Podcast: Chris Pateman-Jones

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THE EVERYTHING EV PODCAST

Chris Pateman-Jones:

The ‘step-change’ for the UK’s EV ambitions

Connected Kerb CEO, Chris Pateman-Jones, joined The Everything EV Podcast to discuss the charging firm’s latest report and how the government can gear up its switch to electric vehicles.

What does an electric future really look like? Following the Government’s recent landmark announcement, which revealed plans to have 300,000 charging points by 2030, the answer for many will be a vast network of fast-charging EV hubs that can have cars charged in 20 minutes and on their way again. However, for Chris Pateman-Jones, the CEO of EV charging firm Connected Kerb, the priority is ensuring anybody and everybody can make the switch to an electric vehicle, a process that begins by making EV charging affordable and accessible to everyone. “The whole focus of Connected Kerb is to provide convenient, affordable and reliable charging infrastructure for those that can’t charge on driveways,” he said on The Everything EV Podcast. In order to achieve that ultimate goal, Connected Kerb published its report entitled ‘How to meet the UK’s EV charging needs by 2030’ which called for a “step change” in the ambition of the UK’s EV charging rollout to deliver the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars. “We tried to develop a report that provides a balanced review as to what charging infrastructure is needed,” Pateman-Jones said, outlining the premise of the report. “Most investment has gone into rapids and is now going into ultra-rapids, and there is a degree to say that it is falling behind in the on-street, residential and workplace setting. The report is trying to show with data that it is an important area that is being missed out and there are going to be people left behind.” Although Connected Kerb is focused on bringing convenient and affordable charging solutions to those that cannot charge at home, the company is also setting its sights on rolling out an expansive network of accessible chargepoints. Working alongside Motability, the disability charity which also backed the report, PatemanJones said Connected Kerb is now working to ensure its network is suitable for all users. He said: “We’re doing some really interesting work with Motability and some of their partners on the accessibility of our network, and us making some public commitments on how many accessible bays we will have in that 10-12,000 that we have contracted and going forward. “It’s something that is really important to us. We started the business with the idea of accessibility being around affordability and economic accessibility when we very quickly realised that it was a lot more than that, and disabled accesses and vulnerability is something we should think about. We have done redesigns of our bays to make sure accessibility is included within that.” In the report, Connected Kerb made a number of suggestions to government on how it could accelerate the UK’s transition to electric vehicles, with a number of recommendations which ranged from focussing on future-proofed, long-life durable chargers to launching an education programme to inform the public of the benefits of electric vehicles. However, the report also mapped out a real-world example of how government could electrify the NHS, a project that could potentially light the fuse on a mass-migration to electric vehicles. Pateman-Jones explained: “In reports like these, it’s all pontificating over theory, and we thought let’s put this practically as to how you might do this and how you might give central government more responsibility as well. “At the moment, it would be fair to say that central government has set targets and provided funding, but they haven’t really done a huge amount in actual tangible work. What they’ve done is passed on the responsibility of deployment to local authorities. So we thought ‘what is the biggest employer in the UK?’ which is the NHS and the government has direct influence over those estates and the government also has a very attractive salary sacrifice and vehicle scheme for NHS workers. “Those three things combined offer a massive opportunity to see a governmental body taking a real lead in deploying charging. It is a workforce that spans all the parts of society from a socioeconomic perspective, and it’s also an equal opportunities employer. It does a lot of things which means it would be a really good example to see this being deployed. One where other bodies can look at it and go’ if it’s good enough for the NHS, which is a body we really respect, let’s go for this.’ With a million employees, there’s a lot of vehicles involved in that, so there’s a real opportunity to see a quick transition.” Scan the QR code for the full episode: