Supporting the Shift to an Electrified Light Duty Market - A lowCVP PCWG Special Meeting

Description:

In the light of plans to bring forward the end of sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans from 2040, to an earlier date yet to be announced, LowCVP are holding a dedicated strategic meeting on the 28th October at 10am, to discuss the key obstacles and opportunities associated with such a move. We intend to take a systems approach to look at the potential barriers to achieving the earlier phase out, that have been raised during the consultation, what impacts moving forward from 2040 will have on stakeholders and what needs to be done both now and in the future to prepare for a successful phase out. The output of this meeting will be used to establish both the role of the Passenger Car Working Group in delivering the proposed phase out and determine the future work programme of the LowCVP in this area, including examining how this ties in with the wider Transport Decarbonisation Plan.
After researching publicly available consultation responses from a variety of stakeholders, we have identified three common areas of significant concern for respondents:

• Charging Infrastructure: from the generation and distribution of low carbon electricity to the vehicles and the infrastructure that will be required to do this, as well as concerns about the costs to install and questions of who should pay for it.
• Supply of Products: from the availability of raw materials, the manufacturing and production volumes that will be required and the whole lifecycle impacts of doing so in a shorter time frame.
• User Demand (consumer & fleet): the need for clear, consistent messaging and advice to drive consumer confidence and stimulate the market, along with (financial) incentives to make the switch to zero tailpipe emission vehicles.

Based on these areas of concern, we plan to use the meeting to identify what the actual obstacles are; i.e. the number of publicly accessible chargepoints that will be required, where best to locate them, the supply of vehicles needed to satisfy the level of demand or how to achieve purchase price parity to allow for the mass uptake of zero emission vehicles, (to give a handful of examples). We want to discuss how the Partnership can help overcome these barriers to support the transformation of the market to meet the UK’s Net-Zero targets. Importantly, as no date has been announced we will not be discussing the timings of the phase-out in order to focus on the wide range of complementary actions needed and to prioritise the areas where LowCVP and its members can make a difference.
(We welcome feedback ahead of the meeting on any additional key areas of concern that may be a barrier to bringing forward the end of sale of petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans that could potentially be addressed in the PCWG future work programme.)

As restrictions remain around holding physical meetings, we will continue to use Microsoft Teams to host this next meeting of the PCWG on the 28th October.

If you have not already received an invite and would like to participate in this webinar please use the link below to register your interest in attending the meeting:

Register Interest