Yes I thought that 50% being out of use sounded like an exaggeration. However, having a robust network of chargers on Motorways and major A roads doesn’t even scratch the surface of what is needed.
No private motorist with half a brain fills up their ICE cars in these locations as the prices are eye watering. Thankfully, due to the much higher ranges of ICE cars, emergencies aside there is never a need to. However, EV drivers on long journeys may have no choice, unless they are prepared to make time consuming and irritating diversions, making stops in places that you wouldn’t choose to. Failure to do this could make the journey more expensive (as well as longer) than using an ICE car. The answer surely has to be public chargers everywhere and at affordable prices, and we seem to be many years away from that.
Take our village as an example. It’s a big village with around 4,000 residents. We have a very busy petrol station that everyone uses as it’s as cheap as the supermarkets (sometimes even cheaper). Yet there isn’t a single public EV charger in the village, or anywhere within miles of our village for that matter. Probably 90% plus of residents have off road parking, so it’s maybe not as much of an issue here, but there are thousands of villages like this where the majority don’t have that luxury. Then of course there are city dwellers, the vast majority of whom have no off road charging options.
The government cannot expect people to switch to EVs in the ‘hope’ that this will one day be addressed. The infrastructure has to come first. So whilst it’s sensible that the % EV targets by year and the fines system are now going to be softened, they will have absolutely no choice but to move the 2030/35 deadlines. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that they have the brains to have worked that out yet!
It’s also interesting to learn today that the 2024 target of 22% of new cars being EVs is likely to end up being 19% in reality, and that’s even with manufacturers throwing huge discounts at the market which they are warning is not a sustainable situation. The whole thing is a mess. Ideology over common sense.