Opinion

William Scholes: Electric cars can lead the charge in the 'green revolution'

William Scholes

William Scholes

William has worked at The Irish News since 2002. His areas of interest include religion and motoring.

In a vision of the future for Northern Ireland electric car owners, Gridserve has opened the UK's first 'electric forecourt' in Essex. The facility includes high speed wifi, shops, cafes, 'kids' zones' and exercise facilities. Picture by Jeff Spicer/PA Wire
In a vision of the future for Northern Ireland electric car owners, Gridserve has opened the UK's first 'electric forecourt' in Essex. The facility includes high speed wifi, shops, cafes, 'kids' zones' and exercise facilities. Pict In a vision of the future for Northern Ireland electric car owners, Gridserve has opened the UK's first 'electric forecourt' in Essex. The facility includes high speed wifi, shops, cafes, 'kids' zones' and exercise facilities. Picture by Jeff Spicer/PA Wire

HAVING forgotten about the bridge to Scotland, at least until he wants to troll Sammy Wilson again, Boris Johnson's latest transport-related Big Idea is to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030.

Having already gifted the world the Boris Bike and the Boris Bus, he now wants us to drive Boris Battery Cars.

The 2030 date, announced last month, is part of Johnson's plans for the 'green industrial revolution' which he argues will be an essential part of any post-coronavirus economic recovery.

The Dublin government has also committed itself to a 2030 ban.

There are already incentives to owning electric vehicles, or EVs.

The UK government has a grant scheme for EVs, currently worth £3,000, and will pay up to £350 towards the cost of a wallbox charger.

These give owners a permanent charging point at home and are regarded as essential for convenient and safe overnight recharging.

The vehicle excise duty regime also favours low emission cars. A zero-emission battery car costs nothing in road tax at the moment.

Company users and fleets, which represent just over half of new car sales, are another area the government has already targeted to reshape the new car market.

Typically, these drivers are sensitive to the benefit-in-kind tax liability their company car attracts. This rises and falls with their chosen car's CO2 emissions.

A zero-emission battery car registered this tax year attracts zero BIK - a saving that could be worth hundreds of pounds annually compared to the diesels that once dominated this market.

But if the government really wants to show it is serious about its electric car revolution, it needs to sort out the charging infrastructure

Carrots like these are why diesel is in the doldrums while EVs and plug-in hybrids have seen their market shares multiply this year, even as Covid-19 has hammered new car sales.

The government is obviously going to have to come up with a new way of taxing cars and recouping all the revenue it's going to lose as more and more people stop putting tax-dense petrol and diesel in their tanks.

But if governments want to further accelerate the adoption of EVs by those of us for whom the vagaries of BIK tax liabilities are irrelevant, it will need to explore other means.

That might include making petrol and diesel cars so expensive to own that owning an EV would make financial sense.

But if the government really wants to show it is serious about its EV revolution, it needs to sort out the charging infrastructure.

Electric car owners in Northern Ireland can only have looked on in envy this week as an outfit called Gridserve opened the UK's first charging station exclusively for EVs.

Located in Braintree in Essex, it's a hugely impressive set-up, allowing up to 36 cars to be charged simultaneously. Its 'superchargers' can pump out up to 350kW of power - the best the north's public network can muster is a smattering of 50kW units...

The facility's electricity comes from a network of solar 'farms'. The company plans to open more than 100 similar sites in the next five years as part of a £1 billion investment.

'Refuelling' will cost 24p per kWh, or unit. Gridserve estimates that recharging an average EV from 20 per cent to 80 per cent should cost less than £10.

In a vision of the future for Northern Ireland electric car owners, Gridserve has opened the UK's first 'electric forecourt' in Essex. The facility includes high speed wifi, shops, cafes, 'kids' zones' and exercise facilities. Picture by Jeff Spicer/PA Wire
In a vision of the future for Northern Ireland electric car owners, Gridserve has opened the UK's first 'electric forecourt' in Essex. The facility includes high speed wifi, shops, cafes, 'kids' zones' and exercise facilities. Pict In a vision of the future for Northern Ireland electric car owners, Gridserve has opened the UK's first 'electric forecourt' in Essex. The facility includes high speed wifi, shops, cafes, 'kids' zones' and exercise facilities. Picture by Jeff Spicer/PA Wire

That means the company can make a bit of money to begin to repay its capital costs and make a profit, which is obviously what a private company wants to do.

This wouldn't have been possible in Northern Ireland until earlier this year, when a long-awaited regulation change ended the 'maximum resale price' pass-through rule for public electric vehicle charging points.

'Electric forecourts' can't come soon enough, and when they do they will undoubtedly help to make EV ownership far more attractive and practical.

More accessible, too: today, an EV is really only viable if you can install a charger at your home; not everyone has a driveway or can park at their front door.