EVs Unplugged!

There are any number of reasons why the companies that run motorway service areas are unpopular with truck operators and drivers, including exorbitant pricing, poorquality parking, and shabby facilities, but it was a delight to hear Moto Hospitality boss Ken McMeikan explain the harsh reality of the Government’s decarbonisation ambitions on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Moto’s man explained that while he had installed car chargers in his network, on four service areas the chargers were doing nothing because there was insufficient capacity on the local electricity grid to power them.

He said that unless targets are set for power companies to provide enough power for charging points across the country, it will simply not be possible.

“Getting the right number of chargers is not a challenge,” he said. “Getting enough power for those chargers to actually operate well enough for EV drivers is a major, major problem.”

He explained: “There was a target set for the number of chargers by the end of 2023 that there would be at each motorway service area and that was a minimum of six.

“Sadly what there hasn’t been is a target set for the power companies of the amount of power that’s going to be required to operate those chargers and also a time commitment for the power companies of when that power would be made available ready for those chargers to start to operate.

“We have got a situation... where we’ve put sufficient chargers on four of our motorway service areas and the power required once the chargers were put in place is not available. So EV drivers are turning up to motorway services at four of our locations and there are chargers sitting there but no power.”

The situation would only get worse, he warned. By 2030 the “scale of power” required to meet demand for charging at motorway services would be 12 times what it is today.

“I don’t believe the grid at the moment has the infrastructure and the power available at the time that it’s going to be needed,” McMeikan said.

“What the government needs to do is they need to set targets on a year by year basis, side by side, region by region, to ensure that there is sufficient power to be able to operate the chargers.”

Indeed.

And what’s really worrying is that Mr McMeikan’s calculations appear not to include the specific charging needs of commercial vehicles.

It’s now apparent that the Government’s targets for ‘decarbonising’ transport by banning internal combustion engines have not been thought through, and are probably unattainable. After all, they were scribbled down in the last days of Theresa May’s premiership.

What would be more realistic would be to scrap the ban on internal combustion altogether, and instead set targets for a viable grid of vehicle recharging points. Electric vehicles could then compete, on their own merits, against other current and emergent technologies including efuels, hydrogen fuel cells and biomethane, with individual vehicle buyers choosing what works best for them.

This issue contains road-tests of two battery-electric vans: both of which have their merits, and also constraints that are unique to BEVs, including the inevitable range/payload compromises. We’ve also got news of a spectrum of workable alternatives to BEV, many of which are more suitable to the commercial environment and will work on existing vehicles, now. In the absence of a working national public charging grid, shouldn’t the Government at least create legislative space for them all in the UK?

Matthew Eisenegger, Publisher