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Sales of battery-powered cars surpassed sales of diesel engines in Europe at the end of last year.
But for city dwellers who want an electric car, the biggest hurdle is keeping it in shape.
There are other people in West Berkshire who would buy one, if only they had a position to plug it in.
“Unless there’s a charger in the paints or in your apartment, or at least nearby, it’s not practical to buy an EV [electric vehicle],” said Jenny Tyler of Thatcham, refueling her gasoline SUV at Chieveley Services.
“I can’t get miles from home and I don’t do anything for several hours,” another motorist said when he overheard us, echoing Jenny’s fear about so-called “range anxiety. “Most new electric cars have a maximum diversity of two hundred miles before they want to connect.
For electric cars to be widespread, charging must be widely available and convenient.
It is on the radar of West Berkshire Council (WBC). It has developed an ultra-low emissions strategy, its entire reaction to the climate crisis.
So far, it has installed seven public charging stations, all in locations in downtown Newbury.
But there is a societal challenge that clashes with the board’s vision of West Berkshire being “a position where everyone has a chance to thrive. “
There are a significant number of other people who don’t have to charge the house and will never have to because they live in apartments.
The domestic electric power source can charge a portion of the price based on kWh of public tariffs, or even less, and there are price lists that make it even cheaper if charged at night.
The end result may be that other wealthier people who own homes with a household charge enjoy the benefits offered by electric cars, while the less prosperous are relegated to a dilapidated fleet of used internal combustion engine cars that charge more to stay on the road all. year.
“It’s actually a pretty complicated issue,” said Adrian Abbs (Lib Dem, Wash Common), head of the opposition’s environment portfolio, who hopes to propose a number of concepts to the council.
“One scheme that could be would be to introduce a staggered fee scheme related to a vehicle registered on an express front in the region.
“You would get a lower rate, close to popular domestic rates, for this vehicle at our charging points. “
He also says a challenge with compromised cargo bays used as parking spaces.
“The vast majority don’t have limited access, so most of the time they’re not usable when you need to park and rate at night,” he said.
“That’s because most are also next to the street, so you can’t park and qualify because a fossil fuel car takes up space. “
Abbs needs marked bays in charging bays, to inspire non-electric cars to choose other free spaces to have, and time of day restrictions.
Penalty notices for parking violations can be distributed at charging stations in West Berkshire, there are no figures on the number of other people fined.
“I think you should have chargers in places where other people drive [destinations] and in places where there’s no option for a home charger [curbside parking]. “
The challenge in the end comes down to being able to generate enough energy.
If each and every Newbury resident switches to an electric passenger vehicle, utilities will most likely want to build new power plants to meet cargo demand.
“I propose a budget amendment [March 3] to investigate the creation of a board or joint venture to manage the complexity of electricity produced and stored locally,” he added. Abbs.
“Since we know that in the long run there will be things like grid power projects, Americans with solar installed on their roofs, battery garage in homes, then if we’re going to take advantage of this, we can get less out of the grid and lower prices for local users.
Low emission generation is also an evolving field. So what is now may not necessarily be correct in two years.
West Berkshire City Council already has a car club for its own employees. The concept here is that car-sharing use takes a lot of cars off the road and reduces emissions.
Co-Wheels is one of many advertising-paid EV operators in West Berkshire that has seen an increase in car-sharing use due to the pandemic and vehicle model conversion.
But Robert Schopen, co-Wheels’ head of partnerships, says the lack of public charging stations limits the number of electric cars it can offer consumers in the neighborhood.
“About a third of our fleet are electric vehicles, but in West Berkshire. We only have two there,” he said.
“Our goal is to increase our car fleet from one-third of electric vehicles to 50% by 2025. The only way to achieve this is to have more fast chargers from 7 to 22 kw on the street.
“You want there to be a sufficient number of loose chargers on the street. But that’s not the case in Newbury, as we only have two cars and they have to be on a charger, unless we can make arrangements with other people like businesses or hotels that have a charger on site that we can use.
“If the board doesn’t install enough chargers, we turn to garage chains or even hotels where we can use their chargers. “
Transport emissions
Transport emissions account for a giant percentage of West Berkshire’s total emissions.
“Providing charging stations is a step towards a more sustainable neighbourhood and we hope to inspire the adoption of low-emission vehicles,” says the council, which is converting its fleet accordingly.
In West Berkshire, road transport accounted for almost 58% of the district’s CO2 emissions in 2018.
The M4 motorway accounted for only 31%, the other roads just over 27%.
The Department for Transport (DfT) knew there were 119,664 cars registered in West Berkshire. Of these, 1007 were ULEV, or 0. 84 were cars on the roads.
There are now fast charging stations on all of the district’s two-lane tracks (Membury East and West, Chieveley and Reading East and West), and an increasing number of fast charging stations in hotels, businesses and car parks in the district.
WBC tasked industry experts to read more about potential charging needs in the district.
By 2030, those experts expect 25% of the region’s population to use electric vehicles, or about 31,500 vehicles.
They estimate that West Berkshire will want 103 destination chargers, adding 1,762 residential ones.
They estimated that 31% of the community’s residential buildings have off-street parking, meaning those citizens will have to use on-street parking and public charging stations.
This, they say, would require more than 2,000 top-ups for users without home charging services through 2030.
Where are the chargers?
Each new Mer 22kW fast charger is capable of charging two cars at once and can be found in public car parks here:
If you have tips on locations, please email EV@westberks. gov. uk