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Wilmott Dixon has successfully argued that car allowance payments made to its employees were ‘relevant motoring expenditure’ and therefore should qualify for relief from Class 1 National Insurance Contributions (NICs).

HMRC had refused to refund Willmott Dixon for NICs paid from 2004/05 to May 2014 relating to car allowance payments made by the firm.

It argued that the car allowances were earnings and not relevant motoring expenditure, but in what was a landmark ruling for fleets, a First Tier Tribunal (FTT) ruled in favour of Willmott Dixon.

Car allowances at the construction and property firm, which was represented by Innovation Professional Services, were paid to employees based on a grade which was allocated to that employee.

The more senior an employee, the higher the grade. The amount paid did not depend on the number of business miles driven by an employee.

Separate business mileage payments were intended to reimburse an employee for the fuel costs of actual business miles driven.

An employee who was entitled to a car allowance at a certain grade could choose to select a car from a lower grade choice list and be reimbursed the difference in the car allowance for those grades.

Meanwhile, some individuals who drove no business miles were awarded a grade and allowances were paid even when an employee was ill (including long-term sick) or their business miles reduced because, for example, of the pandemic.

The purpose of the car allowance was to ensure that an employee had a properly insured, maintained and reliable motor vehicle available which that employee could use for performing his or her duties as an employee, in other words for business use.

Furthermore, an employee who received the car allowance was obliged to have a fit and proper vehicle for business use. There was no obligation or direction however, on an employee as to how they should spend the car allowance.

While Willmott Dixon anticipated that an employee who had no satisfactory vehicle would spend the allowance, in part, on acquiring one, there was no contractual obligation to do so.

Similarly, once an employee was in possession of a satisfactory vehicle, then Willmott Dixon anticipated that the allowance would be paid on the financing, maintenance and costs of insurance, in other words the ongoing costs of owning a vehicle. But again, there was no contractual or other obligation to do so.

The employee was free to decide on what they spent the car allowance, and it could be spent on something wholly unrelated to the vehicle or its use for business travel.

The court heard that Willmott Dixon undertook a “rigorous analysis” of the underlying data and set the level of the allowances on the basis that an employee who did 10,000 business miles per year would be in the same financial position whether they opted for the car allowance or chose a company car.

An employee receiving a company car could choose whether to continue to take the company car or to switch into the car allowance scheme.

Car allowance payments ‘were earnings’

The FTT had to first decide whether the car allowance payments were earnings for NICs purposes or reimbursements of business expenses.

Given the amount of car allowance paid did not depend on the number of business miles driven by that particular employee, the FTT decided that the car allowance payments were earnings.

However, it decided that the car allowance payments were ‘relevant motoring expenditure’ citing the Court of Appeal decision in favour of Total People (now Cheshire Employment and Skills) almost 10 years ago on a similar matter, while also contradicting a more recent decision involving Laing O’Rourke (LOR).

Laing O’Rourke lost a £2.2 million claim for relief on grey fleet business mileage payments paid to employees at its firm. It had been seen as the first test case following the Total People ruling.

Total People’s long-running legal battle related to an NI refund claim based on the difference between the HMRC 40p per mile (ppm) approved mileage allowance payment (AMAP) rate (now 45p) and the 12ppm paid by the employer plus an additional lump sum paid to the employees for using their private cars on business.

The value of the amount claimed was approximately £146,000 or around £1,000 per employee, which was subsequently paid by HMRC.

Laing O’Rourke argued that its car allowance scheme should also qualify for relief from NICs on payments made to employees.

HMRC said relief did not apply, because the payments could not be defined as relevant motoring expenditure. Judge Tracey Bowler reached a decision last July, ruling in favour of HMRC.

In reaching a decision in the Willmott Dixon case, Judge Nigel Popplewell said: “I totally appreciate that the way in which these payments were made and the amounts of the payments were based not on actual business use but on grades, and those grades, in turn, did not reflect actual business use but seniority.

“A similar arrangement was in place in LOR and this was another reason why Judge Bowler thought that similar payments in that case to the car allowances in this, were not made in respect of use. I respectfully disagree.”

He added: “The evidence shows that in order to receive the allowances an employee was obliged to have a private vehicle available for business use.”

Laing O’Rourke has appealed its FTT decision. HMRC has not said whether it will appeal the court’s decision in the Willmott Dixon case.  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

Demands on the UK’s electricity network are set to rocket as the country moves closer to the ambition of a net zero economy by 2050.

National Grid estimates overall electricity consumption in that year will be 890tWh, almost three times as high as 2020’s figure of 304tWh.

