Extracts from Public Bill committee proceedings on the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill - Oct 31

Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con): Forgive me, but I am not clear how these updates would actually happen—whether you would have to take the vehicle into a dealership or garage.

David Williams (Technical Director, AXA Insurance, and Chair, Autonomous Driving Insurance Group): Tesla currently does them over the air.

Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con): Do you think that there needs to be, in effect, a national plan for the location of the charge points as we approach 2040?

David Wong (Senior Technology and Innovation Manager, Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders): We would suggest a nationally co-ordinated approach.

Brian Madderson (Chairman, Petrol Retailers Association): I speak for 75% of the motorway service areas and the one thing that they are really against is any form of mandating, because they want the market to be able to choose what is the best form of charging at the time for them. This is in a great state of flux. Some of them have already entered into agreements that are more binding than perhaps they would have wished with the knowledge that they have just 12 months on. The mandating process seems to be all stick and no carrot. These motorway service areas fully recognise the need and, in fact, many now have both Tesla charging and other forms of charging, so they are working towards that but they think mandating is not appropriate in this case.

One of the other issues the motorway service areas have is that there does not seem to be joined-up government, which I think David was probably referring to. There are planning difficulties in getting car park extensions to put in extra parking bays for Tesla charging, for example. One of the things the Government should perhaps be mandating is not where the charging points go, but that where there are planning applications for charging points, local authorities must deal with them quickly, efficiently and sympathetically.

The Minister for Transport Legislation and Maritime (Mr John Hayes):... We have cars with quite substantial autonomous capabilities already—Tesla is a good example—and I have seen second-hand examples of them that have gone beyond the dealer network. You have to wonder about the competence of the people who will work on that car—I am not saying that they are incompetent, but I do not know that they are competent. When someone next engages the autonomous capabilities of that car, will they do the things they are supposed to do? We cannot just leave that to chance. We have to be sure that there is some way of assuring ourselves about the people who work on them. This is not like the days when there was somebody who was “a bit handy”, as I think the phrase used to be, and you could give your car to them and they could look after it. This is a paradigm shift. We need to move with that and recognise that these cars, even though they have four wheels and look a bit like the cars that we have today, are entirely different. The skills base needs to be elevated to deal with them because they are an entirely different prospect.

Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab): ...You talked about getting drivers behind this because they know it is the right thing to do, and that drivers are frightened. We are also trying to meet the environmental targets that the Government have set. Knowing car enthusiasts as you do, do you think that people will ever feel as enthusiastic and fanatical about electric vehicles as they do about Ferraris or other exciting cars? 

Quentin Willson (Journalist and TV presenter): That group of car enthusiasts is quite small now. It is a very small percentage of the market. Most of us just see the grim business of getting from A to B as a necessity. As I said earlier, the idea of the open road with your Porsche 911 is a golden age that has passed. The Tesla P100D is the fastest accelerating car in the world. It does nought to 60 in 2.4 seconds. It is faster than a Ferrari, which is great. But in terms of mainstream electric cars, I think it will be a while before your hardcore car enthusiast really likes them. We have a big Clarksonesque blockage here—he does not like electric cars or the people who drive them—but I think he is an irrelevance and so are those car enthusiasts...

Mr Hayes: Thank you for coming again; you will remember that we had an exchange when you came to the evidence session on the previous Bill. One would accept your view that we will not switch to electric vehicles overnight. Clearly, we do not want to eliminate the use of older classic vintage vehicles—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire challenged me on that on Second Reading—but surely there is a good case for taking advantage of the improved battery technology, the greater affordability of electric cars as volume grows, the smoother ride that they give, and their many other virtues. I do not claim that electric cars are nirvana, but given that this will not happen just like that and some allowance will need to be made for the older vehicles that my right hon. Friend champions, surely you acknowledge that it is likely to happen and in the end it is quite a good thing?

Quentin Willson: I agree. The older classic cars are a tiny proportion and their emissions are a raindrop echoing in an ocean because they are used so seldom—some for only 200 miles a year. We should not worry about them.

Mass electrification is coming, but until I see a step change in battery technology, we will not be able to give consumers the beatific vision of 300 to 350 miles to one 40-minute charge. Will that come by 2040? I do not know. You have heard from the car manufacturers. Will we be able to accelerate that technology? It is good that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has given the 2040 cut-off date, because up to now they have broadly been compliance cars made to keep emissions down for EU regulations. Manufacturers will be throwing everything they can at developing batteries, but someone like Jaguar Land Rover does not really have any electric product at all, and Mini has only just scrambled together one electric Mini that does not have a brilliant range. They have a lot of work to do to get to that level. It has taken us 100 years to get to the efficiency of the combustion engine as we have it now. I know innovation is not linear and it will start to climb up, but we need to understand that if we do not give consumers that 300 to 350 mile range, it is going to be very difficult. You see Teslas strolling down the motorways, because they do 250 miles to one charge. That is great, but you never see a Nissan Leaf—think about it.

To read all the exchanges, CLICK HERE FOR FIRST SITTING OF THE COMMITTEE

To read all the exchanges, CLICK HERE FOR SECOND SITTING OF THE COMMITTEE