes out with the truth is in the numbers – they are the world’s biggest nuclear waste polluter, one of it’s biggest fossil fuel polluters and their contribution to new renewable capacity and to green issues in the UK is truly pitiful.

The ASA offer no evidence to back their judgement, which is actually just an opinion dressed up – and one that ignores the hundreds of people who wrote to it to complain the ad was misleading. It makes the ASA look rather ridiculous, but then again they are an advertising industry funded body, not an independent watchdog – should we expect any better?

The funny part is that the ASA have in effect said, in their opinion – ‘nobody in their right mind would believe that EDF are green or British’

OK I paraphrase just a little, or maybe I’m inferring?…

Either way if the ASA are right it’s actually a bitter sweet day for EDF – who’ve poured tens of millions into this – dodging the ASA bullet but at what cost to their ‘green credentials’ ?

How many windmills could they have built instead…

Cheers.”

Paul here (back off my hols).

A couple of event announcements for our UK based readers. Firstly – I thought you might like to know about a public appearance of the Nemesis Wind Powered Car happening on the 12th/13th September at the Science Museum in Wroughton, Near Swindon in Wiltshire. It will be part of the family oriented Festival of Innovation. I am hoping to be there with my family on the 12th – so might see you there? It is a free event (although high carbon producing transport will be charged £5 to park).

Here’s the event page for the Festival of Innovation on Facebook.

Also – Ecotricity are hosting a kite festival to celebrate the power of the wind on the 13th September 2009.

Help us to fill the sky with kites and celebrate the power of the wind at Thistledown Environment Centre, near Nailsworth (Stroud).

• Free Admission
• 500 kites to give away (or fly your own)
• Explore 70 acres of natural environment and wildlife
• Free soft drinks courtesy of bottlegreen
• Professional kite demonstration

I also created a Facebook event page for the 500Kites event too.

Take it easy, and we hope to see you at one or both

Paul

Just thought you might like to know this bit of breaking news from over on the Greenbird site

Richard and the Ecotricity Greenbird have only gone and smashed the World Land Speed Record for Wind Powered Vehicles!!!

Yay!! Big congrats from all of us Richard!

More details to come soon….