Charging forward?

Sales of electric vehicles rose 71% last year. According to Which?, battery powered models now account for 14% of new cars sold. In London, that is 20%. Transport for London estimates that London needs up to 60,000 electric car charging points by 2030.

Exciting news. I remember first driving in an electric car back in the 90’s when I worked in local government. I was struck by how quiet it was. Since then, the promise of electric cars has taken time to materialise. But when you bear in mind that the Government intends to end the sales of diesel and petrol engines in less than eight years, it is clear that things are going to start changing pretty rapidly.

Change is often challenging. This one will be no exception, not least because it reaches into the lives of so many people. My sense is that, as a country, we are pretty unprepared for the magnitude of change that is about to happen. As well as the technical issues - where the chargers will be put and how they will work - there are behavioural issues. Planning your day around where and when you can charge your car is quite different from filling up at a petrol station.

The first thing that is needed to bring about successful change is a good reason why it should happen. Climate change is an obvious motivation in this case.

But the next thing that is needed is good communication around what is going to happen, when it is going to happen, and how the effects on different groups of people are going to be dealt with.

This seems to be lacking.

People can get emotionally attached to their cars and there is a danger of a backlash if changes which affect people in ways that they don’t expect. I wonder how the run-down in the petrol station network will work, for example.

Don’t get me wrong, the change from petrol to electric is great. But how it affects those that drive Jaguars or are lucky enough to get their hands on a Tesla is one thing. How will that reach down to those of us who don’t have that kind of money?

A crunch is coming. Best to start preparing.