[Wera Hobhouse MP with Sandra Roling, Climate Group, Director of Transport; Olly Craughan, DPDgroup UK, Head of Sustainability; Emma Bayliss-Chan, Royal Mail, Senior Manager; Michael Salter-Church, Openreach, Director of External Affairs; Claire Evans, Zenith, Fleet Consultancy Director; Matthew Walters, LeasePlan, Head of Consultancy Services and Customer Value.]
Bath MP, Wera Hobhouse chaired a roundtable on the future of electric vehicles yesterday – welcoming parliamentarians and representatives from the industry to Parliament.
During her roundtable discussion, Mrs Hobhouse invited both parliamentarians and representatives from the automotive industry to discuss how businesses in the UK should approach the electric vehicle transition. The roundtable heard from representatives of the Climate Group, DPDgroup UK, Royal Mail, Openreach, Fleet Consultancy, LeasePlan as well as others.
Amongst their discussions, the Bath MP raised concerns about various obstacles to the rollout of electric vehicles. She noted that there was still a significant problem with charging anxiety- the worry that charge for an electric vehicle will not last the intended journey, leaving drivers stranded. This worry is intensified by possible challenges to grid capacity.
Another challenge to the electric vehicle transition which was discussed by the group was the need for local knowledge to inform the location of infrastructure. Many raised the fact that electric vehicle charging stations were not being placed in convenient locations in rural and urban areas. The Bath MP agreed that local knowledge was vital for understanding where exactly communities need support with off-street grid connection.
Some of the solutions explored by groups like DPDgroup UK were to share their depot electric charging facilities with smaller businesses. Mrs Hobhouse hailed the sentiment of this collaboration across the industry.
Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, commented:
“It is vital we can make the transition to electric vehicles as smooth and accessible as possible- and having these discussions is an important step towards this.
“As surface transport is one of the highest emitting sectors in the UK, we rapidly need to accelerate our transition to electric vehicles. We need government support to drive us down the road to net zero.”
People in numerous blocks of flats being built in Bath and in small terraces like the one where I live can’t charge electric cars at home. Where are these hundreds of chargers going to be installed and by whom?
I’m pleased to see our MP has set herself to a task that really is quite an important priority. Unfortunately, in this case, the charging network ‘cart’ had been set so far ahead of the EV ‘horse’, she will need a diesel HGV to go and fetch it back to the rear of the ‘horse’ – an electric HGV wouldn’t have the range.
If Ms Hobhouse’s ’roundtable’ is to retain any shred of credibility, it must first acknowledge four difficulties that have to be overcome :-
1. Transition realities – hope and good intentions are NOT part of any effective planning process. A charging network fit for purpose will take at least five to ten years to install, if the Will and the Money are forthcoming. Forces against the Will include the perfectly good, and improving, means of personal ICE transport and its enabling facilities that already exist. Forces against the Money becoming available are …. well, I don’t need to spell those out.
2. Feasibility – the renewable electrical energy supply sources of this country will be totally inadequate for an additional demand on it of our domestic and commercial transport requirements, even if an adequate charging network became available tomorrow. Again, this will be the case for years to come.
3. VHS vs Betamax – we are already travelling down the innovation road in the wrong technology. Hydrogen, momentarily difficult to isolate and store, is the only viable transport fuel of the future. We are sadly going in the wrong direction, quickly, instead of the right one, slowly. Electricity energy still has to generated, and in vast quantities. After all, for the next decade, vast quantities of fossil and nuclear fuels will be needed to do that.
4. Rare(and not so rare) earth metals need to be mined to manufacture the EV storage batteries, which will then need to be disposed of later – more pollution. Hydrogen storage will be a comparatively easy and non-polluting solution, one that the fuel tanks in petrol stations and in our existing cars can easily be adapted to do.
I realise the EV bandwagon is rolling along nicely at the moment, but it will soon reach the limit of its range and its flimsy wheels will drop off. My recommendation to our MP would be to quickly and quietly get off that bandwagon, and to consider a more reliable and longer-lasting vehicle for her good intentions and her career – hydrogen energy.