Written evidence from Dr Suresh Renukappa, Wahiba Erriadi, Dr Subashini Suresh, Professor Panagiotis Georgakis, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Wolverhampton (ELV0037)
Challenges for the Uptake of Electric Vehicles in the UK
Summary
Introduction
1. According to International Energy Agency (IEA), by the year 2030, the transportation sectors across the globe will be responsible for half of all Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (IEA, 2020). In the UK, 21% of all GHG emissions come from road transportation (Office of National Statistics, 2019). Such statistics highlights the growing contribution of the global transportation sector in the worsening climate crisis faced by the planet. As Lee and Clark (2018) noted significant overhaul of the global transportation industry is required to address the adverse effects of the sector on the climate. According to Chakravarty et al. (2011), the adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs) is one of the most effect strategies to reduce GHG emissions by the transportation industry.
2. Noussan et al. (2020) argue that shift towards electronification of vehicles will have immediate effects on the environment. According to their report, besides combating climate change, electric mobility will see reduced urban air pollutions. This is particularly important as air pollution has been linked with various adverse health outcomes for the population, forcing state and national governments to take steps to reduce air quality hazards. Moreover, the advances in technology have significantly reduced the costs associated with EVs (IEA, 2020).
Challenges of uptake of EVs: Literature findings
3. Environmental concerns among the public, and reduced technological costs associated with electrification of transportation allowed governments to have bigger commitments to further increase electrification of the vehicles. In the UK, government decided to ban the sales of all petrol or diesel vehicles from 2030 (Harrabin, 2020). Moreover, leading vehicle manufacturers such as Ford, Volkswagen, Renault-Nissan, BMW, Volvo and others have dramatically increased their electric vehicle products (McGee, 2017). Various industry reports indicate considerable increase in the sales of EVs in largest vehicle markets such as the US, China, UK (IEA, 2020). However, despite the favourable changes towards customer adoption of EVs, there remains challenges and barriers halting the rate of adoption in the UK and around the world. Study conducted by Sierzchula et al. (2014) found that lack of charging infrastructure and other barriers are preventing many customers from purchasing EVs.
4. The ambitious growth of EVs adoption by the masses requires success and comprehensive transition of the EVs infrastructure including EVs charging infrastructure. Survey of the literature indicates that EVs charging infrastructure is one the key enables of EVs uptake. This indicates that transition from petrol or diesel vehicles to EVs require the presence of widely available charging stations so that drivers will feel more confident to switch to EVs.
5. Among the empirical studies that explore the importance of electric charging stations, study conducted by Sierzchula et al. (2014) is a notable one. In their study, they examined the importance of various factors of EVs market penetration such as financial incentives, model availability, and local manufacturing. Based on the regression analysis on the data collected from 30 countries, their study found that public EVs charging infrastructure to be the best indicator for EVs market penetration. Their study also concluded that public charging infrastructure is more important factor than financial incentives. Sierzchula et al. (2014) found that addition of an extra public charging station per 100,000 residents has double the effect on EVs market share compared to providing additional financial incentive of 1,000 USD. The findings of this study are supported by the subsequent similar studies. For instance, study conducted by Hall and Lutsey (2017) with the data from 50 US large metropolitan cities in the US also concluded that public charging stations are the strongest predictor of EVs adoption. Furthermore, Berkeley et al. (2017) and Levinson and West (2017) have made the similar conclusion.
6. The charging market is still in the early stages, hence considerable amount of uncertainty remains regarding how the service is to be provided to the customers as well as what policies governments need to adopt to support the deployment of the charging infrastructure. Studies (see Markkula et al. 2013; Madina, Zamora and Zabala, 2016; Wiederer and Philip, 2010) highlighted other barriers that are prevalent to charging market. These barriers include the need for high investment costs for development and uncertainty of the usage. Therefore, private investors and companies are not willing to enter into charging infrastructure market, resulting in sluggish rate of growth for EV charging infrastructure and networks.
