BYD plots UK growth in cars and energy storage
BYD plots UK growth in cars and energy storage
The latest news from Britain's EV sector
Hello, I’m Tom Riley, and welcome back to The Fast Charge, a British EV newsletter.
Top stories in today’s edition… BYD makes numerous hires to its UK team, Tesla’s ex-HQ in London becomes a ‘drug den’, and Cornwall says it needs a tenfold increase in chargers by 2030.
But first… to the many of you who signed up recently… thank you for joining! Each week you can expect to receive a digest of the latest EV stories that matter in the UK, insights from experts across the sector, regular analysis, special exclusives, and interviews.
Typically, this newsletter will arrive on a Tuesday at 11am – this week it hasn’t on account of me suffering a flu sent by Satan.
As regular readers will know, I always welcome thoughts, ideas, or challenges. The easiest way to get in touch is by replying to this email (or my contact details are at the end).
Anyway, I hope in 2024 you continue to find this newsletter useful. I’m already working on several exciting stories and I look forward to what this year will bring. ⚡
BYD expands UK team and plots energy storage sites
Background: The year kicked off with the headline news that Chinese carmaker, BYD, had overtaken Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of EVs. In the last quarter of 2023, BYD (which stands for Build Your Dreams) sold 526,000 EVs, versus Tesla that only mustered 484,000. Many commentators have suggested this underlines the trend in markets towards more affordable cars, versus those which come at a premium price.
Summary: BYD got their UK sales going in early 2023, primarily with the Atto 3, Dolphin, and more latterly the Seal. These all have slightly lower price points compared to European manufacturers of similar vehicles. However, they are by no means the cheapest EVs around – as some have suggested. There are comparable cars that are cheaper.
New hires: BYD looks set to grow its customer base significantly in Britain. In the past week alone, BYD UK has recruited new talent to run the company’s PR, marketing, and events, according to posts on LinkedIn. The carmaker is also readying to open its first UK store at Westfield shopping centre in London. The store will likely feature BYD’s cars for passing shoppers to browse and act as a base for test drives. This approach has previously worked very well for carmakers like Polestar and Tesla – the latter still has a base at Westfield.
Only cars?… It seems BYD isn’t just looking to grow its car sales in the UK, it’s also seemingly got plans in motion for rolling out new energy storage systems in England too. At present, the carmaker is recruiting numerous engineers to work on projects in the country. Rather than a battery for people’s homes – as some other carmakers do – it seems BYD anticipates building larger battery storage in the UK with business customers. As context, pages about their storage products in China here, and the US one here.
Target areas? According to an engineer job spec, the storage sites will be located in the South East, South of England, East of England, South West, and the Midlands. Similar to BYD’s cars, these developments could potentially undercut UK and European competition, as BYD benefits from having its own dedicated battery supply, meaning costs are significantly reduced compared to other developers. We’ll have to wait and see!
Tesla boosts Manchester as London showroom shuts
Background: In November, I revealed that Tesla UK had moved its headquarters from London to Manchester. And, since then, over Christmas, I’ve noticed three things…
Firstly… The company has been hiring for several new roles in the Manchester area, such as in sales and vehicle support.
Secondly… Tesla has now fully moved out of its previous HQ and showroom in West London – which it has been in since 2016. It’s now on the market with Knight Frank, and I took this picture below of the front about a week ago – no more Tesla branding.
Lastly… In a strange turn, it seems with Tesla moving out, London’s local people have decided to use the former showroom as a sort of Billingsgate Market for drugs – as there have been several arrests of late. One resident told me it had become a ‘den’. A report in ChiswickW4 refers to “a large number of people” being escorted from the ex-Tesla showroom in late December for drugs. It’s believed they were using the basement.
Top EV news last week…
💡 This week at CES 2024, BT unveiled grand plans to repurpose about two-thirds of its 90,000 ‘green boxes’, which sit on streets across Britain, as on-street charge points. BT is launching a pilot scheme in Scotland. Tom Guy, Managing Director at BT Group says: “Our new charging solution is a huge step in bringing EV charging kerbside and exploring how we can address key barriers customers are currently facing.” Read more.
📏 Elsewhere at CES, it seems several carmakers have been talking about reducing weight and boosting the efficiency of their vehicles, so the batteries can go further. BBC has a story.
🚗 How will Honda’s cars look in the future? At CES, the carmaker revealed some punchy-looking prototypes – the Saloon and the Space-hub. The Saloon gives off pretty big Lambo vibes. Apparently, these two preview the themes that will soon be common for all new Honda EVs. See more.
🚙 If you want to keep on top of all the cars that were unveiled, Autocar has a list here.
