Less carbon, more neon

It’s always gratifying when something you read in a magazine, newspaper, or website, chimes exactly with your own point of view. To that end, we are in perfect sync with Rory Sutherland, on this matter, at least. Sutherland is vice chairman of the advertising company Ogilvy UK and founder of The Behavioural Science Practice. A broadcaster and author, he also writes a regular column in The Spectator magazine. Recently he turned his attention to electric cars and the phenomenon of range anxiety. His proposition was that to reduce range anxiety, manufacturers are currently spending billions on increasing the range of their batteries, when it would be better to reduce the ‘anxiety’ itself.

He supported his proposition with the following illustration―incidentally one we’ve been making ourselves to anyone who’s had the patience to listen. To quote Sutherland: “The truth is there’s no such thing as range anxiety―we’ve all driven around in a petrol car with 30 miles left in the tank without suffering from palpitations. It is really ‘infrastructure anxiety’. People know they’ll be able to find a petrol station to fill up within 10-miles or so, but they don’t have the same faith in the availability of electric Charging stations.”

While infrastructure and range anxiety are clearly both sides of the same coin, Sutherland nevertheless says: “Actually Britain has a lot of electric charging stations. There are already more rapid and ultra-rapid chargers than there are petrol stations. The problem is that you can’t see them.”

Before FCZ readers have conniptions, he’s talking about car not CV charging points, more of which momentarily. His point is that when the first petrol stations were built there was no GPS nor smartphone apps to find one. Rather, in-order to sell petrol, the retailers set up sites on busy roads with big bright forecourts that you couldn’t fail to miss. Through natural selection, the biggest and brightest survived and the others disappeared. “Like peacocks, petrol stations have evolved to be ostentatious.”

We’ve seen many EV charging points in local supermarkets and car parks where there’s a conspicuous lack of major signage. Thanks to GPS, sat-nav, apps and the internet, there’s no problem finding one, but that requires a level of attention or even planning. Surely a large roadside sign saying, ‘Major EV charging station 10 miles on LHS’ or even ‘Last EV charging station for 30 miles’ would go a long way to reducing stress.

As Sutherland says: “Rather than increasing the range of cars, we just need to make car chargers much more flamboyant, so people realise how ubiquitous they are. They need flashing lights, laser displays, possibly an in-built barrel organ.” Indeed, he concludes: “To solve range anxiety, it isn’t cobalt and Lithium we need, it’s neon.” He’s on to something here.

Of course, cars and vans are one thing, trucks are an altogether different proposition. For one thing, you need a lot more space in a commercial vehicle charging point, and a lot more power for fast charging too. Back in 2021, in its EV presentation ‘Fuelling the Fleet: Delivering Commercial Vehicle decarbonisation’ the SMMT estimated: “…the UK will need 2,450 roadside HGV charging points open by 2025, and 8,200 by 2030 to support the anticipated electric HGV fleet. To meet this target, two new HGV charging points will have to be opened in the UK every day.” How’s that going?

There’s a more fundamental question beyond the number of CV charging points needed. Namely, who’s to provide them? While Government can set all the decarbonisation targets it likes, the task of creating the necessary infrastructure to deliver it ultimately rests with the private sector, not Westminster. So, given the current gap between political desire and practical delivery, it is unsurprising truck manufacturers have struck alliances with each other and the power network suppliers and alternative fuel providers to create the necessary charging sites and Hydrogen fuelling points. They’ve had to step-in to reassure the users of their EV products who don’t return to base every night, that when the ‘battery-low’ warning light comes on they’ll have things covered.

Which takes us back to Sutherland’s key point. If we want to ease the anxiety of electric truck operators and drivers every HGV charging point should be well sign-posted―not just in the immediate vicinity, but the not-so-near vicinity too, with access instructions, the number of available bays and charging speeds too, in the same way those brightly lit, easy-to-spot forecourts list the prices of their petrol and diesel. That will doubtless mean changing local council rules on roadside advertising and signage, but as their residents will be the beneficiaries of cleaner air and greener road transport surely that’s more-than justifiable?