7. Besides the challenges related to charging infrastructure, studies have highlighted a number of other challenges. For instance, study conducted by Sierzchula et al. (2014) found that higher initial costs of EVs deter customers from purchasing EVs. Also, study conducted by Roberson and Helveston (2020) also pointed out that customers are deterred by lack of choices in EVs. However, as Frost and Guillaume (2016) pointed out increased demand and technological advances have allowed the manufacturers to reduce the cost of the EVs and make the EVs more accessible to mass market. Frost and Guillaume (2016) also pointed out that increased competition in the market is also increasing choice of EVs in the market.
8. Moreover, while changed consumer behaviour helped to increase EVs adoption, study conducted by Fischer and Keating (2020) highlighted that EVs are not by default environmentally friendly, rather it depends on the electricity that is used to fuel the vehicles. Since, the source of electricity of those EVs are yet to fully come from renewable sources, many customers are not convinced that adoption of EVs help to reduce environmental impact.
9. Lee and Clark (2018) in their working paper further highlighted the battery level and charging time also have negative influence on the customers. According to them, customers need to plan their journey by taking into account not only the availability of charging stations, but also driving range of their vehicle and the length of recharging time in their journey planning. The report published by Bhargava et al. (2021) highlighted that innovative solution such as Tesla superchargers are addressing recharging time, but superchargers are not available everywhere and other manufacturers are yet to implement similar solutions. Therefore, the industry at least for now has not managed to address the length of recharge times for their EVs.
10. The issue of limited driving range is also highlighted in the study of Adhikari et al. (2020), who conducted survey of the industry experts to determine the barriers of EV adoption. They also found that customers have negative perception towards the reliability of battery. Although the perception has improved in the recent years, customers found conventional vehicle more reliable and they have greater confidence in conventional fuel than battery-run EVs.
11. Song and Potoglou (2020) in their literature review also highlighted lack of technical expertise and knowledge among the customers, especially older customers are deterrent for EV adoption. Furthermore, study conducted by Zhang et al. (2015) using survey of the customers also highlighted the negative impact of EV charging on electricity Grid and Non-standardisation of energy providers to have negative impact on EVs adoption by the customers.
12. Even though most of energy and environmental policies around the world have established targets with the objective of shifting from traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles to electrified transport, the share of electric vehicles (EV) remains somewhat low. Encouraging more people to adopt EVs is at the heart of the government's efforts in order to tackle climate change. However, challenges are hindering and slowing the process of implementing this sustainable technology in the UK.
Challenges of uptake of EVs: Empirical findings
13. Brownstone et al (2000) identified that EVs upfront cost is the most significant obstacle to adopt this technology. Recent studies have identified factors like; environmentalism, customer income and level of education, that can positively link to the probability to adopt and purchase EVs. However, Lane and Potter (2007) noted that consumers are more interested in the price rather than the above factors making the high cost of EVs the major barrier to its widespread. The interviewee EVS4 has explained that the high cost of the EVs is mainly due to their expensive batteries:
“The cost could be a barrier again usually EVs are more expensive than conventional vehicles because the battery is very expensive”.
Furthermore, IEA (2011) agreed that the high cost of EVs is down to the high battery cost which is critical for market entry and acceptance of EVs. Similarly, EVS5 mentioned the high price issue as a significant barrier:
“I think at the moment the initial price point is quite significant”.
From the above statement it is clear that consumers are aware that EVs cost more than internal combustion engine vehicles, and this could act as a deterrent to potential positive purchase. However, consumers should take into consideration the total cost of ownership, including the allowance of subsidies, the fuelling cost and the length of ownership.
14. Adopters of EVs are fronting several and significant constraints in finding available and adequate charging points. The lack of charging points is an important and crucial factor that hinders the diffusion of EVs (Globisch et al., 2019). Figenbaum (2018) posits that in the current stage, EVs often have limited access to public charging facilities. The shortage of charging facilities justifies the dissatisfaction of the charging demand. For instance, the interviewee EVS5 noted that:
“The charging infrastructure just doesn’t really there yet at the UK. I am not actually able to charge my vehicle at home”.
