New ChargeUK Chair reveals five priorities for 2024
The latest news from Britain's EV sector
Hello, I’m Tom Riley, and welcome back to The Fast Charge, a British EV newsletter.
There are two big stories in today’s large edition. Firstly, I speak to ChargeUK’s new Chair about the industry group’s priorities during an election year. Secondly, newly released figures show the government charge point grant is failing to help renters with home installations.
Finally, apologies there was no edition last week – I was in Mallorca and drank more on ‘newsletter night’ than I’d planned!
As ever, if you have any thoughts or feedback, do get in touch via my contact details below or reply to this email.
ChargeUK’s new chair sets out priorities for election year
Background: At the start of March, ChargeUK, the trade body which represents companies involved in EV charging, appointed Chris Pateman-Jones, CEO of Connected Kerb, to be its new Chair. Chris picks up the baton from Ian Johnston, CEO of Osprey, who spearheaded the industry group’s success in its launch year. ChargeUK now counts 28 members, including networks from BP to Tesla.
Summary: With an election on the horizon, it’s a critical time to be influencing policymakers, and in his first interview since taking over as ChargeUK Chair, I heard from Chris about the group’s five priorities as they shift from a start-up organisation to an established body.
Before diving in, what are Chris’ reflections on his appointment and the past year for ChargeUK? “An honour to be asked and approved by the others, and very, very big shoes to fill with Ian… Last year an awful lot of weight fell on three people [Ian, Vicky Read, and Nick de Mestre] within the organisation to run it.”
Naturally, it’s early days, though Chris outlines an overarching idea of what the group will focus on. “The whole aim of what we're trying to do this year… is to try and drive efficiency. And one of those areas is to drive efficiency within which the way we communicate with central government, because it doesn't make sense for every single member of ChargeUK to be spending time saying pretty much the same things.”
But, what are those common areas ChargeUK wants to speak on? At the group’s recent AGM, members agreed on five focus areas.
1) Infrastructure deployment. “As much as it's not going as fast as we would all like, it is still going pretty fast. 45% year on year growth, I would expect that to increase again further this year across all members,” says Chris who points out that this is an area where efficiency comes into play. “We all work with public sector and private sector clients, and the key thing we all need to work on is how we can deploy as efficiently as possible, whether that is from a planning and consultation process through to electrical connections, all of those different things.”
Chris points out that last year ChargeUK released a ‘barriers report’ with 13 recommendations for the government. Chris says Whitehall is already progressing these. “I want to see not only the consultations taking place, but we'd really like to see actions coming out of those,” he says. “This year we need to see movement from those ideas into actual fruition… We can't deploy [the private sector commitment of £6 billion] if we're held back.”
2) Public investment. “[Government] haven't moved nearly as fast as I think the industry had hoped, and that is a source of frustration for us all.” explains Chris regarding the Rapid Charging Fund and the Local EV Infrastructure Fund. “We have spent so far in the last year a huge amount of time with OZEV on how do you try and get those schemes moving. And I suppose my commitment is that we're going to continue to do that over the next twelve months, to try and move things forward as quickly as possible.”
3) Consumer experience. “Last year was a real milestone. I think the UK government and the regulations that they brought out ChargeUK is very supportive of,” he says, adding: “We need to make the EV journey as simple as possible. And many of the things that were in those regulations were fantastic and things that the industry is already working towards. ChargeUK's role over the next twelve months will be to try and look at some of the areas that are less clear.” Chris touches on a few of these areas, which includes the way that uptime and utilisation are calculated to having charging terminology “everyone can agree on”.
An area of growing interest to EV drivers and operators is the accessibility of charge points – as many are not. Chris indicates this is an area the group will get involved. “We want our charging points to be as accessible to everyone as we possibly can in society. We just need to be careful about how the guidelines are being interpreted at the moment. ChargeUK's role is probably to work with the various different authorities on this, to try and make sure that it's applied as sensibly and as well as possible, without it necessarily being something that's being used as a tool to beat people with. And instead it should be something that recognises that everyone wants to do a good job in this.”
When asked if ChargeUK would welcome intervention by government on accessibility guidelines, Chris notes: “I don't mind whether they get involved or not. I think if they do, though, anyone who gets involved has to really invest the time to understand the nuance.”
4) Commercial viability. “We've really got to look at the industry and work out how we're going to do that. How do you make charging as affordable as possible?” Chris then highlights two areas under this bucket, including progressing the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation and continuing to support campaigns like FairCharge on VAT.
5) Public perception. “One of the priorities is to work with our partners in the industry to try and really challenge some of the perceptions that are out there.” Chris notes this is especially important after the “disappointment this year” of the ZEV mandate moving from 2030 to 2035.
However, with an election coming soon, and Labour looking likely to be in government afterward, I ask Chris if he’d like to see the mandate go back from 2035 to 2030. “I think I can say with a fairly high degree of certainty that we would all be very supportive of a harder target rather than the softening that we've seen.” Chris notes that ChargeUK is preparing a document to share with political parties.
