Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill (First sitting)

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr Wong. Could I appeal to all witnesses to do two things? The first thing is to be as brief as possible, as we have a lot of business to get through in an hour. Secondly, Mr Williams led the way in demonstrating how one can speak loudly and clearly. It may be my age and decrepitude, but please could you speak as loudly and clearly as you can?

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Q I want to recognise the progress that we have made in this country, but could I press you on the 2050 date, which is 33 years away? A quarter of all of Norway’s vehicles are either electric or hybrid. China has, I think, 517,000 new energy vehicles, as they call them, on the road, and last year there were 800,000 charging points, notwithstanding the fact that it is a larger country. Thirty-three years is quite a long way off. I would like to press both Mr Wong and Mr Naberezhnykh on how we might turbo-charge this, perhaps adding a bit more to the three As that Mr Wong has told us about.

Denis Naberezhnykh: It is important to consider vehicles more broadly in the separate categories of vehicle types and vehicle users. When we think about the 2050 target for almost decarbonising the transport sector, we have to not treat private car owners in the same way as fleet and commercial vehicles. That is missing a little from the Bill at the moment. It focuses on overcoming short-term barriers—the problems and challenges that private car owners experience when attempting to use electric vehicles, such as clarity of data available on charging points, accessibility and the availability across the motorway network. However, what needs to happen to achieve the 2050 target is consideration of a broader picture, and recognition that there are other vehicle types—not just cars, but vans, trucks and buses—so what do we need to do to encourage those? They could create a growing proportion of the vehicle population as vehicle trends change over time anyway.

There is also a danger in comparing the UK situation to that of Norway and China, because the two have taken very different approaches in reaching their success. In Norway they have employed subsidy schemes and taxation schemes that I do not think we would find appropriate in the UK. In China they have taken the approach of simply saying, “You must buy these vehicles under any conditions,” and “You must install these charging points.” Unless we are willing to take steps like that, we have to be much more aware of what the market needs, or what the users need, and then tailor the products to suit those needs. That is where the transport sector needs to pay more attention: to focusing this Bill and future activities not only on targeting the near-term shortcomings, but on what we think might be the challenges in 10, 15 or 20 years from now, and preparing for those.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

Q I will move on to the mixed use of roadways in the intervening period. Clearly one of the challenges is the new technology coming on to the roadways while the old technology is still using them. Has anybody done any thinking about the regulatory implications of that?

David Williams: We think it is less complicated than it first appears. The Bill means that somebody involved in a road accident does not need to establish which insurance regime is in place; we are going to have the Road Traffic Act, and insurers are going to be dealing with claims in the first instance. Regardless of the fact that it will take a long time for manual vehicles to be replaced with safer vehicles, we also think, from looking at the modelling we are doing, that statistically the roads will become safer. Some people have expressed concerns that manual vehicle insurance might become incredibly expensive as the prices for autonomous vehicles plummet, but the reality is that if, say, 50% of the vehicles on the road are autonomous and much better at avoiding accidents, that makes driving in a manual vehicle safer. We are confident that the way the Bill sets things out means that establishing the claims process will be relatively straightforward, and that roads will become safer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald]

The whole discussion has been predicated on the basis of saving the planet. What about reducing emissions? In the context of automated vehicles and vehicles generally, it is all about their obsolescence, not about sustainability. Given that we have talked about the updating of automated vehicles and the relationship of manufacturers with the end user throughout the duration, are we missing a trick here? Though there is nothing in the Bill that requires software updates, necessarily there will be that relationship.

Should we not be thinking about a new way of using automated and electric vehicles across the piece? Should we be having people owning vehicles, or should we be making the offer for that relationship to be maintained so that it is a sustainable product that can be revisited? At the moment there is going to be an obligation to keep in touch with these automated vehicles for their lifetime. We heard in earlier evidence that there will come a point where that is cut off. Are we talking about an opportunity for a whole new way of using the services provided by an independent, personal mode of transport?

Quentin Willson: This is the big cycle of change now, like televisions, aeroplanes and the internet. We will see car ownership decline and will be buying or leasing vehicles as a service, not a product. The long-term vision is that this is going to be based largely on electricity and some on fuel cell, and that we will be calling driverless vehicles on our phones to come and collect us. They will then drive to our destinations in what is known as a green wav; they will be hooked up and connected to junctions, to the road system and to traffic lights. These zero-emission, automated, self-driving cars will drive in platoons and, it is hoped, eliminate congestion and pollution. That is the superordinate goal, which perhaps is as near as 2040. But it will always be powered by electricity. The whole structure of who owns what is changing. As we are seeing with consumer habits now, they are buying cars on personal contract plans; they do not own things anymore. That is what the long-term future looks like.

[Andrew Selous]

Beginning with Quentin Willson, we are aware of the 2050 date that the Government have for all cars and vans to be zero-emission. My understanding for why that date was picked is that it is linked to the need to decarbonise the UK. To what extent do you think the legal issues that the United Kingdom is having with air quality at the moment mean that there might be a case for revisiting the speed with which we try to electrify the market? At the same time, I would be interested in your comments on what is happening internationally. I mentioned Norway and China earlier. There are different models and approaches that may not be suitable for the United Kingdom, but I would be interested if you could speak to air quality and the international perspective on these issues.

