Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, March 10, 2016

Official Report 1058KB pdf

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Electric Car Rapid Charge Points

The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-15291, in the name of Dave Thompson, on the need for more electric car rapid charge points. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.

Motion debated,

That the Parliament recognises Scotland’s role in reducing global warming; understands that, when fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas are burnt, they release CO2 into the atmosphere and are considered by the vast majority of the scientific community as a contributory cause of global temperature increases; considers that, thanks to human ingenuity, there are smarter ways to generate energy and that travelling by electric car reduces one’s carbon footprint; believes that “fast” (22kw) and “rapid” (50kw) electric charge points are becoming more prevalent in Scotland and that more rapid charge points are needed to make electric car travel in Scotland more efficient to encourage widespread use in Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch and across the country, and notes calls for all members to campaign in their constituencies to make this happen.

12:32  

I am very pleased that my motion has received cross-party support and I thank all the members who backed it. That cross-party support highlights the fact that Parliament recognises Scotland’s role in reducing global warming and the importance of electric car travel in reducing our nation’s carbon footprint.

As members will know, in December I leased a Nissan Leaf electric car, which has a real winter range of nearly 90 miles in mountainous terrain. I have been using it to travel around my constituency of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, which is not exactly small, and I have used it to travel down to Edinburgh a couple of times. Some people may have it in their heads that electric car travel is only for short journeys or use on small islands, but I have travelled from Inverness to Edinburgh via Fort William—a journey of 200 miles—with only three stops, which could have been two stops if there was a rapid charge point at Callander.

That brings me to my first point. There are not enough rapid charge points, particularly in the Highlands and in rural areas. Rapid charge points enable electric cars to get an 80 per cent boost in half an hour. There are fast charge points, but they take considerably longer. The lack of rapid charge points is off-putting to those who might otherwise be interested in purchasing an electric car for longer journeys.

Callander is in my constituency. If Dave Thompson had driven a bit further north and gone on to Killin, he would have found a fast charge point.

There may well be a fast charge point in Killin, but it would take three hours to get an 80 per cent charge. I need rapid charge points, which do that in 30 minutes. That is the point. By the way, I stopped at the Green Welly Stop, which is not far from Killin. I needed the extra stop.

I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to developing the charge network into one of the most comprehensive sets of rapid charge points in Europe.

My second point is that there needs to be charge point reliability. Without that, extra charge points will be rendered meaningless and the public’s perception of an electric car as a lesser motor vehicle that is used only for shorter journeys will remain.

I welcome members of the Electric Vehicle Association of Scotland to the Parliament, including the chair, Douglas Robertson, and his son, Iain. They have been very helpful in the lead-up to the debate, and I applaud their efforts in promoting and representing the interests of electric vehicle users in Scotland. If they wait at the bottom of the stairs after the debate, I will come round and see them.

There has been some negative press about the Scottish Government wasting money on providing rapid chargers in the rural north, so it was with delight that I learned that EVAS will host an event in June to highlight the many benefits of electric car travel in rural areas.

Will the member accept a brief intervention?

Yes.

I thank the member.

For me, this is a wee bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. A lot of people want to move to electric cars, but they do not do so because there are no rapid charge points, and there are no rapid charge points because there are not enough electric cars. How can we address that issue? Should we have the charge points first?

I thank the member for that intervention. We need to sort out the charge point network—I will come on to that later. There are more and more electric vehicles on the road—especially all-electric vehicles, which need the rapid charge points, whereas the hybrids can run on petrol or diesel for a wee bit. The point is that we need to move away from petrol and diesel. Of course, electricity is also a lot cheaper.

EVAS hopes that the support that it has received from Transport Scotland, the Energy Saving Trust, green tourism and electric vehicle dealerships will result in electric vehicle roadshows, at which local people will be able to test drive an electric vehicle. I can tell you that my Nissan Leaf will do zero to 60mph in 11.5 seconds—it is very nippy, and very economical.

Will the member take another brief intervention?

