If you’re in any way interested in the world of electric vehicles – and both professionally and personally, I am – there’s never a dull day. I’ve been knocking around this industry since 1998, and I can’t remember a time when there were so many different news angles to a single topic, and angles that are developing all the time.
Take a subject as niche as used EVs. Developments in recent weeks include:
- Vehicle logistics business BCA has opened an industry-first facility in South Yorkshire offering cost-effective battery repairs for de-fleeted EVs. So, when a company car lease has finished, this site is designed to do any repairs to help those EVs find new owners.
- Data shows the number of people leasing used electric cars in the UK has more than doubled in the last year as drivers look for cheaper ways to avoid soaring petrol and diesel prices. For business drivers, salary sacrifice subsidises the cost by making it more tax-efficient, and figures show the number of second-hand EVs leased this way has risen fivefold in the last year.
- Car retailers’ concerns around used EVs has fallen to its lowest level. Just 33% said they are worried about selling them. It’s an issue which has regularly topped lists of challenges facing dealers, but as the market for them matures, it’s becoming less of a stress for them.
- China revealed it processed more than 400,000 metric tonnes of EV battery waste last year, but greater demand is threatening to overwhelm the country’s recycling system. Local reports now suggest many batteries are processed by uncertified recyclers, creating environmental and worker safety risks.
The last of these is the most interesting to me. What happens when EVs reach the end of their working life, and is the UK ready for that? As a market, China is several years ahead of us in terms of EV uptake, and the evidence suggests it hasn’t properly planned for what do with millions of redundant vehicles.
I remember when the EU End-of-Life Vehicle Directive was announced in 2000. It was a massive transformation for the industry, dictating what could and couldn’t be included in new cars, and what should and shouldn’t happen to them when their useful life was over. Working as a journalist, I recall visiting a licensed Authorised Treatment Facility – the sanitised new name for a scrapyard – to write a feature about it all.
There were no mainstream EVs at that point, but the good news is that fresh legislation has kept pace with the ever-changing industry. The Waste Batteries & Accumulators Regulations 2009 cover car batteries, and mean we shouldn’t be in a position like the one in China. The bad news is we also shouldn’t have fly-tipping all over the UK, and yet somehow we do. Do the regulations need to be tightened before there’s a problem? Opinions welcome.
One of my regular outlets as a freelance journalist was AM-online, still today under the experienced leadership of Tim Rose. Noting the excellent Automotive Management Live event is coming up in early November, I suspect these and other elements of the used EVs sector will be debated at length. I will be there, listening and getting involved. If you fancy meeting up let me know.
