Scoop: Famed architect’s pollution-eating EV paused
Plus, new PAS 1899 guidance is coming following a review.
Hello, I’m Tom Riley, and welcome back to The Fast Charge, a British EV newsletter.
In today’s edition… An EV launched by the architect who created London’s Olympic Cauldron and the new Routemaster bus is put on hold.
Elsewhere… The debate over how many chargers are in the UK, plus updated guidance to support disabled drivers to use EV chargers is coming soon - I share what I know.
As always, if you have any comments or feedback, please reply to this email or use the links below.
UK architect’s pollution-eating EV put on pause
Context: Throw your mind back four years to 2021. Covid is still hanging about, Boris is Prime Minister, and the concept of electric cars is still new in the public mind. It’s a time of exciting possibilities with many carmakers rushing out prototypes, often with some OTT promises to ‘have them in production by the time the kettle stops boiling.’ Well…
Scoop… One such car that was first promoted four years ago at the Shanghai Motor Show was the AIRO. It was conjured up in the studio of famed designer Thomas Heatherwick - also known for the fantastic Olympic Cauldron, the new Routemaster bus, and some more adventurous projects, such as the canned Thames Garden Bridge. At the time, the AIRO received a great deal of coverage, and the prototype even appeared on display at Goodwood Festival of Speed.
However… While this very innovative car was meant to enter production in 2023, last week, a spokesperson for Heatherwick Studio told me that the vehicle’s development has been paused. They said in a statement to The Fast Charge…
"Due to the current economic downturn in China, the development of AIRO has been placed on pause. AIRO is an ambitious vision for a cleaner, more human-centric future of mobility, and we remain proud of the innovation and creativity the project has inspired.”
As background… Heatherwick’s AIRO was created for IM Motors, a Chinese company that was co-founded by big names such as SAIC Motor (owner of MG), the marketplace Alibaba, and ‘ZJ Hi-Tech’ - which, from what I can work out, is a very large business park near Shanghai. It was planned to be fully electric and autonomous - hence a strange leisurely looking seating arrangement.
Alongside the ambition for it to be autonomous… Heatherwick’s studio also designed the AIRO to have state-of-the-art HEPA filters within it. These filters would actively clean the air around the car as it drove around. It was also fitted with lots of gadgets, including windows that go opaque on command, plus contoured seats that reclined to form a double bed. Very Austin Powers, baby!
Hopefully, they are being genuine when they say ‘paused’, and new life will be breathed into it soon as more vehicles explore autonomous options. You can see the original press release about the AIRO and its features here. Or watch this video.
Latest EV stories…
Infrastructure
⚡️ How many EV chargers are in the UK (pt1)? Before last week, I think everyone broadly agreed it’s somewhere around 75,000. That’s based on officially published data from the Department for Transport, which is provided by Zapmap - who due to the lack of Open Data enforcement continue to be treated largely as the ‘one source of truth’. But, last week, the ever-giant Octopus Energy challenged this status quo with a press release claiming there were now “100,000” public chargers. This has led to a lively debate in the industry. The difference in figures lies in how you define a ‘charge point’. Melanie Shufflebotham, Co-founder of Zapmap, set this out in a LinkedIn post. In short, Octopus has counted chargers which can charge multiple EVs at once, whilst everyone else has to date just counted the EV charging device (whether or not they can charge multiple EVs or not).
Continued (pt2)… Ultimately, I don’t really care what the correct number is. And you shouldn’t either. Yes, 100,000 sounds better than 75,000, but the challenge is that whenever I speak to businesses or politicos at the moment, they all identify charging concerns by potential switchers as a big challenge. So Octopus choosing this moment to throw a spanner on a key myth-busting fact is odd. Octopus is influential in the EV game, and I feel each day they continue to have a widely different figure from the Government could risk damaging confidence amongst drivers. My advice to Greg Jackson would be to row back from the 100,000 due to the risk multiple figures flying around brings. If they feel strongly that a different figure should be used, surely Gregy could speak to one of his Government comrades about a review.
🔌 Speaking of Octopus, this week they have launched a subscription model offering UK drivers ‘unlimited’ smart EV charging for £30 a month. Drivers using a normal Octopus electricity tariff (including those without a smart tariff or home battery) can subscribe to have one EV car’s charging scheduled by Octopus. Read more.
