Blog of RENAULT NISSAN Alliance

Inside the auditorium of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, delegates to TED Global 2011 grapple with concepts such as ‘Emerging Order’, ‘Living Systems’ and ‘Everyday Rebellions’. Philosophers, historians, chemists and performers recruited from the interlinked fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) then brainstorm these key phrases gracefully into conversations and challenges- these will then continue to resonate within the relationships that we are all building within the TED universe.

The Alliance team at the conference- whether conference delegates or booth staffers / test ride guys- have all found ourselves adapting to this new thought-enriched environment. ‘TED’ conversations have been springing up whenever we gather by the Nissan LEAF / Renault Twizy displays in the basement of the conference venue; suddenly I find myself using the adaptation of a single-cell creature as an example of how we change according to what is going on around, when discussing human evolution with Nissan Europe telematics expert Larry Haddad. Renault Communications guy Christophe Deville discusses transmittable cancer with Nissan LEAF specialist Tom McCabe from Nissan Technical Centre Europe. This is all ‘The Stuff of Life’.

Meanwhile, outside the mind-expanding experience that TED represents, if you take a taxi through the city you might find in the newspapers a story of sustainability that practically engages a lot of the conference themes: future technology now, social responsibility, and the cost of living as we do now. We will have to pay more for power now, or even more in the future if we don’t change our ways.

This story is about electricity- how we change the way we generate it, and how we finance those changes- and we’re all part of that story. One of the tangible things that the Renault Nissan Alliance has provided at TED Global 2011 is a unique electric vehicle taxi service to conference attendees needing to get to multiple nearby sites in the centre of Edinburgh.

It’s no longer an experiment- quite simply, electric cars do the job that a car needs to do.

A zero emission means of transport, either in the Nissan LEAF or Renault Fluence, is literally providing what the conference has promised on a more cerebral level- ‘The Stuff of Life’- and a sustainable stuff it is too.