On Thursday, newly qualified Dr Dave Howey and I presented to the Sustainable Energy Futures MSc students at Imperial as part of their Sustainable Transport module.

This marked the start of RGEs education campaign, so it was great to have a home audience the first time round. The session was kicked-off by Dr Ralph Clague of Evo Electric who gave a lecture on new developments in Hybrid technology. Then it was our turn to share our thoughts and experiences on EVs for over an hour. It was pretty nerve wracking before hand, especially seeing as I have witnessed the grilling that we gave to some of the guest lecturers when I did the course last year!

After a brief introduction, we decided to show the Autosport video to give them a flavour of the car, and then they all started laughing – I wasn’t quite sure why until i remembered that I had been suffering (that’s suffering!) from an eye infection and my left eye was half closed! Anyway, they seemed to enjoy that bit and it set up the rest of the presentation nicely.

We went into a bit of detail about how the car works and then Dave took the discussion to a higher level by addressing the challenges facing EVs today and in the future. The debate ranged from biofuels and hydrogen, to the battery swapping system being put forward by Shai Agassi from Better Place.

Overall it was a great experience and we would like to thank the students for providing some insightful questions and feedback at the end.

The Sustainable Energy Futures MSc is run by the Energy Futures Lab at Imperial. It’s has an interdisciplinary structure, with lectures from industry experts and leading academics on pretty much every subject in the energy arena. The first term deals with energy systems analysis, as well as the politics and economics of sustainable energy. Then the second semester is made up of quick-fire, two-week intensive modules on a range of subjects; from nuclear and wind, to urban energy systems and sustainable transport. For more information visit the EFL page here.