Much of this will be down to the increased use of electricity in energy-consuming sectors such as industry and heating, but the electrification of the UK’s road transport network will also have a significant impact.

National Grid expects EVs to account for more than 80tWh. “Questions will be raised about how they will be charged as the demand on the electricity supply grows,” it says in its 2021 Future Energy Scenarios report.

“Smart charging, where EV owners release some control on the best time to charge to third parties or automation based on price, will be an effective tool to support the local and national electricity networks.”

The most basic form of smart charging allows the user to manually set the times a vehicle will be charged, allowing them to make savings by taking advantage of the time-of-use tariffs which feature lower electricity prices at times of high supply and low demand, such as at night between 1am and 5am.

Fleets which operate a back-to-base model where vehicles are plugged in at a depot can use this to stagger charging times to help avoid a costly electricity network upgrade that may be needed if all their EVs are charged at the same time.

“In some cases, the cost to electrify the site could be higher than the cost of the vehicles, making the transition commercially unviable,” says Nicole Thompson, director of social innovation and head of co-creation partnerships for Hitachi Vantara.

The next step in smart charging is to use artificial intelligence so the chargers communicate with the electricity network to respond to changes in the level of supply, demand and cost.

For this, the user would specify the level of charge required and the time the vehicle is needed by, and the system would manage the flow of energy to the battery to ensure this happens.

Greater flexibility

“There is much more renewable energy coming on to the grid now and that’s really good news for a whole host of reasons,” says Ben Fletcher, associate director of EV at smart battery hardware and software company Moixa.

“It also means that having the flexibility where you can decide what vehicle is – and isn’t – charging and work with the grid is super important in probably a way that hasn’t been as important before, especially with the size of EV fleet that’s coming.

“That’s where the smartness comes in. There are electricity tariffs which are helping to support like Octopus Agile, which tracks the wholesale price of electricity.

“That’s a ground-breaking tariff and is a fantastic tool that has the ability to change every half-hour, but you have to be on top of it and tracking what’s going on as well as triangulating it back to when you actually need your vehicle to be ready by.

“The smartness will allow customers to make the most of these kinds of tariffs alongside the energy companies and the National Grid in the transition to more and more renewable energy.”

Moixa is a partner in the EV Fleet-centred Local Energy System (EFLES) project, which aims to show how artificial intelligence (AI) can break down the barriers to electrification for fleet operators by maximising the cost and carbon savings from EVs.

Supported by the Government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund for Research and Innovation, other project partners are UK Power Networks, UPS and Cross River Partnership.

It builds on the Smart Electric Urban Logistics (SEUL) trial from 2017 to 2019 which saw Cross River Partnership, UPS and UK Power Networks develop charging technology at UPS’s Camden depot to meet the challenge of charging an EV fleet without a costly upgrade of the local power network.

“We started off with EVs in London back in 2008 and had an expensive power upgrade, which could take us up to 63 EVs,” says Claire Thompson-Sage, sustainable development co-ordinator at UPS.

“We reached that limit in 2017, so we worked with the SEUL project to develop smart grid technology to enable us to have a fully-electrified fleet in London, which we’re aiming towards now.

“The (EFLES) project is built on looking at how we can optimise the power.”

Thompson-Sage says that, as UPS charges its vehicles overnight, it uses very little power during the day and it will use the project to look at how it manages its energy systems, including on-site solar panels and static battery storage.

Capital expenduture savings of 70%

The SEUL project identified capital expenditure savings of around 70% through using a smart charging solution instead of upgrading the local electricity network.

ELFES takes this a step further and the integration of Moixa’s GridShare platform will monitor and analyse a multitude of data sources at the depot including energy prices, power demand and weather forecasts to optimise charging for when energy is cleanest and cheapest, while also using on-site energy storage and solar power generation.

“SEUL was about managing capital costs, but what about operational costs?,” asks Sefinat Otaru, ELFES project manager, Cross River Partnership.

“This was how this project came about and, once it wraps up next year, it’s going to be very much about sharing the results and just helping other organisations that are interested make connections with the right people so that, hopefully, they will pick up the ball and keep it rolling.”

Smart charging for fleets is also the subject of a number of other trials, such as the Fleet Connected Smart Charging (FCSM) project.

This is led by data science company Miralis Data, energy management company Envisij and EV charging firm Mina.

It aims to produce a smart charging solution to optimise the electricity capacity of a site to enable fleets to transition to EVs quicker and more efficiently.

