Electric Cars
The advancement in electric cars and vehicles in general in the last few years has been very impressive. With major manufacturers embracing them and, of course, Tesla, the market is growing at an extraordinary rate.
One of the UK’s biggest insurance providers, however, is concerned that Britain isn’t ready to cope with a high-level of electric vehicles.
In a report via the Guardian, Amanda Blanc, Head of AXA in the UK has said that Britain neither has the infrastructure nor the power capacity to cope with an electric dominated motoring market.
Her comments are based on the fact that at present the UK has about 125,000 electric cars. However, there are only around 14,000 ‘public’ charging points in the UK and of those only just over 2,500 are rapid charging models.
So with more electric cars set to hit the road in the future, does she have a point?
Lack of facilities
In an example of the difficulties, the AXA chief recently cited a trip in her electric Tesla. Speaking of this trip she said that she had to stop twice to charge the car. While this itself wasn’t a problem she said that: “In three to four years’ time when more people are buying electric, you do not want to have to queue for your supercharger. The infrastructure has to be fixed.”
In fairness, it’s a point that has yet to be raised. If electric vehicle production is the way forward, we are going to need a lot more public charging points. Otherwise the roadside is going to be littered with conked out Nissan Leafs.
She also cited a major factor in the simple supply of power: “If suddenly everyone’s got one [an electric car] I’m not sure how the National Grid is going to cope with that. If in the Coronation Street break everyone goes to put the kettle on and that causes problems, just imagine what will happen if everybody comes home from work at 6 o’clock and switches their cars on to charge. We have to be smarter about renewables and regenerating electricity. That’s a real challenge.”
With this latter point, I agree wholeheartedly. Whenever asked about electric cars my personal response has always been the same. They are not a solution until the power problem is addressed and frankly, at the moment we’re struggling with that.
I guess it’s a case of priorities.
What do you think? Which is the more important issue? Electric Cars, charging points or the general electric supply? – Let us know in the comments!
