Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Earl Attlee Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the skilful way in which she introduced the Bill this afternoon. I am pleased that the Government will not be Luddite and will welcome this new technology. In doing so, they will need to be careful and interfere and legislate only when it is necessary. The omens are favourable. It may appear that the Bill does not cover all the issues, but we must not forget that the Secretary of State can do a lot with the construction and use regulations made under Section 42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Those regulations are extensive.

When I refer to a self-driving taxi, I mean a vehicle that is available for the user to call up when required but which the user does not keep, own or operate. The point is that the vehicle operator would not necessarily be a conventional taxi operator. When I use the term “self-driving vehicle”, I recognise that there are various levels of autonomy. No doubt we will discuss that in Committee.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, talked about taxation issues relating to electric vehicles. He is right to raise them. It is clear to me that at some point we will have to move to a system of universal road user charging rather than relying on taxing hydrocarbons, but overall I am rather more optimistic than the noble Lord.

I think autonomous and electric vehicles will be very disruptive but equally beneficial. Recently there has been much concern about the advent of the Uber taxi service, but that will be nothing compared to the effect of self-driving taxis. It is obvious that a major component of a taxi fare is the need to pay for a driver to be available for the next fare, but by definition a self-driving taxi will not need a driver, so that cost will be eliminated. It will also have the unfortunate effect of eliminating the possibility of migrants earning their living as taxi-drivers, which is very common, while their children study to be professionals later in life. When the self-driving taxi has dropped off its passenger, it can be programmed to go to where it is most likely to pick up its next fare. Alternatively, it might go to where it can most economically recharge itself.

I welcome the insurance provisions in the Bill, which no doubt we will look at closely in Committee. I do not share the pessimism of many noble Lords. It is interesting that we can expect a self-driving vehicle never to commit a traffic violation; in other words, it will be programmed not to commit a traffic violation. That would include never going so fast that it cannot stop within the distance it knows to be clear. Furthermore, we can expect a self-driving vehicle to record all its sensor inputs for the few minutes prior to any incident. This was touched on by my noble friend Lord Borwick. Thus, if there is an accident, and there will of course be some, it will be easy to work out why it occurred and the data must be made available to all those with a legitimate interest.

There is, however, a worry about software causing an accident. Of course, how to avoid that problem is a technical issue, not one for us, even though we can be confident that there will sometimes be a problem. However, I suggest that it will be nothing compared to the risk presented by a young novice driver or someone whose driving is impaired through drink, drugs or tiredness.

Another disruptive effect of self-driving taxis and vehicles is that households may move from having two conventional cars to having one conventional car and one electric car, or to not having a second car and calling up a self-driving taxi when required. These self-driving taxis will be used far more intensively than our contemporary vehicles and there will be less to wear out. They will have no internal combustion engine or complex transmission. The useful life of a contemporary private car is about 250,000 miles with a 15 to 20-year life expectancy. It is therefore currently essential that the cost of production of a modern conventional car is kept very low, thus we have large and very efficient motor manufacturers. With self-driving taxis, the amortisation of the cost will be much better since they will be much more intensively used. This could mean that the cost of manufacturing these vehicles is less important and could allow smaller manufacturers back into the market. However, in answer to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley, and the noble Lord, Lord Birt, there are already type approval regulations in place, maintained by the Department for Transport and internationally, and these can be amended to deal with electric and autonomous vehicles. So I do not think there is a problem of a lack of legislation; the Secretary of State has all the powers he needs.

I have always resisted the suggestion that a person should be licensed to maintain a motor vehicle, because I am a Conservative and do not want to regulate unless it is essential. However, there are two reasons why it may be essential with this new technology. The first is the software problems that have already been touched on. Even now, we are seeing unscrupulous HGV operators using Defeat software to avoid the use of AdBlue supplements or altering the engine mapping to achieve increased power and lower fuel consumption. The cost, of course, must be increased emissions, so playing around with the software of the vehicle is extremely undesirable. Clause 4 goes some way towards addressing this issue. The second reason for needing qualified technicians is that I understand that electric vehicles can use much higher voltages than current vehicles. This presents a real risk to the operator of the vehicle and any unqualified technician attempting to maintain it. My noble friend Lord Selborne talked about the need to train engineers and technicians. Wherever I look, the engineers and technicians are always a problem.

Some noble Lords have raised the issue of electricity supply, and I hope we will hear something on that from the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, who will be following me. The population of electric vehicles is low at the moment but I expect it will grow rapidly. For instance, my neighbour already has one and when I replace my current vehicle I expect it will be electric-only. The problem is that if everyone comes home in the evening and connects their electric car to the electrical system, with each drawing 16 amps at the same time, there will be problems, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Birt. The supply system simply could not tolerate that much concentrated demand. I expect the noble Baroness will talk about smart metering, and we should listen carefully.

However, there may be a silver lining. Wind power is still generated throughout the night when overall electrical demand is lower. It is obvious to charge up an electrical vehicle in the middle of the night rather than on arrival in the early evening. What is not so obvious, although it has been touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is to use the battery capacity of electric cars to feed back into the electrical distribution system in the early evening when the power is needed. The car could then charge up in the middle of the night, and it would be a simple matter to programme it so that it would not compromise the minimum range desired and set by the owner. The beauty of this is that the problem of the capital cost of battery storage and wind power would be reduced. It is true that batteries will always have only a finite amount of cycles in their life, but that could be accounted for in the commercial arrangements.

While we need some understanding of the technology, we do not need to worry too much about steering it. That will happen automatically. The question that we will have to address is how much regulation of the utilities to put in place. Nevertheless, the electrical supply for electric vehicles could be a win/win situation where the capital cost of the batteries is amortised over both the operation of the car and the wider electrical supply system. I think our discussions on this in Committee will be very interesting.

One of the advantages of a fully autonomous vehicle is that a person who is medically unable to drive will in future be able to be taken somewhere by a vehicle that they do not actually have to be able to drive. I have no problem with that; it is an obvious advantage. However, what if someone is impaired through drink and drugs, therapeutic or recreational? We currently have an offence of being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle, which is very sensible, but may have to review it at some point in the future because otherwise we could have a situation where a blind person could use a self-driving taxi but a person who had been drinking a little could not. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and I are very concerned about drink-driving. Surely in future self-driving taxis will mean that there is no need for anyone to drive to a pub or restaurant and consume any alcohol.

In conclusion, I welcome the Bill and look forward to supporting the Minister in Committee.