Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Helen Goodman and Paul Girvan

3rd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

Good. I am very pleased to hear from the right hon. Gentleman, and I look forward to a positive response from the Minister on this issue of planning permission.

To some extent, new clause 3 covers my next point, which is that we need one system not just for paying when we go to the charge point, but for interconnections. When trying to charge up a car at a public point, it is incredibly annoying for a person to find that they have the wrong kind of plug. It is as absurd as if we had an electricity system in which some houses have three-point plugs, some five point plugs, and others two-point plugs. We have gone way beyond that. Although we want to encourage the private sector—when it comes to manufacturing the cars and the great work that Nissan and Toyota do, we are all in favour of it—the infrastructure for charging is a natural monopoly. It is obvious that the Government should be taking control of it. I am also slightly concerned that there has been systematic mis-selling and over-inflation on the range of electric cars.

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

I appreciate the issue associated with the difference in the types of plugs that are required, but is that not going to demand an international standard to be set and agreed not just by this Government but worldwide, to ensure uniformity of connections with each make of vehicle and the grid?

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; I had not thought of that point. When I go on holiday, I normally hire another car, rather than driving from the UK, but, of course, many people want to take their own car overseas, so he makes a very fair point. It would be interesting to know whether the Government have initiated any discussion in the European Union, for example, on this point.

Let me come back to the point about range, and what I think is a serious breach of consumer rights and trade descriptions. I bought my Leaf from Bristol Street Motors in Darlington, and I was told that it had a range of 125 miles. As I was about to explain to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), I thought that that was fine because it meant that I could travel from my constituency to Newcastle, when I visit the regional organisations for the north-east, and get back again on one charge, but when I collected the car, it was charged up to only 75 miles. I said, “This is 30% less efficient! It is like buying a box of six eggs, but finding when you open the box that there are only four eggs. This is really not acceptable.” The garage people tweaked it around a bit, but they still could only charge it up—I have never charged it beyond this—to 85 miles. That is very different from the 125 miles that I was told. Indeed, having looked at the Nissan website, I found that the over-emphasis not only came from the dealer to whom I spoke, but was on the website itself. The guy who came round to fit my pod point and to whom I explained this problem said, “Oh, I hear it all the time. People are constantly disappointed that their cars don’t have the range that they were sold as having.” This is pretty fundamental. People need to know what they are buying and what they are getting. A 30% reduction in the capacity of what the car can do is a significant difference.