Tom Bloor, Managing Director of evec, discusses the need to make EV chargers cheaper and more accessible to ensure a successful transition.
Despite what you may read in some publications, there appears to be a promising future for the EV industry in the UK. Firstly, the new Labour Government has said that it will reinstate the goal of phasing out new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, while the Conservative’s target of reaching 300,000 public chargers by 2030, up from around 65,000 today, remains in place. What’s more, sales don’t appear to be coming to a halt, with a fifth of all new vehicles registered in the UK being electric.
Despite the promising signs, however, there are some big holes in these ambitions and several stumbling blocks for further growth – especially if the UK is going to have the EV-dominated transport system it needs. Innovation by EV charger firms and the Government is essential.
Let’s start off with a problem that plagues many – charging an electric car or van at home is still impractical. Millions of us live in terraced houses or flats. The Government wants to build 1.5 million new homes, but how many of them will be large properties with private drives?
We need to find more realistic, secure ways of running a charging lead from inside a property to a car.
Cable gully charge solutions have been tried successfully in a few locations, and economies of scale and cheaper ways of installing them need to be found, along with stronger cables that give users peace of mind.
Many chargers are controlled by apps. This should mean that only the EV owner can turn them on or off. While there are some excellent control systems out there, we need them all to become as secure as the electronic banking systems we are happy to put our trust in, every day.
The Government and EV firms need to innovate to drive down the current cost of public charging, currently as much as 79p per kWh. This presents a significant barrier to widespread electric vehicle adoption as the high cost of public charging at the majority of EV charging points can deter potential EV owners from making the switch to electric vehicles.
That high cost could also take away one of the inherent benefits of owning an EV – the ability to charge your car while popping to the shop, as many will find it too expensive. Thankfully, some EV brands are already trying to reduce this cost, which in turn will enable more people to make the switch to EVs and drive people to public chargers.
Telsa, for example, charges around 52p per kWh, with the UK average price being 48p per kWh. So, prices are becoming more stable, but clever thinking is needed to make these prices lower across the board.
The 300,000 public charger target is likely to be woefully short of what we’ll need to keep all EVs running. Ways of developing and installing sustainable ultra-fast-charging DC units of up to 300 kW, which currently cost £30,000 or more, must be found so that every housing estate can have enough to service as many homes as possible.
The likes of office buildings and university campuses, meanwhile, should be better supplied by chargers that can power-up cars quickly without the need for hugely expensive units. Operating large lorries or fleets of delivery trucks need powerful chargers too, so innovative pricing is vital for affordable industry use.
New electric cars are starting to emerge that cost just £15,000 or more, such as the Dacia Spring. But EVs will still be the preserve of the relatively well-off, while domestic 3.7kW or 7.4kW EV chargers cost £1,000 or more.
Consumers might save money on petrol in the long run, with domestic chargers costing 10p/kWh or less, but that sort of initial outlay is beyond most people. They probably wouldn’t pay that much for a dishwasher or TV, so why would they do so for what seems like a much simpler device?
We have work to do as a sector to make chargers more affordable. There can be a tendency with tech companies to focus on the likes of funky display panels, but EV chargers should be functional, accessible parts of daily life.
It’s also of great importance to enable more chargers to harness solar power and vehicle-to-grid options. The latter allows consumers to import electricity when it’s at its cheapest then sell any excess back to the grid.
EV charging is a young industry that has always moved intelligently and quickly to solve problems. But, now more than ever, we must redouble our efforts, if a national transport infrastructure without petrol or diesel is to be a real prospect.