During the project, which has secured funding from the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles, Envisij will report real-time and projected site power capacity and site demand, while Miralis will devise a smart charging solution to optimise the remaining capacity, charging vehicles within cost and capacity parameters. The solution is expected in 2022.

The Government has also identified smart charging as having a key role to play and the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018 gives it the powers through secondary legislation to mandate that all charge points sold or installed in the UK have smart functionality.

In 2019, it introduced the requirement that all Government-funded home EV charge points must use smart technology and it is now proposing that home and workplace chargers installed from May must be pre-programmed to switch off during peak hours (8-11am and 4-10pm) to ease pressure on the National Grid.

Owners and fleets will be able to override the pre-set times to take account of night workers and people who have different schedules.

Smart charging not for all

While the number of smart chargers – both at homes and at businesses – are rapidly increasing, smart charging may not suit all drivers, says Fletcher, adding: “There will be some people who will take their vehicle home and they might be on 24-hour call, so they need to charge the vehicle as quickly as possible.

“For them, it’s go home and put the vehicle on charge immediately because that person needs the confidence that if they are called out in the middle of the night, they’ll be able to respond.

“Other drivers will have a much more predictable duty cycle. They may get home at 6pm and leave at 7am the next day, giving a window of opportunity where the charging can be optimised against the relevant tariff to make sure that both work in terms of money and CO2.

“That would benefit the fleet manager in terms of the costs that are being put in, but it’s also benefiting the user because they’re not thinking about any charging schedules.”

National Grid’s Future Energy Scenario also highlights the role vehicle-to-grid (V2G) – which enables battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to provide energy storage services to the electricity network – can play.

This allows users to plug their BEV in to charge and, potentially, sell any surplus electricity back to the local and national networks at peak times.

The Project Sciurus trial found the simulated annual revenue for a driver using V2G was £340 compared with using an unmanaged charger. In contrast, smart charging could capture £120 from tariff optimisation.

The initiative, which project partner Cenex says is the world’s largest V2G trial, began in 2018 and has more than 320 V2G units installed in UK homes.

Participants are able to set their preferences for charging parameters and remain in control of when their vehicles are ready to use. They get paid a fixed rate for every kWh exported to the grid.

Participants are able to set their preferences for charging parameters and remain in control of when their vehicles are ready to use. They get paid a fixed rate for every kWh exported to the grid.

In its Project Sciurus White Paper, Cenex analysed the plug-in behaviour of users over a 12-month period, looking at different user-types, and found that, although domestic V2G propositions are suitable for a range of drivers, ‘utility style fleet vans’ are among the prime candidates for the technology.

The low-carbon consultancy describes this category as small vans used to carry small volumes of tools and equipment between domestic appointments.

They are owned by a company, but kept by the driver and charged at home or on public networks.

However, Cenex points out the home the vehicle would be connected to would not be the property of the company and, therefore, is unlikely to support V2G activities with the vehicle at the premises unless there are financial or other benefits for the organisation.

V2G drawbacks

While there are other benefits to a fleet opting to install V2G technology, for example the potential to preserve the health of a battery, there are also drawbacks.

Currently the cost of a V2G charging unit is around £4,000 to £6,000, which is significantly more than a smart charger.

Other trials are also taking place in the UK, such as Western Power Distribution’s Electric Nation initiative, which features 100 Nissan EV owners in the Midlands, south-west England and South Wales.

Some industry figures are less convinced about the role V2G will play in the future of the wider charging ecosystem.

“The way I explain it to people is that smart charging gives you 90% of the benefits of V2G for 10% of the complexity,” says Erik Fairbarn, founder and chief executive of Pod Point.

“For that reason, I don’t think it’s a very significant part of charging in most cases, but if you’re talking about depots of buses or fleets of vehicles in a particular location, there are use cases there which I think it could make sense in.

“But if we’re talking broadly across the charging ecosystem, it’s probably one to keep an eye on but I wouldn’t expect much to happen there in the short-term.”

Fletcher adds: “The answer to the question ‘will V2G work for me?’ is ‘it depends’. It depends on the type of fleet and the way the vehicles are used.

“There will be points when the grid is under immense stress but to have the benefit of feeding power back to the grid at those times, the vehicles actually need to be plugged in and available.

“That will absolutely fit in with how the duty cycle of some fleets work, but for other fleets it might be more difficult.

“When you’re talking about BEVs and V2G it’s easy to fall into the trap of talking about them as batteries with wheels, but the key point to remember here is that people actually buy vehicles to get from point A to point B.

