Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change’s report.
Among the action points the group has suggested are that no new petrol or diesel vehicles should be allowed to be registered in the Island from 2025 and that a full ban on such vehicles from Jersey roads should be in force by 2050. (JEP)
It's fine to have a vision and strong ideals, but if there is no practical way of implementing them, it is a pipedream. Part of my gripe with the recent report that it is a set of goals, but no homework seems to have been done on how to get there.
Unanswered Questions:
It’s estimated that around a third of the UK’s 27 million households don’t have off-street parking, so many EV owners will need to use public charging points. What is the estimated number of households for Jersey households with cars?
Among the action points the group has suggested are that no new petrol or diesel vehicles should be allowed to be registered in the Island from 2025 and that a full ban on such vehicles from Jersey roads should be in force by 2050. (JEP)
It's fine to have a vision and strong ideals, but if there is no practical way of implementing them, it is a pipedream. Part of my gripe with the recent report that it is a set of goals, but no homework seems to have been done on how to get there.
Unanswered Questions:
It’s estimated that around a third of the UK’s 27 million households don’t have off-street parking, so many EV owners will need to use public charging points. What is the estimated number of households for Jersey households with cars?
If no figures are available, when is it estimated they will be available?
Who is developing plans for implementing street charging points (such as lamp-post charging used in the UK) for users with street parking in St Helier? No details are mentioned.
How much will this cost and who will pay for it? No figures are given.
How much does a single public charging point cost to put in place? (as there are existing charging points in public car parks, this should be available). No figures are given.
Are there plans to retrofit chargers into multi-occupancy property parking? No details are mentioned.
How long is all this going to take? If we start now, will we have enough electric charging places by 2025? 2030? 2050? No figures are given.
Mention has been made of States support and incentives. How will this work, how much, and can the States afford it. No figures are given.
None of these questions have been addressed, and if there are calculations, they have been well hidden away. Obviously if there are, they will need to be examined carefully to make sure they stand up to scrutiny and the finances are properly costed.
Some Cases to Show
Les Quennevais - blocks of flats have shared tenancy parking, and there are no electrical points there. How are those occupiers going to manage to charge electric cars, assuming they can afford them? Who will pay for electric points?
These people have their own driveways, and can implement (at their own cost) electrical connections.
Some of the parking at Les Quennevais - and of course a lot in St Helier - is on the roadside. Are these going to be excluded from electric cars?
Haves and Have Nots
A lack of enough cheap second-hand electric vehicles is likely to remain an issue for at least a decade; another is the high cost of new cars, although manufacturers say prices are coming down - but not that quickly, and increased post-Covid and Brexit costs are slowing that process.
It is the poorer who usually live in the blocks of flats, with communal parking, or on-street parking, while those with more means live in dwellings with driveways into which electric points can be placed. They are also going to find it harder to afford an electric car.
If we are not careful, we will have a lower-class population having to drive increasingly aging cars because the infrastructure for charging them is not available, while those well to do will have their shiny new electric vehicles. The gap between rich and poor will increase.
A report highlights some of the issues:
"Germany, like many other countries, offers subsidies of up to €4,000 ($4,400) to offset the cost of a new electric vehicle. On Friday, the government said it would hike those incentives within two years to help it meet a target of cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from vehicles in half by 2030. The subsidies will be paid out of the proceeds of a new carbon tax."
"Most governments in the world are trying to hit two important targets: on environmental issues and inequality. By protecting the environment, we're actually in danger of creating more inequality," Miguel Angel Tovar, co-author of a 2017 research paper on electromobility for the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), told DW.
"Tovar likened the German government's electric vehicle policy to the subsidy scheme for solar panels, which he said allowed wealthier households to benefit financially by selling their excess electricity to the national power grid. This income stream is often unaccessible to low earners in public housing."
"Similarly, higher-income households will quickly absorb the cost of installing home charging infrastructure for their new battery-powered cars, while low-income groups may be the last to get connected and be forced to rely on higher-priced public charging stations."
The Cloud-Cuckoo Future
A 2019 report by Bloomberg indicated, due to dropping prices for EV batteries, that electric vehicles should be more cost-competitive with combustion-engine cars within three years. Three years have passed, and it has not come to be the case. Technology will certainly have a gradual effect in reducing prices, but if anyone thinks it is going to be swift, they are living in cloud-cuckoo land.
