Captain’s Blog – Electric Dreams

Electric vehicles are expected to make up more than a quarter of new cars this year alone, rising to a third in 2024. However, dinner with a friend and former colleague revealed that their penchant for electric vehicles is waning quickly, and I’ve a feeling they aren’t alone. They recently made a round trip of 150 miles in an electric car which was showing a range of much more but they still had to stop to find a charging point. Eventually they found one at a McDonalds drive through, the others were all either broken or had long queues. A three hour trip became an all-nighter. The tale led to a discussion about the infrastructure for EVs, or lack thereof, and how that will play out in 2030 when all new cars sold in the UK need to be EVs. We were in a swanky part of London for the dinner surrounded by houses worth tens of millions of pounds none of which had any charging points. Indeed it’s difficult to imagine a Mayfair street with cables running from cars to houses – the pavements would be unpassable and I’m led to believe it would be illegal anyway. What about the residents in the many tower blocks where only a tiny proportion of the building have underground parking where EV charging might be possible – how on earth will they charge their vehicles? Doing so mid journey doesn’t work as my friend found out and that’s with only a few EVs on the roads. If the Government in their infinite wisdom do stick with the 2030 target we will have far more cars than chargers. This is borne out by the recent revelation that there was only one new public charging point installed for every 62 EVs bought in the final three months of 2022. These figures are actually worse than the year prior which saw one charging point installed for every 42 EVs bought. In addition one of the major problems we as developers face is access to sufficient power for our schemes. Warehouses now consume vast amounts of power and again the development of the grid and related infrastructure has fallen way behind where it should be. We are currently looking at building a bespoke charging station at one of our sites and are struggling to find enough power to run it.

This seems to demonstrate a complete lack of joined up thinking by the Government. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to encourage the use of alternative fuels such as hydrogen or synthetic fuels? Japanese manufacturers believe in the former whilst Porsche is investing billions in the latter. Hydrogen cars can fill up in minutes and synthetic fuel is very similar to petrol so again filling up is quick and easy. EVs still take an age to charge properly and as my friend’s journey demonstrated they need topping up frequently. If we don’t embrace these alternative technologies, an EV strategy alone will not work. We won’t be able to build a charging network fit for purpose and we will struggle to provide enough electricity even if we could. Lithium (essential for modern batteries) is in short supply (and mined in awful conditions) and EVs still give off emissions – consider brake dust and tyre wear releasing compounds into the air. And yes petrol vehicles do too but EVs are heavier and therefore release more of these harmful substances. Finally think about the re-sale value of your EV (assuming you buy rather than lease). Horror stories abound regarding five year old EVs which are almost worthless when faults are discovered.

This isn’t a rant about EVs per se, rather it’s a rant against the muddled thinking and vote catching policies advanced by a Government more attracted to soundbites than any real strategy.