“That has to be at the heart of running a BEV. The smartness and V2G needs to be there to enable the vehicles to move things or people from A to B as easily and efficiently as possible, not to have supporting the grid as its main function.”  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

Highways England bosses will not face corporate manslaughter charges for deaths caused by two collisions on all-lane running sections of the M1 in South Yorkshire.

South Yorkshire Police concluded that the organisation cannot be held liable for the offence because, in legal terms, it did not owe road users a ‘relevant duty of care’ under the terms set out in the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

The investigation was launched following concerns expressed by senior coroner Nicola Mundy at the pre-inquest review into the death of Nargis Begum.

Begum was killed in September 2018 when another vehicle collided with her husband’s Nissan Qashqai, which had broken down on the M1.

A separate collision, which led to the deaths of Jason Mercer and Alexandru Murgeanu in June 2019, was also investigated by South Yorkshire Police. In both instances, the lack of a hard shoulder was considered a contributing factor to the deaths.

Assistant chief constable Sarah Poolman, of South Yorkshire Police, said: “I would like to express my heartfelt sympathies to the families and loved ones of those who have lost their lives on the smart motorway in South Yorkshire. Families and campaigners are fighting with dignity and admirable determination in their search for answers and action following these tragedies.

“The force launched a ‘scoping exercise’ to ascertain whether there is a reasonable suspicion that Highways England may have committed the criminal offence of corporate manslaughter. Within our terms of reference, we also included the incident which led to the deaths of Jason Mercer and Alexandru Murgeanu.

“As part of our work, we sought specialist advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Having considered the CPS advice, we have concluded that in the circumstances, Highways England cannot be held liable for the offence of corporate manslaughter.”

Following the death of Begum, a death by careless driving investigation was launched into the driver of the vehicle involved in the collision. A file was submitted to the CPS and charges were not authorised. The driver was subsequently released with no further action.

Lorry driver Prezemyslaw Szuba was jailed for 10 months for causing the deaths of Mercer and Murgeanu by careless driving. He claimed the collision would have been avoidable if there had been a hard shoulder.

The Department for Transport (DfT) is halting the rollout of new, all-lane running smart motorway schemes until five years of safety data is available.

The move has been welcomed by MPs and campaigners, who have been calling for the construction of new smart motorways to be paused while safety concerns were addressed.

A Transport Committee report, published last year, concluded there was not enough safety and economic data to justify continuing with the Government’s plans to roll out an additional 300 miles of all-lane running motorway by 2025.

The report said Government plans to remove the hard shoulder from all future smart motorways and use the lane for live traffic are “premature”.  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is being urged to adopt EU vehicle safety measures that are due to come into effect in July.

The package of 15 integrated measures includes better direct vision in HGVs, automated emergency braking that detects pedestrians and cyclists, and intelligent speed adaptation.

The UK supported these measures, which apply to new cars, vans, lorries and buses, until it left the EU. After Brexit the new rules will not automatically apply.

A group of former Transport Ministers, including serving MP Sir Peter Bottomley, Father of the House of Commons, say the UK now needs adopt the regulations to avoid putting the safety of its road users at risk.

David Davies, executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), which advises the Government, said: “There has been little progress in reducing road deaths and injuries over the past decade (apart from during the 2020 lockdown).

Here is a package of measures that would kick start a new chapter. It comes at almost no cost to government or the motorist. We support the call from former transport ministers for the government to at least match the standards that will apply in Northern Ireland. It could demonstrate the UK’s new independence by going further and faster.”

The measures have the support of road safety stakeholders and the UK automotive industry, as compliance with these standards will be a requirement for exporting vehicles to Europe from July this year.

Under the Northern Ireland Protocol with the EU, they will also apply to Northern Ireland.

In a letter to Shapps, the former Transport Ministers said not adopting the new standards “risks putting the UK automotive industry at a competitive disadvantage.”

The Government consulted on new vehicle regulations in November 2021. A response has not yet been published.  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

Grey is the UK’s most popular new car colour for fourth consecutive year, followed by black and white, according to figures published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

The SMMT data shows that 408,155 new grey cars were registered last year, up by 2.8%, equating to one in four new cars sold (24.8%).

Black, which had been the most popular car colour in the UK from 2009 to 2012, was the next most popular colour, equating to one in five new cars (20.5%) sold. White was the third most popular (17.2%).

It means that an incredible 62.4% of all new cars sold in 2021 were painted in one of these monochrome shades, although blue edged closer to the top three, increasing its sales (1.4%) for the first time in five years and trailing just 2,638 units behind white.