EVS1 agrees to EVS2 and stated:
“Challenges and hinders in implementing electric vehicles is the infrastructure, purely and simply really there are not enough charging points for the vehicles that predicted to be on the road”.
Analysing interviewee’s statement, it is clear that the deficiency of public infrastructure as well as the lack of confidence in the existing one is making EVs unattractive for many users and influencing their decision. Moreover, many interviewees highlighted that the UK has become aware about the fact that charging availability is a significant barrier to the EV diffusion. Therefore, government must encourage investors to invest and attract them to cooperate on EV charging infrastructure by giving subsidies.
15. EVs drivers should always monitor the driving distance and schedule the recharging time, which raises many challenges. They are determined to be the understanding of EVs users’ choices of recharging time period while working and the determination of the best location to build recharging stations. According to Ke et al (2019), EVs users should deal with long recharging periods and arranging their recharging time in order to reduce the recharging cost. EVs drivers can easily lose a large amount of money when recharging in high-profitable periods or using rapid chargers when they are travelling long distances. In other words, the price of charging during the night is cheaper than daytime.
The interviewee EVS5 highlights this issue:
“On 7KWt charging at the university it takes probably 3 to 3.5 hours which is great if I am at the university but still long hours and on the rapid chargers, I will probably stop about half an hour and that will get me up not to quite full, about 80%, sometimes I feel anxious about the situation and few chargers around are not helping much either”
Recharging batteries takes much longer time with minimum of 30 min to several hours (Pan et al 2010), and the interviewee EV1 confirms it by stating:
“The other sort of barrier is the charging technology, for example, on sort of normal, most of normal charging stations, they are 7KWt, that means my car which wasn’t a big car, for a full charge, I needed about 4h, of course now they have like a rapid charging stations in many places especially motorway services with 50KWt, that means you can charge your car in about 40min”
Moreover, Dong et al (2014) highlighted that the additional stops and waiting time are disturbing and causing an inconvenience to the driver’s original plan.
16. Lack of knowledge and unfamiliarity with EVs are the most commonly cited barrier to fleet consumers. Due to the fact that consumers are unfamiliar or have little knowledge about EVs, they hesitate to make any purchase. Unlike consumers with better knowledge about EVs and perceived lower risk of using them that are more likely to adopt them (Carley et al., 2013). As interviewees EVS3 and EVS4 pointed out:
“I think another quite important aspect is the awareness for the public. I mean not every member of the public knows exactly what electric vehicle means, may be how it works may be this wrong perception of the autonomy, people think oh I’m going to run out of electricity in the middle of road they might see electric vehicles like that”.
It is valuable, significant, and meaningful to explore consumers’ intention to adopt EVs from psychological perspective. This is because some studies have shown that psychological factors and their effects are important in EVs adoption (Egbue and Long, 2012).
It is clear that people with higher levels of education are more likely to consider purchasing EVs. Likewise, higher levels of education correlate with greater rates of early adoption of new technologies (Wozniak, 1987). EVS4 has validated this point by stating that her parents with high level of education has purchased EV since 2000.
17. International Energy Agency (2016) has identified transportation as an important sector for GHG mitigation to support global climate commitments. EVs generation is the biggest contributor to climate change. Hence, carbon-free transportation requires a carbon free- grid. However, EV adoption is not a magic fix to reduce carbon emissions linked to transportation. The reduction will happen when renewable sources such hydrogen and biodiesel is used for the manufacturing process and energy production (Small ,2019). The below statement of the interviewee EVS6 confirms that electric cars are not a zero-carbon solution, but they only can be a zero-carbon technology if the energy used come from renewable sources.
“It is only a zero-carbon fantasy, I think electric cars are not a zero-carbon solution. They may not generate the normal exhaust pipe emissions, but even if all of the UK’s electricity was from renewable sources, there would still be an environmental cost”.