💸 And on the topic of charging costs, new data from Cornwall Insight last week revealed that EV owners on the standard energy price cap are spending just £630 a year to charge their cars at home. This is £802 less than the average £1,432 a year spent by petrol drivers. It further shows the price divide between those with and without driveways. Read more.
🚨 First M&S and now rapid charging network Instavolt is warning of bank fraud on their chargers. As a result, they have suspended all payments from customers using Monzo, Starling or Revolut accounts (interestingly, all ‘new world’ banks). Read their update.
🧑💻 The Daily Mail’s Ray Massey, a fiercely impartial motoring editor, has written a comment piece about his charging woes recently with a bp pulse device near Bath. Read it here.
👊 In lighter news, the London Borough of Haringey last week agreed to put over £1m more from LEVI into installing on-street devices. Read more.
📈 And more. Osprey has added a 24-charger strong rapid charging hub just off the M62 in Merseyside. Read more.
🫠 Zest seems to be stuck in bureaucratic ping pong while trying to install four chargers on a street in Bath. They have now appealed to the Secretary of State to get the planning sorted. Mad. Read more. In better news for Zest, they recently installed 12 rapids in Fylde near Blackpool. Read more.
🫣 Not so good news for Pod Point, whose share price has fallen to the point where they may now get taken entirely private by EDF, who are already a large shareholder. Read more.
🚚 The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has called for urgent changes to the grid due to commercial vehicle depots being left behind in getting their EV charging set-up. They suggest some depots have been quoted 15 years before getting connected. Read more.
Vehicles
🚙 Could the annual MOT be changed for EVs? The Department for Transport has not ruled out changes, according to reports over the past week. It comes following new rules proposed by the European Commission to improve safety around EVs and modern driver assistance systems. Read more.
👨🎨 The Mercedes design boss told Autocar at the Shanghai Motor Show that it plans to rethink how their models look when going from ICE to EV. Mercedes wants to avoid its cars falling into what it calls “the sea of sameness”. Read here.
🔋 JLR has in the past week confirmed its new electric Range Rover will come with a ginormous 117kWh battery pack. Given that most of the time these roar around busy city streets or outside schools, let’s hope the emergency brake is good! Read more.
👍 After testing more than 8,000 EVs across 30 brands in long-term use, a leasing company called Arval has found evidence that vehicle batteries were lasting ‘well beyond manufacturer warranties’. Read more.
🏅 Talking of EV batteries, Polestar plans to start selling theirs with battery health certificates to try and persuade would-be EV owners, especially those looking at used cars. Read more.
🦼 Open Road Access (ORA) is a new start-up focussed on providing innovative mobility options to those who may be restricted. It launched this week with a mission to support 15 million trips a year by 2030. ORA’s vision is “to create a world where everyone can move freely and independently”. Read more.
Politics
♿️ On the topic of disabled drivers… I hear from several sources that the review of the BSI’s PAS 1899 guidance, which demonstrates how charging operators should design networks with accessibility in mind, is over. Apparently, now they are just waiting for a slot to publish the update. The review involved numerous stakeholders, not least the Department for Transport. One source told me the original guidance was ironically ‘inaccessible’, hence the lack of take-up. The new version will be simpler to understand and consist of two documents - one aimed at networks doing rapid chargers, and the other for those installing on-street devices. The hope is it will be easier for networks to meet the guidance voluntarily. So, for now, they are not mandating the guidance. I understand this has displeased many campaigners who feel that, without stronger enforcement, all this review has done is make PAS 1899 appear weaker.
🌲 The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) has come out this week saying the narrative and approach to tackling climate change requires updating because people are “turning away from the politics of the issue because they believe the proposed solutions are not founded on good policy.” It leans heavily on what the Conservatives have promised should they get back into power. Labour insiders are said to be frustrated by Blair’s intervention in a polarising debate, though the TBI says they aren’t attacking the UK’s approach. Read TBI’s report here.
📝 The government has proposed changes to the National Planning Statements to better guide decision-makers in determining energy planning applications. Read more. Or see the consultation here.
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wrt the Airo car, the "zero gravity" seats are fairly normal in mid-range cars over there.
One of the design concepts that they have originated is the idea of a car as a space to spend time, with fully reclining massage seats, fridges, warming draws, fragrancing systems etc. Almost as a home from home.