I ask, out of all the priorities, what would the group’s main wish be? “Infrastructure deployment would be the key one. How do you remove the barriers? That's the key thing. That's halting an awful lot of charges going in the ground at the moment.”
Despite some of the barriers mentioned, and in the face of an election, Chris is very upbeat. “It's going to be a really hard year, but I hope a really positive year. I hope the UK economy will be sort of really starting to motor in a year's time. And I think ChargeUK and the industry itself will have delivered pretty big numbers this year. I'm quite excited about seeing what we can all achieve.”
With thanks to Chris Pateman-Jones, Chair of ChargeUK and CEO of Connected Kerb, for speaking to me. You can follow the group on LinkedIn here.
Falling flat: EV grant scheme is failing renters
Background: On the last day of February, the Department for Transport published its latest statistics about the number of people living in flats or rental accommodation that have claimed grants to install chargers up to the end of 2023. You may recall, previously the eligibility for this ‘home charger grant’ was anyone with a driveway. But, in April 2022, the eligibility was changed to “accelerate the uptake” amongst those without this ability, such as renters. The grant offers claimants either £350 or 75% off the cost to buy and install a charger, whichever amount is lower.
Summary: The new scheme is failing to be claimed, and evidence suggests it’s causing renters headaches from overbearing eligibility requirements to extra costs.
Headline figures: In 2023, only 1,794 renters managed to get chargers installed using the scheme – which is a miserable 150 per month. Comparatively, in 2023 grants funded 10,566 new workplace chargers. Not to mention, 315,000 new EVs were registered in the UK. Previously, under the old scheme, grants were being used to fund on average 42,000 + home chargers per year.
What’s worrying is… This scheme has been going for nearly two years, and the number of claims remains flat. The most recent quarter recorded 325, though OZEV has said that grants can take several months to be counted. Yeah, like it’ll make a difference.
Numerous complaints… The thing is, it’s not like people aren’t trying to use this scheme. I’ve spoken to several EV owners who have all attempted to use it but have been unable to because of some weird technicalities on claiming. For example, one driver told me last year they tried to use the scheme to install a charger at a house for multiple flats. However, as the house had a driveway without reserved parking, they were unable to claim – as the grant stipulates ‘allocated parking’.
More stupidity… Not only do you have to meet some very specific requirements on the parking, but you also need to prove ownership of an EV. That might sound reasonable; however, what they’re essentially asking people to do is to invest in a car and then keep your fingers crossed that you’re eligible or your landlord will go for it.
No reason… Not only has the grant seemingly been set up not to be claimed, but it also does not offer any real incentive for landlords to get involved – especially for tenants who could be gone within 12 months. Across the whole of 2023, landlords only used the scheme to fund 442 chargers at their properties, according to the latest stats.
However… There’s no denying that EVs are coming, and no doubt an increasing number of landlords will see it as an extra benefit for tenants. Or perhaps a new income stream… A post by one flat living EV owner last year explained how his landlord was charging tenants £1.25 per kWh to use private car park chargers – on top of a monthly fee.
Fire risk… In another post from last week, one driver explained how he applied for the grant two years ago. But, when their freeholder was told, they instructed the driver not to proceed. 18 months later, the driver was told they could, though would need to pay a fee of £1,500 to use the grant. The reason given was the freeholder would need to upgrade an underground car park with sprinklers and fireproof bays – otherwise, the insurance would increase.
Dividing line… The failure of this scheme to help its intended audience, and the growing other headaches that are popping up, is only going to result in more households without driveways needing to rely solely on public chargers. And the growing disparity between driveway and non-driveway EV owners continues…
Top EV news…
😠 Following the Budget last week – which held no incentives for the EV sector – carmakers have accused the government of “sleepwalking in an EV crisis”. Read more.
🐆 News last week that a ‘runaway’ Jaguar I-Pace had to be halted by police due to an electric fault. JLR is investigating. Read more.
💸 According to a report by Auto Express, drivers of Chinese made EVs are facing big insurance costs in the UK due to inability to fix them. Read more.
📶 Nissan has announced the app on its original Leaf would stop working as it switches off its 2G network. Read more.
📴 Speaking of 2G, this isn’t the last ‘network’ story affecting carmakers. Many ICE cars get data from 3G – which is already being shut down in the UK – and some early EVs, like the Renault Zoe, are going to be impacted. Here’s what Renault told a customer recently: “Due to the 3G Network shutdown taking place in the UK in the near future, no more services will be available for any device which still uses this framework. This includes the R-Link in your Zoe. We would like to thank you for your patience during this process and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.”
🚗 Last week, SMMT revealed that there had been a near 22% increase in EV sales this past February compared to 2023. Read more.
🪫 A test by What Car magazine has found that, under real world conditions, most EVs have about a third less range than advertised. Read more (paywall).
✊ Cox Automotive has called on dealers to “prepare now” or be left behind as they predict the supply of used ICE cars will drop hugely by 2028. Read more.
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It looks like petrol ePace owners have had the same problem. Jaguar owners have been experiencing it for years.
https://www.ipaceforums.co.uk/threads/brakes-failed.5278/