This afternoon, I decided to charge my car, in preparation for a long-ish journey tomorrow. I headed into Ormskirk (a small town near Liverpool) to find a charging port. According to Google, and my car’s app, there were several nearby.
Except there weren’t.
Every charging station that appeared in my searches was either private (no good, for obvious reasons); out of order (no good, for obvious reasons); or not there (no good, for…you get the picture). As it happens, I have sufficient charge left to get me to a service station on the way across the Pennines on the first leg of my journey – but it shouldn’t have to be that way (mainly because this takes me out of the way of the optimum route).
We’re 4 years away from the government’s (admittedly, admirable) target of 80% of new vehicles being zero-emissions. Less than 10 years away from that number being 100%. And yet, I can’t charge my car easily. If the infrastructure doesn’t exist, no amount of strong-arming people to buy electric vehicles will help. I’m definitely on the side of a greener society, but putting policies in place without solutions is no way to go about it.
Unpopular opinion time: paper straws are awful. There, I said it. I don’t want to rely on plastic straws, that much is true, but paper straws just aren’t a solution – they don’t work properly. Anything other than 330ml of lemonade, and they become a pulpy mass at either end well before the drink is drunk. And if you want a milkshake from a certain well-known burger chain, forget it! The analogy is a solid one: you can’t replace one thing with something else (however much better for the environment it is) without ensuring the replacement is (at least ‘almost’) as good as the original. It has to be worthwhile making the shift.
A-ha, you say: it is worth making the shift; think of all the dolphins / emissions saved. That is completely true, and for someone who takes their impact on the environment seriously, very persuasive. But that’s not the reality for most people. By shifting 80% of new cars to zero-emissions by 2030, there’s the hope that the population will buy EVs, but if they know they can’t easily get it charged on the fly, where’s the incentive? Who wants to be running out of power halfway through a journey?
There’s another issue too. I currently have 9 (that’s right, nine) apps on my phone for charging ports. They all work in different ways. There are ports which allow payment with a debit card, some need a subscription, some (I’m looking at you T*sla) work well for one type of car, but not for others. There needs to be some level of regulation of the industry, so that the average person knows what to expect when pulling into a charging station, and not have to worry that they’ll be caught short for not having the right app, Apple Pay, a membership number (or the right car)…
So come one government, pull your finger out. Get more EV charging points put in around the smaller towns, and regulate the charging industry to a high standard. Make it easier to own a zero-emissions vehicle, and then, maybe, your aspirational target will be much easier to meet.
Centred 
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