Extract from Oral answer
(Lords) on Covid-19: Transport Industry
(Non-Afl): My Lords, if we are to become the Saudi Arabia
of wind power by 2030, why are we not going to become the world
leader in electric carslooking to the future
rather than the past when the Government spend their money?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport ()
(Con): I reassure the noble Lord that we are already a world
leader in the manufacture and design of electric
cars and their rollout across the country. The other
important element to bear in mind is the Government’s commitment
to connected and autonomous vehicles, which, of course, go hand
in hand with the development of electric
cars.
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Extracts from
Westminster Hall debate on Alternative Fuelled Vehicles: Energy
Provision
(Gedling) (Con):...I do appreciate that there are
barriers to the market. Price is an obvious one, but, as with any
consumer good, that is falling and will fall over time as more
are produced. There are also fears about batteries. We have
mobile phones and we worry that their batteries will run out. A
car battery running out is an even bigger fear, because that
causes more problems. I understand that that is a worry, but most
journeys, such as commuting to work or shopping, are local, and
there are now more and more electric cars with
longer ranges. I saw some in Mapperley with ranges of up to 200
miles that could do significant long journeys.
Electric vehicles are therefore becoming
increasingly like so-called ordinary motorcars. That confidence
will be reinforced by Government funding alongside private sector
investment that has provided 24,000 public charging points—one of
the largest networks in Europe. I appreciate, however, as the
Member for Warwick and Leamington said, that more needs to be
done to expand that provision. I further understand that charging
points will be made compulsory in homes, and I welcome that.
We are 14 years on from the release of the documentary
“Who Killed the Electric Car?”—a film that has
not aged well. Electric cars are now part of our
everyday conversation. Noah and Ethan, pupils at Arnold Mill
Primary School in my constituency, wrote to me about the need to
protect the environment, and both cited the need for
electric car production. I completely agree. The
electric car is not dead, and long may it
flourish...
(Bracknell) (Con):...I want to talk briefly about
electric cars and charging, and then I will make
some recommendations. First, the electric car
market is growing quickly, with more than 142,000 pure
electric cars on the road as of today, and
339,000 plug-in models, or so-called hybrids. Electric models
accounted for 6.4% of all new registrations this year and hybrid
10%. In August 2020, notwithstanding covid-19, there was a 78%
increase in pure electric registrations compared with the same
month last year. This is happening whether we like it or not. It
will be consumer-driven to the point where the Government might
follow suit rather than lead it...
(South Cambridgeshire) (Con): Thank you, Chair. I
thank the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington () for securing a debate on this important issue. We
are all committed to combating climate change and getting down to
net zero. As chair of the all-party parliamentary environment
group, I spend a lot of time pushing for that. When I was
environment editor of The Observer and The Times more than a
decade ago, electric cars were just a pipe
dream. I drove some early models, but they are now a reality. I
have long seen the internal combustion engine as a dirty, smelly
and polluting Victorian technology. The sooner we see the back of
it, the better...
...Seventhly, do not make us an island that is incompatible
with the rest of the world. We have different electrical sockets
from everywhere else, which is an accident of history, but let us
make sure that when drivers leave the UK and drive over to
France, they can still use their electric
cars...
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