🧮 Last Friday, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders published their latest figures for December. What they revealed is the number of full-fat EVs had reduced by -34.2% compared to one year earlier. This was expected, as it’s thought many carmakers have been holding out for the ZEV mandate to start this month. Elsewhere, the numbers confirmed a new record for yearly EV sales – totaling 314,687. Read more.
🚚 While a lot of media outlets suggested EV sales had ‘flatlined’, in non-car news, it was lovely to see that electric van sales were 74% in December compared to one year before.
📈 According to Zap-Map, there are now 53,906 chargers in the UK – a 45% increase year-on-year. The biggest surge was in ultra-rapid chargers* - those Zap-Map classes as faster than 100kW - which grew by 112% year-on-year to 4,869. Elsewhere, and slightly worryingly, slow <7kW chargers only increased by 65% year-on-year (or by 5,814). Those chargers, such as lampposts, offer options for people without driveways. They should be getting installed in much higher numbers in my mind.
⏰ Save the date! Speak of the devil, the next official release of charge point statistics by DfT is 31 January at 9.30am. I’ll be sharing my analysis on 6th February.
To note*, to the frustration of much of the charging sector, the UK government recently reclassified ultra-rapid chargers as faster than 150kW, and slow chargers as 3-8kW. This means, that when the government publishes its official figures later in January, expect these breakdowns above to look different.
✈️ Talking of new EV chargers, Gridserve has opened its latest charging hub at Gatwick Airport. The forecourt has 24-hour-charging for 30 vehicles plus a lounge, wi-fi, toilets, and a cafe. Read more.
🔌 Cornwall Council has said it needs up to 4,500 more chargers in the region by 2030, while currently it only has 408. A new strategy published by the council is being consulted on and has estimated a quarter of visitors (27%) could be arriving by EV in 2030. Get involved here.
💷 Speaking of Cornwall… the energy analysts at Cornwall Insight have suggested that, even with the shift to renewables, growing demand is “predicted to keep prices above pre-2021 levels for years to come.” Read the thread.
📬 Talking of energy, in July 2023 I flagged in this newsletter that Tesla was recruiting for a Head of Operations to run and launch its new retail energy offer: Tesla Electric. It seems, more than six months later, the company is still struggling to fill the role – despite getting over 100 applications!
🔋 Good news for battery innovation, as UK companies can now apply for a share of up to £1.5m for engagement with the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC). Learn more.
👷 Now that the UK and EU have agreed to a rules of origin ceasefire until 2026, we need to quickly build a home supply of materials. Evidently, we need to try harder, as yesterday the US firm GDI, which builds silicon anodes, got EU funding to build in Germany. Ben Kilbey, Founder of Bold Voodoo and a spokesman for GDI, commented: “Scalability is one of the biggest hurdles for all businesses. By partnering with established European enterprises such as AGC and Schlenk, GDI has a clear roadmap to industrial manufacturing and then on to Europe’s first silicon anode gigafactory. Since seeing the news I’ve had industrial contacts of mine reaching out asking when can GDI do the same in the UK.”
🏗️ According to the FT, Chinese carmaker Chery is considering building a factory in the UK this decade. The company, which is the ninth biggest automotive business in China, is getting ready to launch its ‘Omoda’ brand in the UK this Spring, which will consist of petrol, hybrid, and electric cars. The company is state-owned and will decide on a factory soon. Read more (paywall).
⚡ McKinsey this week published the results of a global survey about sentiment towards EV charging. Some of the findings are fairly expected, but the chart below struck me regarding access to home charging. As I said at the end of 2023, increasingly most would-be EV owners will have to rely solely on public networks.
Finally… I wanted to share a story about Sam Bravo-Hibberd. He’s a 34-year-old father and, last year, just 8 weeks after he and his wife saw the arrival of their daughter, Sam was diagnosed with one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer which has no cure. The reason I’m sharing is Sam’s family is raffling away their Tesla to raise money for treatment that will enable Sam to spend more time with his wife and children. Now, if you want to donate, you can do that here, or if not please consider sharing the link.
By Tom Riley | Check my Linktree for LinkedIn, TikTok and Twitter
The number of EVs increased by about 40% last year, so a 65% increase in slow chargers is pretty good. The increase in 34% for the other sort of slow is more concerning, but not disastrous.
If chargers are built without demand they won't generate enough business to pay for their maintenance, and we know how annoying broken chargers are.
In fairness to the government the definitions of charger speeds are something that should be periodically updated. When manufacturers in China are starting to install 800kW chargers, and cars are reaching 600kW, calling 100kW ultra-rapid was never going to last. Similarly calling 7kW fast was a bit of an anomaly.