Electric vehicles: A chicken and egg challenge

Government figures released in July showed that in the second quarter of the year, public electric vehicle charging devices increased by 7 per cent on the previous quarter, meaning there are now 24,374 available across the country. Of these, 4,551 are rapid chargers, able to charge vehicles to 80 per cent within 40 minutes. 

Further research suggests that of all the electric vehicles registered in 2020, 68 per cent were from fleets, meaning businesses are taking steps to contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions from vehicles that spend huge amounts of time on the road compared to domestic vehicles.

On the face of it, the data shines a positive light on the electric vehicle landscape; the numbers suggest the infrastructure required and incentives introduced to encourage more people and businesses to use EVs is moving in the right direction. But are the figures a truly accurate reflection of our green credentials in the UK? 

Experts suggest not, pointing that there is very little clarity on what’s used to power charging stations – and that potentially, the majority are fuelled by a carbon-based supply. If this is the case, what’s being presented as an increasingly green solution to get petrol and diesel cars off the road may not quite be as clear cut as originally thought.

So, what’s standing in the way of achieving that ambition? What are energy suppliers doing to make sure charging stations are truly sustainable and using green supplies, and what more support do businesses need to ramp up their efforts and create entirely electric fleets? We spoke to Sarah Bateman, CEO of Unify Energy to find out more.

The view from businesses

“Lots of companies are really passionate about the difference that could be made to the planet if they had purely electric fleets, so many have already set targets to achieve that within the next five years. But currently, the majority are at the very start of that journey. Some might have one or two electric vehicles, or perhaps a handful of hybrids, but most have a long way to go.

“For them to reach their targets will require a lot of change in terms of EV infrastructure but some will have a continued problem when it comes to the number of miles their vehicles do, and the load capacity of commercial vehicles such as vans.

“The majority of electric vehicles can only complete around 110 miles before they require charging and for a van carrying heavy equipment, that will reduce significantly. Quite simply, it currently makes zero business sense for those vehicles to become electric because they would have to be recharged several times a day in order to complete their jobs. Businesses would lose masses of billable hours, eating into their chargeable time, which would then have a huge impact on their bottom line.

“So much investment has been put into incentivising the procurement of electric vehicles, but that’s not being balanced out – or better, outweighed – by the investment into infrastructure, or into the batteries powering the vehicles themselves, to improve their capabilities. More investment is coming from car manufacturers themselves, rather than government, to install private charging points at people homes, but there are no specific targets in place as they’re not regulated – or obliged – to take on that challenge. So, while the news that the number of charging stations is increasing is a positive step, their locations are still so sporadic that it is a chore for an EV user to seek them out. 

“Businesses are setting EV targets because they believe in the cause, and it will help meet their sustainability and net carbon zero objectives, but there is currently very little cost benefit supporting them to make the huge step, because doing so gives them little competitive advantage. Their and our hope is that big change is coming, and that there is a point in the future when businesses use nothing other than electric vehicles for their fleet.”

The view from energy suppliers

“Thinking about it from a different perspective, and that of energy suppliers, the shift to electric vehicles presents a huge opportunity. That said, not enough suppliers are taking the right steps or are waving the flag for what is actually possible in terms of making EV infrastructure truly green. 

“Green washing the energy supplied to charging stations doesn’t make it green, it’s still brown (fossil fuel) energy, whichever way you look at it. This approach is masking the real problem, and putting a marketing spin on it to create ‘positive’ figures which are actually quite misleading will just foster distrust in something that could be so brilliant. 

“As a supplier, our role in this is to strike partnerships which overcome all of these challenges, and which make it easier for our customers to convert their fleets to electric vehicles. We’re not EV charger experts, but we are energy experts. 

“So, we work with partners that, for example, can install and maintain the infrastructure to charge EVs, then we supply the energy to the unit itself.  We can work with landlords who have existing charging points on site to understand the hours their stations are typically out of use, so we can encourage people to charge out of hours rather than the power being lost to the grid. 

“Having a lack of nationally-available, granular data on infrastructure and supply is what’s making the shift to EVs harder; no-one can quantify how big the problem is or identify the root cause because there’s no transparency of the full risk or threat posed to us of not changing to EVs en mass. It feels very chicken and egg. 

“In the short term, we’d advocate being smarter about how you use your current fleet in order to reduce your carbon emissions. Use technology to help you plan the most efficient routes and cluster jobs thereby reducing the amount of time spent on the road. There’ll also be cost benefits to this in terms of using less petrol and the potential ability to increase the number of site visits in a day.

“The majority of people do actively want to move away from traditionally fuelled vehicles – and that’s a great place to be. Big advances have been made, and technology is evolving at a faster pace for EV than it ever has done for traditional vehicles. As an energy business, our priority is ensuring that the invisible supply powering these changes is as sustainable as possible, and we aim to do this without the need for green washing and brown fuel to supply EV infrastructure. That’s absolutely possible, but greater collaboration is needed across the field to achieve it.”