EV News Round-Up: House of Lords EV Report and UK Watchdog Bans EV Ads

This week the House of Lords Climate Change Committee published a detailed report into our EV industry titled ‘EV strategy: rapid recharge needed’, including recommendations on issues it feels needs to be addressed to promote EV adoption.

Among other findings, some of the key headlines from the 128-page report included: a call for electric car tax incentives to avoid entering the ‘slow lane’ in EV adoption and climate action, and a plea to tackle ‘misinformation’ prevalent in the UK press.

The report comes at a time when despite the UK celebrating reaching its 1 millionth EV registration last month, market share has not grown for the first time since 2018.

Baroness Parminter, chair of the committee, acknowledged how misinformation was effecting EV adoption:

"We have seen a concerted effort to scare people...we have seen articles saying that cars are catching fire - but have evidence that the fire risk is absolutely the same as [petrol and diesel] cars."

The Lords committee did not single out any newspaper in particular in their report, but urged the Government to take action against inflammatory and unsubstantiated claims.

The report also backed lower tax costs for would-be EV buyers; a call echoed by manufacturers as an aid to boosting consumer sales.

The Government has not provided a formal response to the report as of yet, and is not required to do so according to parliamentary law until the 6th April. But it has pointed out its recent commitment to an additional £2bn funding for EV manufacturing allocated in Jeremy Hunt’s annual budget.

The UK’s advertising watchdog ordered the banning of adverts from several car makers due to claims of producing ‘zero emission vehicles’ being described as ‘misleading’.

In a landmark decision for EV advertising, the Advertising Standards Authority stated that the claims were untrue due to the emissions created in the manufacturing process of the vehicles.

The regulator has launched a crackdown on “greenwashing” in adverts, and has banned some adverts by oil groups and airlines over the past year for misleading environmental claims.

Despite this, the ruling seems to be a technicality, and has now provided automakers with a clear definition as to how they can word their reduced emission credentials in order to stay on the right side of advertising standards agencies. The reality is that while the ruling may mean ‘zero emissions’ claims are unsuitable for advertising, research still shows that EVs total emissions remain consistently less than ICE equivalents. 

The ASA did not question other claims in the same pulled adverts that London has an air-quality problem, nor that the expansion of the ULEZ would reduce air pollution emissions in Greater London.

The UK Government has announced an amendment to their Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS).  State-funded schools, colleges, nurseries and academies can now benefit from up to £2,500 per socket, equivalent to 40 sockets across all sites. This is a huge improvement on the previous allowance of £350 per socket, and will now look to cover up to 75% of the cost to buy and install chargers.

This amount includes any previous applications made through the Workplace Charging Scheme.

Minister for the School System and Student Finance at the Department for Education, Baroness Barran, said: 

“This is an exciting opportunity for schools across England to become part of an ongoing move towards a greener public sector.”

“Developing a greener education estate is a key element of our sustainability and climate change strategy.”

Providing funding for installations like these will be crucial to the UK’s EV infrastructure rollout. State-funded organisations making the push towards achieving net zero will benefit from the founding, which will in turn provide a boost in achieving the Government target of 300,000 public chargers on our network by 2030.

The updated Workplace Charging Scheme is one of several available to business and local authorities. And you can find an in-depth breakdown here. 

In lighter news from the last week, popular EV supercar the Porsche Taycan has received an upgrade, with Porsche expecting its new version to hit the consumer market in Spring.

A key change for the new model is the introduction of a larger 105kWh battery, which has a range of up to 421 miles and is a 35% improvement on the previous model.

Regular Taycans come in at around £86,500, with a battery that provides an on-paper range of 367 miles. 

An early review of the updated model is available here.

And finally for this week’s round-up, we had a great boost this week as we were announced on the shortlist for this year’s annual Fleet News Awards!

Our charge point management system is up for outstanding new product of the year, and we’re excited to be getting some recognition after our platform has helped key clients such as Nottingham City Council save over £1 million a year in running costs throughout its EV transition.

Check out our full case study here, and keep an eye out across our socials on awards night on 13th March!

That’s it for this week’s line-up! Make sure to follow our social channels to receive regular updates on what’s happening across EV, and feel free to get in touch through the form below to find out what our EV charging software can do for you.