Access to EV
The government is banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 2030. Have you thought how this will affect you? The ban will affect everybody including disabled motorists. The ban is less than eight years away so if you haven’t thought about it already now is the time to do so.
More and more electric vehicles are coming to market all the time and battery technology has come a long way since the first EVs hit the roads. You might have ruled out an EV in the past, but there might be something that now suits your needs. It’s worth doing some research as it will be something you will have to think about in the near future.
Over the past few years you will have read about several EV projects that DMUK has been involved in and the worrying news that the public charging infrastructure is completely inaccessible to many disabled motorists. It is thought that roughly 40% of households will not have the facilities and access at their home to have an at home charging point installed, so will be reliant on public charging infrastructure. With the fastest rapid charge taking at least 20 minutes, a big proportion of the populations will have to completely rethink refuelling - or what will be the new normal - re-charging! It won’t be a case of just popping to the local petrol station while running another errand or going to work, charging will be the reason for the journey. The way in which we think about getting fuel for our vehicles will completely change.
DMUK Access to EV
DMUK Access to EV Results
In April 2022 Disabled Motoring UK was awarded some funding from the National Lottery to research the worries and concerns which disabled motorist have regarding the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles in 2030 and switch over to electric vehicles (EVs). The charity surveyed participants from May to September and received over 2000 responses.
Disabled Motorist identify the lack of a disabled parking bay as their biggest barrier to accessing public charging infrastructure.
The survey asked participants to rank in order from 1-6 what would pose the biggest difficulty to them when using public charge points. 1 being the biggest difficulty and 6 being the least. The options were:
· Dexterity required to plug in cable to charger and car
· Lack of an accessible parking bay
· Height of machinery
· Complexity of charging machinery and booking/payment apps
· Machinery being on a plinth without a dropped kerb
· Weight of charging plug and cable
The biggest problem was clear from the results with 41 % saying that the biggest difficulty would be a lack of a disabled parking bay. Most other results had equal weighting.
The other major concerns included the cost of purchase and the worry of charging on longer journeys.
45.7% of people ranked the cost of purchasing an EV as the thing that concerned them most with the worry of charging on longer journeys coming in at second most concerning at 12.5%.
EVs are becoming more widespread, but there is yet to be an established second-hand market for such vehicles. There is no clear understanding of resale values and second-hand EV reliability. This is off putting to all motorists wanting to make the switch especially with the cost of new EVs being so high.
DMUK Communications & Campaigns Director, said: “The ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles is moving closer and it is clear from the results of this survey that more needs to be done so that disabled motorists can move forward with this transition. Some of the problems highlighted in the survey aren’t unique to disabled motorists. The cost of purchase, the worry of charging on longer journey and availability of public charging will affect all motorists. However, the lack of accessible public charging is problematic. From the survey the biggest concern on public charging is the lack of a disabled parking bay. In recent BSI guidance issued on accessible public charging (PAS 1899) the provision of a disabled parking bay is just an annex to the document. Our survey suggests that this needs to be at the forefront of any guidance to make public charging truly accessible.”
