As the Chairman of ECO: Electric Car Organisation, I am passionate about reducing pollution by shifting drivers away from polluting petrol cars towards emission-free electric vehicles.
However, I feel that charging drivers up to £60 a day to drive through “Clean Air Zones” is fundamentally flawed, as it penalises lower-income earners with older cars, who are least able to make the switch. It also encourages longer journeys on the outskirts of the zone, as people seek to avoid entering the Clean Air Zone.
I am proud that the Manchester public revolted against the imposition of a Manchester Clean Air Zone (I still see the abandoned signage every day) modelled on London, because, unlike London, the public transport infrastructure does not provide a realistic alternative to lower-income drivers who have been abandoned by the government during our transition to EVs.
However, these Clean Air Zones have been implemented up and down the country in:
Bath
Birmingham
Portsmouth
Bradford
Bristol
Tyneside (Newcastle & Gateshead)
Sheffield
So, if your town’s name starts with a “B”, be worried, as the lovely Green Party, which has suddenly become an alternative political force given the complete lack of leadership from Labour or the Conservatives, is seeking to expand these zones even further and has targeted my old hometown of Brighton to be next.
It’s my view that in the current economic climate, the last thing we need is crude taxes or penalties for driving petrol cars that hit the poor and don’t change behaviour. We need instead to incentivise the move to emission-free electric vehicles (EVs) by introducing tax subsidies for lower earners to allow them to purchase the second-hand EVs that are now coming into the market 6–7 years after the first wave of EV adoption, whilst converting local car parks into overnight charging hubs for people who live in flats.
Our lovely government already offers substantial tax subsidies via salary sacrifice schemes, enabling the wealthy to switch to EVs. These tax breaks make EV leasing 28–42% cheaper, and this can be boosted to 50–60% if the business hands back its Employer NI and VAT savings. I believe that councils across the country should focus on promoting these schemes to local businesses and incentivising them with business rate reductions to install EV chargers in their office car parks, which can be used by both employees and residents out of hours.
Focusing on taking advantage of central government tax breaks to incentivise the move to EVs via employers, since it costs them nothing, is the obvious route forward. However, many don’t yet offer salary sacrifice schemes to their own employees, let alone promote their use to local businesses.
I also believe that the lack of a robust local charging network is preventing the adoption of EVs, but again, local councils are not promoting the central government grants of up to £350 per installed charger to local businesses.
Local councils also need to consider how they can create fleets of electric taxis, by providing the funding required to buy large volumes of second-hand EVs to operate these fleets, with the council then charging a per-mile driven fee to cover their investment and vehicle insurance.
In summary, we don’t need Clean Air Zone policies from local councils, but we do need the intelligent use of central government funding and a practical approach on a local basis to driving EV adoption. Creating “clean” taxi fleets that have low operating costs and target the heaviest polluting vehicles where you live is a simple and practical policy, but few councils have woken up to it, let alone considered how to create electric charging hubs in the centrally located car parks they own.
The EV Revolution requires a localised adoption policy as well as central government support.