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EV OR NOT EV? THAT IS THE


The post-lockdown summer is almost behind us, hope- fully we’re not facing a pre-lockdown Autumn. As the CEO of minicabit, Britain’s largest, most visited cab comparison site, it’s great to see PHTM EXPO back, our fifth year as its headline sponsor. Now more than ever is a time for our cab industry to discuss something other than which jab you had.


And there is plenty to discuss in our industry – driver shortages, the changing nature of post-pandemic demand, Clean Air Zones. But one of the biggest topics, soon to be one of the hottest, is the switch to fully elec- tric vehicles (EVs). As you may know, the UK government announced that sales of petrol/diesel cars will stop from 2030 (though plug-in hybrids will contin- ue for a further five years). This is part of a green economic recovery gaining momentum from the Covid- 19 lockdowns when air pollution and carbon emission levels naturally fell due to transport habits being grounded.


EVs represented 6% of all car sales in 2020, so pushing car buyers to go electric in just eight years has sparked all sorts of debates and initiatives. Key among them is the lack of charging points available evenly around the UK, with their economics instead skewing them towards major metropolitan areas whilst some regions lag behind.


There’s also the not so small matter of the supply of EV models themselves, with a steadily growing range cur- rently priced at a premium to their petrol/diesel counterparts. And finally there’s the ‘carrot & stick’ nature of demand – the ‘carrot’ is a growing preference by businesses and some consumers keen on EVs to reduce their carbon footprint, the ‘stick’ is the punitive daily fee of driving a petrol/diesel car into a Low Emis- sion or Clean Air Zone in various cities UK-wide.


But what does all this particularly mean for our taxi and private hire industry, from our drivers and cab compa- nies to our customers?


Here are a few thoughts, some perhaps controversial


• corporates and even small business customers will be increasingly accountable for their carbon foot- print - embracing EV cabs is a very visible way of addressing this, to colleagues and clients. So cab fleets that lack an EV offering could increasingly be turned away from such work.


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• a near full switchover to EV cabs by the cab industry could perhaps accelerate from 2027, within three years of the 2030 deadline. With most local authori- ties requiring drivers to use cars less than five-seven years old in order for them to obtain a private hire licence, investing in a petrol/diesel car for the dura- tion of a licence beyond 2030 may become riskier as car manufacturers focus on supporting EVs regard- ing servicing, availability of spare parts etc. Yes, petrol car prices may fall as they gradually reach pariah status as diesel cars are now, but what’s the point of investing in them if your highest value cus- tomers won’t want to get in them?


• the battery range for most EV models is still currently under 300 miles and the time taken to reach a half full charge is typically around 30 minutes. Improve- ments and investments in battery technology (the UK government has recently supported BritishVolt and is wooing Tesla to boost battery manufacturing in Britain) and fierce competition between suppliers should improve range and charging time over the next two years.


• according to Zap Map, there are over 24,000 pub- licly available EV charging points of varying capacity and charging time. It appears only 20% of these are currently rapid enough for a cab driver to charge up sufficiently in between jobs so they’re not missing out on work. Availability of rapid chargers will only improve given a lot of charging point providers are piling into the market including the petrol and super- market retailers, and even Tesla is rumoured to be opening up their own supercharger network to other car models. Other pain points such as standardised


SEPTEMBER 2021


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