Presiding Officer, will you give me a little bit of extra time if I take more interventions?

Yes.

I am very grateful to Dave Thompson—not just for taking the intervention, but for bringing the debate to Parliament.

My question is rather different from Kenny Gibson’s question. I think that Orkney has the highest per capita take-up of electric vehicles, demonstrating the cluster effect. Does Dave Thompson believe that, as part of the exercise that Transport Scotland and others are engaged in, it will be important to build up those clusters, as well as the network?

The member raises an important point. Those clusters—and people’s confidence that they will be able to get charges when they need them—are vital.

In the past, the Scottish Government has supported rural petrol stations, and I believe that it can revitalise rural areas by providing electric vehicle charge points. Those can be fitted at cafes and shops, which local people and visitors might wish to use while their cars are charging. That should be considered as a way of building a new infrastructure for the modern age. It could be a real boon to rural areas. The investment would also help to encourage more electric car use and ownership in rural areas, and it would allow folk to tap into cheaper forms of transport—most electric vehicle dealers have many lease options available, such as the one that I have.

The total cost of ownership can be considerably less for an electric vehicle than for other vehicles—10p or 25p a mile may be possible. Taxis could save anything up to £9,000 a year on fuel costs. Indeed, on Tuesday, I was tagged on Twitter by someone who enthused that he had seen an electric taxi in Edinburgh, and, like me, he was calling for more.

I have received messages of support from many people in the run-up to the debate, and I would like to quote one of them. Mr Gill, who got in touch recently, shares my concerns. He tells me that it is

“incredibly difficult to get to and from the Isle of Skye with an electric car”.

I can testify to that. It is essential that the Shiel Bridge and Broadford rapid charge points are working as soon as possible. I am due to go to Skye a week tomorrow and, if those points are not working, I will have to hire a diesel or petrol car to get there. Maybe the minister can help me by ensuring that those two rapid charge points are working next week.

Mr Gill’s wife Heather tried to use the rapid charger at Broxden in Perth. There are two on the site, but one of them was completely offline—it was just not working, and apparently the second unit, which has been there for a year, has not been powered up. She was fortunate to be able to divert to South Inch in Perth, where the charger functioned, but only when she held the connector in place as some of the levers on the old connectors were broken and would not stay attached to the car. The newer connectors are much better, so we need the old ones to be replaced with newer ones as quickly as possible.

That brings me back to my earlier point: although improvements to the network have been made and there are plans for more rapid charge points, there must be a concerted effort to streamline the whole charging experience for the user. We cannot possibly hope to increase electric vehicle ownership unless the network is maintained to an exemplary standard. That must be our aim.

It is essential that electric car travel in Scotland becomes more efficient and that reliable rapid charge points become the norm. I take this opportunity to encourage electric car use in Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch and across the country as a means to reduce our carbon footprint. I call on all members in the chamber to campaign in their constituencies to make electric car travel more prevalent.

Finally, I look forward to hearing more about the good work of EVAS—

You must close, please.

The work that EVAS is doing to promote and represent the interests of electric vehicle users is first class, and I hope that members will consider getting along to the EVAS electric car events in June.

12:41  

I thank Dave Thompson for bringing the debate to the chamber.

The expansion of electric vehicle charging networks across the UK in recent years is a welcome contribution to reducing CO2 emissions. The more convenient and cost effective it is for people to have electric or hybrid vehicles, the more demand will increase.

Until now, a lot of the investment in fast or rapid charging points has focused on areas with a high volume of traffic such as urban areas and motorways. Now, Scotland is reaching a point at which we need to invest in vehicle infrastructure for semi-rural and rural areas where people are much more dependent on their cars for short journeys.

In Glasgow, there is reasonable coverage for electric car charging points, but no superchargers or rapid chargers. As demand is high, there are often not enough spaces for people to charge their cars. Glasgow has had free charging points for electric cars for several years. As the number of users of plug-in vehicles increased, there began to be disputes when hybrid or electric cars were parked in those spaces but were not actually plugged in. In other areas, owners of electric vehicles were upset that the charging facilities were being used by hybrid cars.