The rest of the top 10 remained largely unchanged from 2020, although green overtook orange to gain seventh place, equating to 17,927 cars. Sales of green cars rose for the first time since 2015, with 24% more buyers opting for the colour than in the previous year.

SMMT Chief Executive, Mike Hawes, says that, while last year’s new cars might share the same shades as previous years, under the bonnet there has been a real shift, with one in six buyers choosing to go ‘green’.

“With car registrations still low compared to pre- pandemic, helping even more drivers move to greener cars – whatever the actual colour – has never been more important,” he said.

“Incentives are helping move the market and should continue, but the speed of this shift to electric must be matched by an acceleration in the pace of charging infrastructure investment. Drivers should expect to be able to recharge irrespective of wherever they live, work or visit.”

White was the most popular shade for mini-sized and sports cars, while larger dual purpose, luxury saloons and executive cars were, as usual, most likely to be black.

At the niche end of the colour palette, gold, yellow and turquoise were the fastest growing colours, with gold more than tripling its appeal (up 231.8%), yellow up by a third (31.3%) and turquoise up by a fifth (19.2%), although together they accounted for less than one percent of the market (0.9%).

A non-monochrome colour has not been among the UK’s overall top three since blue in 2010, although it was second most popular colour amongst Welsh and Northern Irish new car buyers.

Grey was the top colour in every home nation last year, but more so in England (25.3%), closely followed by Scotland (22.9%), Wales (22.8%), and Northern Ireland (21.7%).

Counties sporting bright-coloured cars included Bedfordshire, the most likely place to see a new pink car, with 66 registrations, while Greater London and Buckinghamshire had the highest numbers of green and turquoise motors, with 1,263 and 238 registrations respectively.

Orange was the new black in the West Midlands, where tangerine-tinted cars accounted for 1,156 registrations, the highest in any UK region.

Scotland was, however, the least likely place to spot a new maroon car, as none were sold in the country. In fact, just 12 buyers across the whole of the UK specified their new car in the colour – the lowest number since 1997.

Consumer preference for grey, which comes in many varying shades, can be attributed to a wide range of reasons; it can be a sleek and deeper tone than other shades, is well-suited to black trims and darker wheels and offers an attractive compromise between the also-popular black and white, with wider resale appeal than brightly coloured cars, so a potentially ‘safer’ choice, especially as it reduces the visibility of dirt more than the other shades.

By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

The fitment of camera systems/digital recording has reduced collisions or near-misses for 59% of fleets, a survey by Brigade Electronics, has revealed.

55% of survey respondents also said it improved driver behaviour, while 44% safety technology had helped with insurance claims.

The road safety company comissioned a survey of the readers of Commercial Motor and Motor Transport magazines to get their views on the reasons they use cameras and video technology on their fleets, how useful they are, and what they consider when they decide to invest.

Brigade said that clients are playing an increasing role in the adoption of this technology, as 12% of respondents said cameras are a contractual requirement from a client, a 3% rise on 2020.

The survey revealed that one-fifth of operators have no plans to use road safety technology and the most common reason (44%) is that it is not seen as relevant to the operation.

Brigade said that, changes to the Highway Code that came into effect in November with further new guidance being added on January 29, will increase the responsibility of commercial vehicle drivers, making it more important to be able to mitigate risk.

The new hierarchy of road users means those who are most likely to be seriously harmed, such as pedestrians and cyclists, will have greater priority over other road users – with HGV drivers ranked lowest.

Chris Hanson-Abbot chairman BE of Brigade Electronics, said: “It’s good to see that the benefits of cameras and other safety technology are being recognised by fleet operators.

“As cameras on their own are a passive technology that does not alert the driver to act, Brigade always recommends that they are combined with active technology such as sensor systems with driver alerts to reduce collisions.

“However, there is still some way to go. Only 47% of fleets have 100% of vehicles fitted with the technology – despite overwhelming evidence they improve safety and save lives.

“That said, only 2% of operators said their fleets had no safety technology at all, which is encouraging.”

The survey also revealed how customers who start using the technology are quickly convinced of the benefits – on a scale of 1 to 5, 73% rate vehicle camera and recording technology as a 4 or 5.  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

Soaring energy prices could lead to increases in the price of new cars, SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes has warned.

Vehicle manufacturers are already facing a rise in the cost of materials such as lithium and cobalt, key to electric vehicle production, with some experts expecting this alone to be enough to push vehicle prices up as the car parc increasingly electrifies.

However, Hawes said the cost of energy will become the industry’s most pressing challenge once the ongoing semiconductor supply issue is resolved.