Quentin Willson: I had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Transport in January to tell him exactly this. The brutal fact of the matter is that possibly only 10% of consumers in the UK have driven an electric car; the vast majority are still hanging on to what I call the Clarkson effect—all that baggage about electric cars being slow, hopeless and driven by people who read The Guardian and hug trees. That has set the whole electrification of UK roads back enormously. We do not have a way of connecting with consumers when it comes to electric cars. We are informed, and the respondents to the consultation are informed, but I have been talking to groups of consumers for the past five years at test-drive events, and you would be surprised how few of them have actually even sat in an electric car.

I believe that there is potential here for the Government, and that is what I told Chris Grayling. I believe that there is potential for us to have national test-drive events whereby people can go to supermarkets, drive electric cars and undergo what I call the transformational moment, the damascene moment, when they get into the car with all their accumulated baggage about how bad it is and how unfeasible for their lifestyle, and then they come out as a completely converted person, who goes on to convert other people. It must be an extremely important part of the Government’s strategy to talk to the consumers out there who have little or no faith in the electric car industry and obsess about charging and infrastructure, when actually 90% of all EV drivers charge at home. We must not miss this essential point to move forward and to engage people with the process of electric cars.

[Andrew Selous]

Q I think your thesis is a sound one, but may I press you first on the date and secondly on the international question?

Quentin Willson: We will probably make 2050 if we really pull our finger out. Norway has put incentives behind this and really pushed, but there is a different culture there—there is a culture that embraces change and environmental issues more than we have. Selling electric cars on the basis of environmental issues has not worked in the UK—people are interested only in fiscal benefits. Ours is a different model, and we really need to bring the public with us. If we do that and we make special provision to do this, we will make 2050. If we don’t, we won’t.

[Andrew Selous]

Q Mr Stewart, did you want to come in?

Marcus Stewart: You talked about carbon emissions, but the other benefit of electric vehicles is in relation to NOx emissions, which have moved much higher up the public agenda. These vehicles offer a solution for cities. That is something that in my mind would accelerate the deployment of electric vehicles, particularly with city Mayors taking a view about what transport should or should not be in their city. We could see 1 million vehicles by the early 2020s, according to our latest set of scenarios, and about 10 million by 2040, if there is the support and the infrastructure and if, as Quentin said, the value proposition for the consumer continues in the direction it is going. I think it is continuing—

[Andrew Selous]

Q May I just press you on the numbers? I am very interested that you refer to 1 million vehicles by the early 2020s. Last September, we had 87,000 ultra low electric vehicles on our roads, so it is quite a leap to 1 million in four or five years’ time.

Marcus Stewart: But every manufacturer has an electric vehicle on their plan. Hybrids are bridging the gap. Company car drivers are being incentivised to drive hybrid vehicles because of the tax benefits. A market is developing for these vehicles. They are there or thereabouts from a proposition.

Robert Evans: There are two points I would like to make. The first one is from an industry perspective. We have been pressing the Government to have near-term targets for the increased deployment of electric vehicles. In business, we all work to having three-year plans and having an idea about what happens in the short term—about what is a good aspiration for electric vehicle roll-out. Our infrastructure follows the vehicles at this stage, so we are particularly keen that the Government should set near-term targets for electric vehicle roll-out.

[Andrew Selous]

Q What is your near-term target for, say, 2020?

Robert Evans: We want to cross the 5% mark in terms of total vehicle sales and head towards 10%, but I cannot translate that immediately into numbers.

[Andrew Selous]

Q It is quite confusing to talk about percentages of new car sales. What is that in numbers of vehicles on the roads?

Robert Evans: There are two points here. First, it is easier to set targets for new vehicle sales. Secondly, to return to the air quality point, we want to have electric vehicles in our city centres—be they hydrogen fuel cell or battery electric—because they are zero emissions at point of source. We also need to do something about the vehicles that are already out there with petrol and diesel engines.

There is a subtlety in the Bill, which I would be keen to explore, that relates to vehicle testing. At the moment in the UK we have a regime where vehicles are tested thoroughly and certified to initial standards, but thereafter our inspection and maintenance regime is quite lax, in that it is of a static vehicle with an engine probe up the exhaust.

Quentin Willson: And there is no particulates test whatsoever.

Robert Evans: No particulates. In other countries, such as Australia and the US, they have a much tighter regime on inspection and maintenance. They have particular tests where the vehicle is put under dynamic load and its emissions are measured—one test is called the I/M 240. I want to be sure that in the testing section there is carry-over, so that you retain the power, perhaps under proposed section 65B(3) in part 4 of the Bill, to revisit the nature of emissions testing in service, inspection and maintenance in the UK. You should also look at the MOT for electric vehicles, because what happens as the vehicles get a bit older has yet to be fully formalised. That is a request to the Committee to consider those two points.

Quentin Willson: In the MOT test, the MOT inspector will tell you that, for a car to fail on particulate emissions, it must be impossible to see out of the back window because of the smoke—I am not kidding. This is something that we could really do to help to clean the roads of these very, very smoky old cars.