Earlier this year, Glasgow City Council introduced a £3-per-hour levy for street-side electric car charging. I feel that the introduction of charges for charging is a step backwards. There is usually free parking for cars for up to two hours, so two hours of charging should also be free in a bid to encourage more electric vehicles in our cities.

The electric car charging network needs to keep up with technology. In Scotland there are only three Tesla superchargers, which deliver 120kW of direct current, and sadly none of them is on the west coast. If someone in Glasgow wants access to a supercharger, they need to travel around 50 miles to get to one, which is unsatisfactory and unacceptable.

Charging points for electric cars are as much a part of our transport infrastructure as our roads, and they can become an integral part of our tourist industry. I call on local and regional governments, Westminster, the European Union and even the United Nations to encourage private and public industry to play a greater role in providing additional power points or superchargers in supermarkets, service stations and tourist destinations, to enhance the service that is provided.

I quite agree with Dave Thompson that if we want to ensure that the electric vehicle industry flourishes, we must provide people with the services that are needed for that to happen. There is a great opportunity for the Scottish Parliament to take a lead on the issue and show the rest of the UK and other countries that electric vehicles are the future and will enhance everyone’s quality of life.

12:45  

I am grateful to Dave Thompson for securing this important debate. I was pleased to support the motion in his name.

There is no doubt that electric vehicles have an important role to play in a decarbonised transport sector, alongside demand management and greater levels of active travel. There is a continuing need to do more to secure greater numbers of EVs on Scotland’s roads.

With recent technological advances, electric vehicles are an efficient and realistic method of transport, which will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions but improve air quality and thereby improve the health and wellbeing of the people of Scotland. It is one thing to acknowledge that; it is quite another to implement such a policy. The Scottish Government has taken measures to increase the appeal of EVs, but a major hindrance to consumer appeal has been the availability of plug-in stations and the lack of rapid electric charge points, as Dave Thompson said. If we want to encourage the use of electric cars, we must ensure that they are a viable option for everyday use.

We can look to countries that have implemented measures with varying success, such as Norway and Germany, as case studies. Norway has had huge success in the EV market and has the world’s highest number of electric cars per capita, by a wide margin. Oslo has the highest density of EVs in the world. It has been suggested that there is an opportunity for Scotland to learn from the Norwegian experience—and not just on EVs, I hasten to add. Norway has adopted measures that give EVs priority, such as giving EVs access to bus lanes, so I would be interested to hear from the minister what role the forthcoming national framework for local incentives will give to priority measures for EVs.

Norway’s success is also due to incentives for zero-emissions vehicles, which include exemptions from road tolls, free parking in town centres, access to bus lanes and import tax that is calculated on the basis of a car’s carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions and weight.

Furthermore, the Norwegian Parliament voted, with cross-party consensus, to maintain those financial incentives until 2018 or until there are 50,000 zero-emissions vehicles on the road, thereby tuning the system so that cars with higher emissions are penalised and those with lower emissions are rewarded. The measures have been successful in nudging consumers to purchase more eco-friendly vehicles and in adjusting the Norwegian mindset to support the electric vehicle movement.

A huge part of Norway’s success in implementing viable EV market incentives is the availability of charging points, which has been made possible through a massive Government push for charging infrastructure, which resulted in an increase from fewer than 200 charging stations in 2009 to more than 7,000 publicly accessible plug-ins for EVs throughout the country. There is also an online, centralised database, Nobil, to maximise the benefits and the information that is available. Something similar might help Dave Thompson when he is searching for a rapid charging point in north Stirlingshire.