“There is the expectation will improve as the year goes on, particularly in the second half of the year, but there will still be ripples into 2023,” said Hawes, speaking at a media event where it was announced that the number of cars produced in the UK in 2021 fell 6.7% to 859,575 units.

“If the semiconductor issue can be resolved, energy will be the most immediate and pressing challenge as we can see what’s coming down the line in terms of price increases.

“The margins on volume car manufacturers are wafer thin and energy will potentially be going up 50%, 60% or 70%.

“There were vehicle price increases last year and, like any other manufacturing sector, if you’re facing increasing input costs, it is going to pull pricing up.

“But manufacturers will always do everything they can to mitigate those costs, either through investment or reductions in other areas.”

This means EVs could face a pricing double whammy. Typically a battery accounts for around 40% of the cost of making a BEV, with the cost of producing them having fallen by almost 90% in the past 10 years.

Figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance show the inflation-adjusted price of battery packs for cars was $1,200 per kWh in 2010. This had fallen to $132 last year.

The impact this has on the cost of producing an EV is significant. Assuming a kWh price of $132, it would have cost $6,000 to produce a 50kWh battery last year. In 2010, this would have been $60,000.

Prices of many of the elements used in EV battery production rose sharply in the second half of 2021: for example, battery-grade lithium carbonate rose to a record high of $41,060 per tonne, more than five times higher than last January, cobalt doubled to $70,208, while nickel jumped 15% to $20,045 a tonne.

“We’ve got an ever-increasing reliance upon elements such as nickel, cobalt, lithium, manganese and copper for EV batteries,” said James Nicholson, partner in advanced manufacturing and mobility at EY.

“For a while now, a lot of those commodities have had supressed prices and there’s a strong chance that as demand goes up and these metals become quite scarce, we will see some of those material prices continue to lift.

“That’s going to put a pinch point on the cost of the materials that go into battery cells and that could lift the price to the carmaker and eventually the consumer.”

James Frith, head of energy storage research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, added: “This creates a tough environment for automakers, particularly those in Europe, which have to increase EV sales in order to meet average fleet emissions standards,” says

“These automakers may now have a choice between reducing their margins or passing costs on, at the risk of putting consumers off purchasing an EV.”  By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

In my book Electric Car – The Truth Revealed I announced the fact that portable chargers were available to charge up to a maximum of 75 miles but they were heavy and cost an eye-watering £8,000. At the time I mentioned that a new portable charger was being worked on and that it would be much cheaper. It will finally be here later this year.

One of the major obstacles facing those considering transitioning to electric cars and fleet-decision-makers seeking to electrify their fleets is the question of not having access to home charging.

Where an organisation doesn’t operate a back-to- base model in which vehicles are charged at a depot, this means a driver is reliant on off-street, destination or rapid charging, all of which are potentially less convenient and/or more expensive than charging at home.

This is an issue ZipCharge aims to tackle with its Go unit.

Founded by Richie Sibal and Jonathan Carrier, the London-based company has developed a portable charger.

It is the size of a small suitcase, weighs from 25kg and contains lithium-ion batteries with capacities of either 4kWh or 8kWh.

This can be charged at a domestic three-pin socket before being transported – it is wheeled and has a retractable handle, again, similar to a suitcase – to the vehicle where it will take either 30 or 60 minutes to transfer its charge to the BEV, dependent on the version of Go being used.

This is, says Carrier, enough charge to power a BEV for up to 20 miles (4kWh version) or 40 miles (8kW), which means it can be used in place of a home charger or in a number of other situations to help a fleet increase efficiency and reduce charging costs.

“ZipCharge Go was entirely conceived with the fleet market in mind,” says Carrier.

“We’ve done a significant amount of work over the past year-and-a-half speaking to a range of different prospective customers.

“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve had the privilege of speaking to car rental fleets, to car-sharing, to return-to-base operations through to logistics providers.

“We’ve had the opportunity to learn from them – not to pitch our solution, but to gain an  understanding of what their needs are.”

Automotive industry experience

Both Carrier and Sibal are steeped in automotive industry experience. Sibal has spent more than 20 years in electronics, software and systems engineering and leadership at manufacturers including McLaren Automotive, London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC)/London Taxi, Lotus Sportscars and Gordon Murray Automotive.

Carrier has worked for a similar time in product planning, commercial and strategy at OEMs and start-ups including McLaren Automotive, JLR, Mazda and Fiat. The pair worked together at McLaren.

“My career has been in product planning and product strategy, which means I’ve been involved in conceptualising a product from the ground up, working with the designers and engineers to say who is the market? What’s the car for? How will they use it? How do you deliver it?,” says Carrier.

