A week before the Autumn Statement, fleets have been encouraged by an anticipated change in electric vehicle recharging costs.
New government comments on tackling charging “inequity” are good news for fleets when it comes to future electric vehicle adoption, says FleetCheck.
It hopes to see a massive drive to install more charge points, build up the national grid to support the power surge and realignment and reduction of VAT on retail sites to match the tax taken through home chargers.
Louise Haigh, transport secretary, has told the Press Association that the new Labour administration wants to remove barriers around public perception of charging infrastructure, and also change the “too big inequity across the country” when it comes to access to charging.
Peter Golding (above), managing director at the fleet software specialist, said, “We’ve been saying for some time that the biggest issue with EV adoption – and this is true for both cars and vans – remains charging infrastructure. While the raw figures say charging is growing quickly, it remains patchy in ways that affect both fleets and the public.”
The key problems were geographical in both a local and a national sense, he added. “Locally, if you live in a terraced street or an apartment and don’t have a drive, then you probably don’t have access to overnight charging. This most likely means that you’re going to have to use a public charger at a filling station, which is going to be expensive and inconvenient.
“This is bad news in several ways. It makes it difficult for potential company car and van drivers to electrify even if they have workplace charging, and also for potential used vehicle customers to make the switch, too. There needs to be massive expansion of low cost, on street charging.
“Nationally, there are simply areas of the country where there isn’t much charging. Head out of towns and cities, and access to any charging is often poor and sometimes non-existent. Again, this makes running an EV difficult for both fleets and individuals.”
Peter said that it was just as important, and arguably more so, for used vehicle customers to be able to access the charging they needed as for fleets.
“If used car and van buyers don’t think it is practical for them to electrify in terms of cost and availability of charging, then the used EV market won’t function properly and absorb the kinds of numbers of cars that will soon be appearing. This is essential for fleet electrification.”
In her comments, the transport secretary said that the charging issue would be tackled in future spending rounds but Peter said that more needed to be done quickly to make visible changes as soon as possible.
“We need increasing numbers of chargers but we also need them in places that help to change perception. If you are living in an area of terraced houses or a part of the country where there are few or no visible chargers, then having some appear locally is important. Seeing them in use introduces the idea of an EV as a practical proposition.”