The Australian noted in 2020 that electric cars "almost everywhere cost more across their lifetime than their petrol counterparts."
The Financial Times noted that:
Electric cars will remain significantly more expensive for European carmakers to produce than combustion engine models for at least a decade, according to new research.
Of course we could - as the Action report suggests - penalise those still driving petrol cars, but who will that hit the hardest - rich or poor?
Of course we could - as the Action report suggests - penalise those still driving petrol cars, but who will that hit the hardest - rich or poor?
In Conclusion
I still have to see a solid, costed strategy for providing electricity to charge vehicles who are on roadside parking permits in St Helier, or even for that matter, on road sides in Les Quennevais for that matter. There are numerous flats which have a nice communal parking space, but that would need to be fitted out with charging points.
As usual, the model being worked with is one which favours those who have their own house and parking space, i.e. mostly (but not always) the better off. It hasn’t been thought through at all! I can see panic as deadlines approach, and I suspect the UK is not in any better position. You cannot even with fast charging, just pull into a charging station and top up your electricity in a couple of minutes as petrol cars do. Even the fastest can only manage 20 minutes, and there is a risk of shortening the lifespan of your car batteries as well.
This reminds me of the Chief Minister and his gardens with outside entrances (if you have a garden at all) all over again. Remember how in the first lockdown, people could meet in gardens (if they had them!) and when John Le Fondre was asked about back gardens with only an entrance through the house, he expressed surprise that situation existed!
I still have to see a solid, costed strategy for providing electricity to charge vehicles who are on roadside parking permits in St Helier, or even for that matter, on road sides in Les Quennevais for that matter. There are numerous flats which have a nice communal parking space, but that would need to be fitted out with charging points.
As usual, the model being worked with is one which favours those who have their own house and parking space, i.e. mostly (but not always) the better off. It hasn’t been thought through at all! I can see panic as deadlines approach, and I suspect the UK is not in any better position. You cannot even with fast charging, just pull into a charging station and top up your electricity in a couple of minutes as petrol cars do. Even the fastest can only manage 20 minutes, and there is a risk of shortening the lifespan of your car batteries as well.
This reminds me of the Chief Minister and his gardens with outside entrances (if you have a garden at all) all over again. Remember how in the first lockdown, people could meet in gardens (if they had them!) and when John Le Fondre was asked about back gardens with only an entrance through the house, he expressed surprise that situation existed!
This strategy is a present clueless because they don’t think about ordinary people, they’ve been living in a comfortable, cosy place for far too long.
Most private EV owners are currently middle-aged, male, well-educated, affluent, and live in urban
areas with households containing two or more cars and with the ability to charge at home. Evidence from various sources has found that private owners charge their EV mainly at home, on a daily
basis, and generally overnight.
Why should I care? I have a driveway, so it is not such a big issue for me, but why should I not care? If we do not give adequate consideration to these matters, we will become an island in which the poorer are also power-poor. And penalising petrol cars will add further to the increasing division in our society.
The Shades of Micawber
We do need a properly thought out and costed scheme for moving everyone to electric cars, but this recent report doesn't provide one.
It reminds me of the sunken road in the original Waterfront Masterplan. It was decided to lower the road, build on top of it, and bring it out at the bottom of Gloucester Street, which has been prone to flooding. How to solve that problem? All the wonderful plans said (in a footnote, no less!) was that "an engineering solution will be found".
It's the equivalent of Mr Micawber in David Copperfield - lots of brilliant ideas, and no practical homework done on how they may come to fruition, but just saying "Something will turn up."
If I was to endorse this current wish list - and I wish I could - I'd need the Citizen's Panel to do a lot of homework, real research for practical outcomes, well thought out, well costed. Then I could take it seriously.
References
https://www.dw.com/en/electric-cars-low-earners-may-never-get-to-drive-one/a-50517095
https://www.stantec.com/en/ideas/power-poverty-the-new-paradigm-for-social-and-economic-inequality-of-electric-vehicles
https://grist.org/justice/making-electric-cars-more-equitable/
https://www.ft.com/content/a7e58ce7-4fab-424a-b1fa-f833ce948cb7
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/020221-expect-lithium-supply-crunch-by-2025-as-ev-market-booms-piedmont-ceo
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/464763/uptake-of-ulev-uk.pdf
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