“In the car industry we’re absolutely focused on total cost of ownership (TCO) and, particularly, fleet users.

“I’ve done it with cars like the Jaguar XE, for example, and we’ve applied exactly the same philosophy in the conceptualisation of a car as we have to this charger and, therefore, incorporating the needs of the fleet market.”

Sibal began developing the product in March last year, with Carrier joining in October.

“Many fleets will typically operate on a daily mileage of somewhere between 20 and 50 miles, and our 8kWh can deliver up to 40 miles, so it’s well suited to the daily operational needs those fleets have.

“However, we recognise that not all fleets are homogenous in terms of their driving distances and profiles, so we don’t see the Go as a solution for every fleet in every circumstance.”

He says that as well as a replacement for a home charger, the Go can be used in a variety of ways to help fleets optimise their operations.

Destination charging

Carrier says this includes using the Go for destination charging to fit the process into a vehicle’s daily operation.

“If you take fleets that have a 30-minute to one-hour dwell time where an engineer may, for example, be mending a boiler or servicing a photocopier, they can use that time to charge their vehicle using Go no matter where they are parked,” he says.

“Allowing a fleet to charge during its normal operations increases the range of a vehicle, not only by the mileage from a Go unit, but by the distance the vehicle would have to drive to a charge point.

“It also increases the efficiency of the asset because it charges while the employee is doing their job, so it reduces downtime as well.

“This is a far more efficient way of deploying charging. It fits around how a fleet would otherwise operate the vehicle and increases the efficiency of the asset which, ultimately, improves the customer service of their end operation.”

The Go also has a three-pin plug socket which means it can be used to power tools and equipment which would otherwise be powered by electricity generated by diesel.

“It can reduce CO2 emissions that way as well,” says Sibal. “4kWh is quite a lot: a domestic home uses about 4.4kWh a day if it doesn’t have electric heating.”

Carrier says the Go can also be used to complement depot-based chargers which may reduce any need for a costly upgrade to a depot’s grid connection or reduce the number of chargers which may be needed.

The unit will also be able to integrate with transparency and efficiency.

Sibal adds: “We’re designing the back office from scratch, which allows us to develop a rich API (application programming interface) that will allow our cloud network to interact with any fleet network in accordance with their requirements.

“Just like fleet managers have fleet management software, if they take a take a large number of the units, we will provide them with charger management software.

“That will allow them to learn and optimise the deployment of the chargers to where they can be most effective for their fleets.

“Therefore, the API interfaces with their fleet management software, not only for utilisation and TCO tracking but, critically, as and when they deploy their vehicles, how and when the ZipCharge Go should be deployed and to which vehicles to maximise its utilisation and therefore the efficiency gain a fleet can realise.”

First units due Q4 2022

ZipCharge will begin trials with select partners from next spring with a delivery of the first units to customers expected in quarter four.

“We are looking for fleet partners who would be willing to work with us so we can get some realworld learning and feedback,” says Carrier.

“We want some tangible data that we can share publicly that says ‘this is the real impact and benefit’ and then, hopefully, that becomes a trigger for other fleets to go ‘that’s worth looking at’.”

Go will be available to buy either outright (price has yet to be announced) or leased through a subscription from £49 a month.

Further product development is due to follow.

“We have a roadmap over the next six-to-eight years, where we have forecast and planned in improvements in battery chemistry and energy density,” says Carrier.

“This means we can either make that 4kWh unit lighter with the same energy, or keep the weight the same and increase the energy density.

“We have plans for a range of different products as well as how those are deployed, but we are not talking about those at the moment.

“They are all a part of delivering our vision and that vision is to democratise EV charging so we can allow anybody to charge no matter where they park.” By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

Users of autonomous vehicles should be legally protected in event of a collision, a new report suggests.

The Law Commission of England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission have published a joint report, making recommendations for the safe and responsible introduction of self-driving vehicles.

Under the Law Commissions’ proposals, when a car is authorised by a regulatory agency as having “self-driving features” and those features are in-use, the person in the driving seat would no longer be responsible for how the car drives. Instead, the company or body that obtained the authorisation – typically the vehicle manufacturer should face regulatory sanctions if anything goes wrong.

The report recommends introducing a new Automated Vehicles Act, to regulate vehicles that can drive themselves and suggests that a clear distinction should be made between features which just assist drivers, such as adaptive cruise control, and those that are self-driving.

