Written evidence from Mr Robin Roberts (ELV0031)

As a motoring writer & editor for over 50 years including a decade as chairman or vice-chairman of the Western Group of Motoring Writers, I have been a part of and witnessed the rise of public motoring after WW2.

The popularity of the car came about as models proliferated and the network of roadside fuelling stations spread across Britain, encouraging demand for independent transport at affordable cost.

Historically it was the commercial sector and mail-coach which used roadside hostelries and became convenient “staging posts” for UK transport of the time, gradually replacing hay and water stops with fuel stations for the transport sector.

As the fuel stations proliferated, they came to serve the post-war boom in private car ownership and an extensive, comprehensive and reliable network developed.

The electric car was an early form of propulsion but its main drawback of short range and cost saw it overtaken by the fossil-fuelled internal combustion engine. There were specific forms of transport such as tram and trolley buses which offered an alternative to the ICE (internal combustion engine) using electric power.

These can and do still provide an alternative but necessitate careful fixed routes to be successful with designated charging points before or after a journey.

The electric omnibus can be more adventurous with its routing but still requires point to point recharging over a given distance and downtime may mean passengers have a slower overall journey or need to decamp onto another vehicle.

A scheduled bus route, as indeed a regular logistics delivery lorry, can use predetermined recharges at selected locations but their battery weight reduces passenger or goods capacity to comply with existing legislation, adding to journey costs and reducing efficiency. Vehicle weights and driver licensing legislation needs updating and attention.

I have experienced fuel-cell cars and they operate very effectively and simply and the technology can easily be applied to larger vehicles such as buses and lorries, not to mention trains and ships which, after all, export or bring in most of Britain’s trade. I understand research is also going on into hydrogen powered aeroplanes. The research and development of alternative green-fuels made from surplus crops, waste or chemically concocted in a laboratory and plant offer a real alternative to the restrictions of pure battery powered vehicles.

For the current range of electric vehicles I have driven a number of models from a manufacturers and have seen their practicalities improve in just a few years. The major automotive groups, eg Volkswagen for instance, apply the same technology throughout their marques but sometimes equip premium marques with bigger batteries to extend range and allow the fitting of more ‘desirable’ features, but at higher cost of course. There is a lot more knowledge and platform sharing going into these models than buyers realise and this helps to keep down costs.

However, the development and manufacturing costs of making small electric cars or vans may be prohibitive and mean those who can least afford an ev are effectively priced out of the buyers’ market while medium to larger models offer better returns for their makers. There is a real possibility of society being split by what is available to buy.

The recharging network has been built by individual companies, some with experience in the ICE fuels’ sector, while other businesses are coming in from the energy supply sector or are entirely new and have roots in other business chains, such as computers. This piecemeal process has created a variety of providers, with different processes to extract payment and has outstripped the National Grid’s ability to power up large swathes of Britain. Simply paying to use a major roadside recharging station I found the ultra modern facility did not accept credit cards, only debit cards, for instance. With others you have to download and pay through a mobile app, fine unless you have no wi-fi in a location. There is no all-embracing standard method of payment, costs are not clearly displayed on chargepoints, help is often a long phone-call away and the VAT levied is too high on public points. It also means there is less chance of a public charging point being located in more rural areas with reduced passing traffic.

Turning to home charging: VAT is lower but installation costs can be expensive for some already struggling to pay for their new electric car, or their higher insurance, because EVs are more expensive to repair if damaged or fail.

Apartment dwellers and those living on streets without a drive or in some cases with long gardens set back from a roads face great difficulties in getting a charge into a vehicle so must depend on public charging points and hubs. Where are these to be located adjacent to their homes?

Kebside charging needs a very comprehensive and high powered network which the National Grid will struggle to  provide at reasonable cost and how will it cope with outages if everyone plugs in almost simultaneously after coming home from work? If the National Grid turn-down power to balance demand, how will a user know they have enough charge to set off again?

Foreign travel is another issue as more remote places in Europe are not so well served and power points are not always as fast as the best in Britain, so this is an area of concern as well, although not within this current enquiry remit.

For the public charging network to be a success it demands many more points rapidly installed with minimum planning requirements or delays, for all existing multi-storie car parks to have floors of ev-only bays and out of town or major in-town shopping centres to be equipped with chargepoints even retrospectively if they are to compete with out of town malls. Our towns and city centres are struggling against the out of town locations and they can fight back with good charging networks installed offering reduced price power to match what the user would pay at home.

I believe we are about to enter a new and exciting phase in our automotive lives but like all journeys it demands proper planning and a back-up plan so we can safely arrive and look back at our grandchildren and say that was quite a trip.