Analysis of the interviewee’s statement reveals that EVs will not provide a solution for GHG and CO2 mitigations because the electricity sector has not been fully decarbonized. Hausfather (2019) argued that greenhouse gas emissions run on electricity that is still produced from fossil fuels including the energy used to manufacture and distribute EVs in particular batteries. Furthermore, the process of destroying deteriorated batteries involves the use of substantial CO2 emissions.
18. The use of EVs is spreading slowly due to the limited driving range and limited charging spots. Kim et al (2008) stated that when users travel long distances, they are continuously worried that the energy in the battery will not carry them to their destination. As a result, the consumers become anxious when it comes to recharging their vehicles. Krupa et al (2014) explained that even if consumers are attracted by the Government’s incentives and want to respond to climate change by purchasing EVs, they are still hesitating due to limited driving range anxiety. This anxiety is mainly coming from recharging their vehicles as it is shown in the statement given by the interviewee EVS2:
“So yeah I am anxious. There are only few chargers around where I live, and this certainly is not helping much”.
From the above statement, it is evident that drivers are facing limited driving range and considering it as a barrier even if they have experience driving EVs and knew that this challenge will be sorted with technological advancement. In summary, even if EVs enable an efficient and clean transportation, users have concerns about range anxiety and degradation impede electrical vehicles adoption.
19. One of the challenges and potential technical barriers that should be overcome in order to increase EVs penetration into the vehicle sector is the non-standardization of energy providers. The first and possibly most obvious consequence of any increase in the value of EVs is the increase in electricity demand. This is due to the requirement needed for supply and distribution of electrical energy (Brown, Pyke and Steenhof, 2010). At the distribution phase, consumers find that, in order to charge their EVs in different charging points, they must have different membership cards for different electricity suppliers which could be costly for the users. For instance, the interviewee EVS4 noted that:
“But the ones you know in the services you actually to pay and of course there is different providers that’s another barrier maybe you need some sort of standardization in terms of the providers in the charging station because for example you might need to have different providers had different charging stations you might have two, three different cards to be able to charge at different stations, because not like one card can do it all, so again maybe standardization that could help, that means it’s one type and with some providers you need some mobile applications as well but again if you have many providers you need to have many applications, it gets more difficult for people to manage that, so standardization of the provision and how people access it and pay for it could actually be a barrier as well”.
The interviewee EVS5 backs the statement above and stated:
“At the moment it is a part of the issue of charging, it is not very universal, you can pay a subscription to different charging networks, and if you pay the subscription and they reduce the fee at the charging point but obviously you paying that subscription charge”.
Therefore, membership cards should be universal to ease and simplify the charging to the users. Also, the use of smart charging through mobile applications especially in the absence of the physical cards would facilitate the charging task for the users. Furthermore, new performance standards and regulations for the energy providers will be important not only in terms of the EVs itself but also in terms of the country’s charging infrastructure.
Recommendations
20. Consumers should take into consideration the total cost of ownership, including the allowance of subsidies, the fuelling cost, and the length of ownership. Most EVs users charge their vehicle at home overnight and are expected to continue doing so, although workplace charging could also play an important role. Moreover, the price of charging during the night is cheaper than the daytime.
21. The Government must encourage investors to invest and attract them to cooperate on EVs charging infrastructure by giving subsidies. The Government supports at the purchase is essential to ensure that all motorists will be able to benefit from EVs. Government and auto industry should mitigate the need for standardisation in infrastructure for accessible and convenient charging points. Furthermore, new performance standards and regulations for the energy providers will be important not only in terms of the EVs itself but also in terms of the country’s charging infrastructure. Government must use its power to push towards sustainable energy sources and to control that the energy used during manufacturing and distribution of EVs comes from sustainable sources.
22. Membership cards should be universal to ease and simplify the charging to the users. Also, the use of smart charging through mobile applications especially in the absence of the physical cards would facilitate the charging task for the users. The private sector and government are working in isolation to each other. To accelerate the e-mobility uptake and to bridge the gap, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive business model canvas that links different stakeholders for effective and efficient implementation of EVs charging system.