By contrast—and surprisingly—Germany has been slow to adopt similar measures, and its EV market is suffering for that. Germany has one of the leading sustainable energy markets in the world, but its EV movement has been rather stagnant, partly due to its lack of charging stations. At the end of 2014, Germany had only 100 fast-charging direct current stations and 4,800 level 2 charging stations. That makes for a relatively low density of charging infrastructure for more than 600,000 kilometres of roads, especially when we compare Germany’s position with Norway’s 7,000 plug-ins for only a sixth of the total road network.

Here in Scotland, during the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee’s visit to Orkney in June to take evidence on land reform, I learned that in the spring of 2014, the Rousay, Egilsay & Wyre Development Trust co-ordinated an electric car project, in which three areas of Orkney were awarded the cost of leasing four electric vehicles for one year.

At the beginning of the leases, there was a limited number of charging points, which was especially problematic in Orkney because of its landscape. However, more charging points were installed, the problem was largely resolved and the project was considered so successful that two of the islands renewed their leases on the electric cars. Even the trust that organised the project bought an electric car of its own. Before the project, there were only 10 EVs in Orkney; now, there are more than 70 electric vehicles in a population of 21,500.

Climate change is very much on the Scottish Government’s radar. The recent percentage reduction in emissions demonstrates that Scotland is more than three quarters of the way to achieving its climate change goal of meeting its emissions reduction targets by 2020. Encouraging the EV market will help us to attain that goal, taking advantage of Scotland’s abundant renewable energy resources to provide electricity to power those vehicles and create a cleaner, greener, more sustainable Scotland.

12:50  

I am pleased that we have the opportunity today to discuss the need for electric car rapid charging points, because it highlights the wider subject of the need to embrace technology in our response to climate change. Dave Thompson has hit the nail on the head in pinpointing human ingenuity as the source of smarter ways to reduce carbon emissions. Innovation is, indeed, the greatest source of progress, and we would do well to embrace technological change as the best way to tackle climate change in a sustainable, cost-effective and transformational way. Travel by electric car is one of the innovations that can make a real and lasting difference, so it is right that we consider how best to encourage it, while taking into account limitations as well as opportunities.

Colleagues will be aware of the benefits of electric cars, and it is good to have heard them highlighted today. Travel by electric car can reduce our carbon footprint, which seems to be an increasingly important concern for some consumers when they are selecting a car. However, it would be unrealistic to expect that to be their only criterion; cost, reliability and range are all important factors for drivers, and such practical concerns must be addressed if we are to see widespread uptake of electric cars. Dave Thompson is therefore right to highlight the importance of rapid charging points, which are particularly important because the range of the batteries that are used can be very short compared to what is offered by a full tank of fuel.

There is a difficult compromise to be made, in that funding for new charging points has to be measured against frequency of use—some do not work if they are not used frequently. Indeed, I have seen reports of some charging stations being left unused for long periods, which puts an inevitable question mark over how justified it would be to divert resources from elsewhere to provide more. Of course, we could end up in a circular argument, because uptake of electric cars can depend on availability of charging points in the first place. Clearly, a balance has to be struck that takes into account the benefits of investment in rapid charging points as well as potential opportunity costs.

The key theme in the motion that I would like to support is that use of environmentally friendly travel options, including electric cars, is about their practicality as much as it is about their green credentials. Increased availability of charging points—and rapid ones, at that—is a good place to start, but we should in the first place put our energy into supporting efforts to improve practicality.

I am no engineer, so I have no idea about the finer details, but we have a wealth of talent in Scotland that has delivered and will continue to deliver leaps forward in technology through innovative thinking. With the right environment and the right support, the problems around the need for charging points can be addressed for the long term by increasing battery ranges. I am sure that we would all agree on that. I take the opportunity to underline my support for and acknowledgement of the human ingenuity that makes such progress possible.

I am glad that we have had this opportunity to discuss the use of electric cars and the challenges that their drivers face. I hope that the key message that we can take away from the debate is that long-term and sustainable progress is made by human ingenuity and that such pioneers set an example that we in Parliament should applaud.

12:54  

I congratulate Dave Thompson on securing the debate and on raising awareness of the uptake of electric vehicles and all necessary matters. As he described, he practises what he preaches by owning an electric vehicle.