Nicholas Paines QC, public law commissioner, said: “We have an unprecedented opportunity to promote public acceptance of automated vehicles with our recommendations on safety assurance and clarify legal liability. We can also make sure accessibility, especially for older and disabled people, is prioritised from the outset.”

Modern vehicles are fitted with many driver assistance systems and the report anticipates that, in future, these features will develop to a point where an automated vehicle will be able to drive itself for at least part of a journey, without a human paying attention to the road. For example, a car may be able to drive itself on a motorway, or a shuttle bus may be able to navigate a particular route.

The report follows a consultation into the legal ramifications of autonomous driving technology.

The Law Commissions recommend a new system of legal accountability once a vehicle is authorised by a regulatory agency as having self-driving features, and a self-driving feature is engaged.

The person in the driving seat would no longer be a driver but a “user-in-charge”. A user-in-charge cannot be prosecuted for offences which arise directly from the driving task. They would have immunity from a wide range of offences – from dangerous driving to exceeding the speed limit or running a red light.

However, the user-in-charge would retain other driver duties, such as carrying insurance, checking loads or ensuring that children wear seat belts.

If the vehicle drives in a way which would be criminal or unsafe if performed by a human driver, an in-use regulator would work with the carmaker to ensure that the matter does not recur. Regulatory sanctions would also be available to the regulator.

In the case of autonomous taxis or minibuses, where there is no driver, any occupants of the vehicle would simply be passengers. Instead of having a ‘user-in-charge’, a licensed operator would be responsible for overseeing the journey.

Matthew Avery, chief research strategy officer at Thatcham Research, an organisation which was part of the consultation for the Law Commissions’ report, said: “The transition to safe introduction of automation with self-driving capabilities is fraught with risk as we enter the early stages of adoption.

Today’s report is a significant step, as it provides important legal recommendations and clarity for the safe deployment of vehicles with self-driving features onto the UK’s roads.

“In the next 12 months, we’re likely to see the first iterations of self-driving features on cars on UK roads.  It’s significant that the Law Commission report highlights driver’s legal obligations and they understand that their vehicle is not yet fully self-driving.  It has self-driving features that, in the near future, will be limited to motorway use at low speeds.

“The driver will need to be available to take back control at any time, won’t be permitted to sleep or use their mobile phones, the vehicle won’t be able to change lanes and if the driver does not take back control, when requested, it will stop in lane on the motorway.  It is critical that early adopters understand these limitations and their legal obligations.”

The report has been laid before Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. It will be for the UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments to decide whether to accept the Commissions’ recommendations and introduce legislation to bring them into effect. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News

A reduction in car travel by a quarter is needed by 2030 if the UK is to stay on track to achieve net zero emissions, a new report suggests.

Transport is the fastest growing source of global greenhouse gas emissions and biggest polluting sector of the UK economy, says Greener Transport Solutions.

It is calling for an urgent re-think on the UK’s transport decarbonisation strategy as it publishes a new report: Pathways to Net Zero – Building a framework for systemic change.

The report concludes that technological solutions will be insufficient to hit net zero in the UK. Urgent focus must now be given to traffic reduction, it says.

Transport emissions in the UK are only 3% lower than they were in 1990. People have driven more and in larger vehicles as engines have become more efficient.

The Major of London has pledged 27% reduction in car miles by 2030. The Scottish Government has pledged a 20% reduction.

Research for the Green Alliance shows that a reduction in car kms of 20-27% by 2030 will be needed.

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must halve by 2030 to stay within 1.5C. However, after a reduction caused by lockdowns GHG emissions have bounced back and are set to rise strongly this year.

Latest figures from the International Energy Agency show that carbon emissions rose to their highest levels in history in 2021 after the world rebounded from the Covid pandemic with heavy reliance on fossil fuels.

CO2 emissions linked to energy climbed 6% last year. Transport has the highest reliance on fossil fuels of any sector and accounts for 37% of CO2 emissions from end‐use sectors.

Claire Haigh, founder and CEO of Greener Transport Solutions, said: “At a time of rising geopolitical uncertainty, insecurity of supplies, and escalating fuel and gas prices, it becomes more critical than ever to design policies in a way that avoids unintended consequences and ensures a fair and just transition to net zero.

“We need a massive shift to clean technologies, but we must also reduce energy demand. Energy demand reduction supports the three key goals of energy policy: security, affordability and sustainability.

“Our climate is heating up at great speed. We have less than a decade to get on track.  We cannot rely on technological solutions alone. Traffic reduction will also play a critical role.”

Greener Transport Solutions is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the decarbonisation of transport. By Graham Hill thanks to Fleet News