I would not want people to think that Transport Scotland is slow to act. I have an update from officials on the matters that have been raised. I do not understand the full note, but I am sure that officials will be able to explain the technical details to Dave Thompson before his trip. I understand that one or two of the charging points that he mentioned have been fixed, that work has been commissioned in Shiel Bridge and is awaiting final testing, but that work at Broadford is delayed due to the wayleave agreement, although the aim is to commission that work by the end of April. I have no idea what that means, but I am sure that the official who is present will be able to explain it.

The Scottish Government absolutely supports increased uptake and use of electric vehicles as we move away from fossil-fuel-burning vehicles. That is the only way that we will make progress on our greener, cleaner country policy. Such transformation will be significant, so the Government will continue to support it in every way that we can—through the national transport strategy, through the chargeplace Scotland initiative and through individual packages of support for electric vehicles. Indeed, our overarching vision is of a completely decarbonised transport system, so we need to move towards electric vehicles for air quality, for the environment and for personal behaviour. We are supporting electric vehicles through individual initiatives such as the swtiched-on fleets scheme, which supports purchase of electric vehicles right across Scotland, including the Highland region specifically. We are also looking at what more we can do with incentives.

Hanzala Malik made a fair point about charging, which is certainly worth considering, as is enhancing the infrastructure, which can be done through a partnership approach across the public and private sectors. Showcasing of electric vehicles is necessary, which is why the exhibitions that have been referred to will be so important in demonstrating the benefits of electric vehicles.

We are making progress: there are now more than 2,000 electric vehicles on Scotland’s roads. In 2014, more than 800 electric cars were sold in Scotland using the United Kingdom Government’s plug-in car grant, which was more than in the previous three years combined. The 2015 sales figures have yet to be confirmed, but they will tell us that even more vehicles have been sold using the scheme between January and September. We are beginning to build up accelerated progress—pardon the pun—to deliver more electric vehicles. To respond to Kenny Gibson’s question, I say that of course the infrastructure has to be in place first so that the vehicles can operate and to provide confidence about availability. The main point of the debate is the availability of charging points. More is being done to increase the number of charging points and availability of the infrastructure because of increasing demand as more vehicles are purchased.

Domestic charging is also important. There have been more installations and demand has surpassed availability of funding in some of the support schemes for delivering home installations. That is something that I will look at closely as we go forward with transport delivery policies. I would also like big employers to look at their policies and initiatives on sustainable transport, so that they can increase the number of charging points with the public sector and increase their purchase and use of electric vehicles in their business.

I could list the areas that have benefited from grant schemes, but time does not allow it. However, I would like to say that in Dave Thompson’s constituency of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch alone we have installed nine rapid chargers, with a further five planned. Charging points are hosted and maintained by local authorities and by others: we appreciate those on-going partnerships in delivery of the network.

There is more to do, and we will continue to deliver charging points, in view of what is happening across networks in Europe. Scotland has made good progress, but we want to achieve much more. Scotland has gained a strong reputation based on the work that we have done around uptake of electric vehicles. That is why we will continue to provide leadership and resources to develop the chargeplace Scotland network to meet the needs of the growing electric vehicles market.

Of course, widespread electric vehicle adoption will require more than the Government doing something: it will require a partnership approach from the public and private sectors. However, there is a clear need for Government-led activity to deliver our transport strategy and our vision of a decarbonised road network through not just modal shift but use of certain types of vehicles—increasingly electric vehicles—because of emissions.

For all those reasons, I commend Dave Thompson for his work—his support and campaigning on the issue, and his encouragement of all MSPs to campaign in their areas and to raise awareness of the benefits of electric vehicles. That will lead to further investment and, for the Government’s part, we will continue to support the infrastructure and to provide direct incentives to support the cause.

I thank everyone for taking part in the debate.

13:00 Meeting suspended.  

14:00 On resuming—