'Are we nearly there yet?' webinar video
Webinar Recording
On Thursday 12th September, Vauxhall, Field Dynamics, Zapmap and Cenex presented a short webinar to talk through the 'Are we nearly there yet?' report.
A recording of the webinar has been made available (right).
Q&A
Due to time, not every question in the webinar was answered - here are our brief answers:
Data Availability and Updates:
Q: Near home charging is most applicable for LEVI. The distribution and supply v demand metrics are both very useful when it comes to choosing areas to target. It would be most useful at a level more local than LA so we know where within LAs to target. Is this something you have? Can LAs access it?
A: The Distribution elements are already available as an upgrade to your NEVIS account. For the Supply/Demand aspects, we do have this data at a more granular level but need to have a think about how to best present this without it becoming difficult to visualise.
Q: Will these metrics continue to be monitored and reported on going forward?
A: Yes – we hope to update the metrics around twice a year.
Q: How often is the [Vauxhall] data on the public request for chargers going to be updated? Are there any restrictions on use of the data you are sharing via Cenex?
A: There are no restrictions on its use from Vauxhall and it will be updated regularly. You can see the heatmap on NEVIS and also here: /electric/electricstreets.html
Implications of the Conclusions:
Q: Do you have guidance on how to interpret the supply vs demand metric? Instinctively, it may feel positive if supply is leading demand (even by 1 month), but if chargepoint installations can't match the pace of EV uptake, should we aim to be...1, 2, 5, 10 years ahead of demand?
Follow up Q: Also need to consider the negative perception of being super ahead of demand - if putting EV chargers out there that visibly aren't used for a long time, this can create negativity for EVs in general - sadly!! : (
Q: Keen to get your thoughts on whether being ahead of demand is a good thing? I imagine the CPOs aren't too happy about their utilisation rates being low
A: Yes, we agree with all these sentiments. The UK’s national strategy aims to install EVI ahead of demand, which is behind our comment that being a few years ahead of demand is probably the best position, although being significantly ahead of demand is likely to impact on utilisation rates of the chargepoints, as you not.
Q: Do you feel these and the conclusions (that we are broadly ahead of demand) will actually resonate with EV drivers? As I'm not really sure? or are these targeted at policy makers only
A: The audience for this report is decision-makers first (central and local Government), then the media and finally the general public. Having more relevant, actionable, scalable and measurable metric will help everyone. However, the conclusions show that there are significant regional disparities, which we suspect aligns with the results of research with drivers (i.e. from EVA England).
Q: What are these "other datasets" needed to improve the analysis?
A: The provision of keepership data, information on chargepoints and homes, linkages between the National Parking Platform and chargepoints, and population movement data would improve various aspects of the analysis.
Near Home Charging Index supply/demand method:
Q: Do you not look at BEV registration per LA? Rather than 'allocating' them? This doesn't sound very accurate?
A: Perhaps our use of ‘allocate’ did not convey the work which goes into this method! We start with EV registrations, but they are skewed significantly by leasing companies – leased vehicles will look like they are clustered where the leasing vehicle company’s headquarters are. The ‘allocation’ method uses Experian data to account for this, giving a more precise location for where the vehicles actually are.
Q: Has there been any consideration of how to add a layer of car ownership in any given area? Obviously varies significantly and impacts need.
A: Yes, this is the role of the Experian data and is already included in the ‘demand’ side of the analysis.
Q: Have you assumed every household owns a car? I imagine car ownership is a lot lower in areas without off street parking
A: No, this is the role of the Experian data and is already included in the ‘demand’ side of the analysis.
Q: Is there any information/data on the ownership of the second-hand EV vs new EVs?
A: Information on the registration of new vehicles (including EVs) is available, but we have to translate this into the actual location of the vehicles using Experian data.
Q: Can Jade and Matt confirm the speed of chargers used in their work please?
A: The near home charging index looks at lower-powered charging predominantly (< 50 kW)
Q: In this report did your definition count sockets or charge points (which could serve multiple spaces).
A: All Cenex’s work and this report is calculated on a socket basis.
Near Home Charging Index distribution method
Q: What consideration of disability/ accessibility went into the development of the 4-minute walking distance?
A: The reason for using the 4-minute walk is it is linked to the distance which urban planning aims to achieve for bus stops. This already factors-in mobility and accessibility considerations.
Q: How did you determine the 4-minute walking distance?
A: We used the value assumed in the planning of bus stop locations in urban area.
Q: What's the level of detail provided by your model especially in the distribution charging section? Exact location / LSOA / LA ?
A: The Distribution aspect of the near home charging index is calculated by Field Dynamics at an individual household level and then aggregated up to LA level. (The supply/demand aspect of the near home charging index is calculated at LSOA level and then aggregated up to LA level.)
Q: How were areas with high density of multi-occupancy residential car parks considered with the analysis?
A: The Field Dynamics EVMap dataset allocates a score to each Unique Property Reference Number. For Multi Dwelling Units with more than 4 households, we assume no off-street parking availability. For MDUs with fewer than 4 households and a car park, we assume one off-street parking space for one household and none for the others.
Q: Your Near home only looks at sub 50kW I think, how does the Ultra rapid local hub (equiv of a petrol station) fit, is this in Journey category?
A: The near home charging index uses predominantly lower-powered <50 kW chargepoints in its analysis. However, we have also included higher-powered chargepoints which are marked as residential within the Zapmap categorisation.
Q: How will the potential for development of cross pavement channels impact these figures?
A: If cross-pavement solutions become a popular solution, they will increase the proportion of vehicles which can privately charge, thus reducing the requirement on public infrastructure. This is not currently included in the analysis, but could be in future.
Q: Is the energy availability of the areas behind the demand part of the analysis?
A: Not at present.
Journey Charging Index method:
Q: When it comes to calculating years ahead and behind, how do you account for the chicken-and-egg relationship between supply of chargepoints, and (via driver confidence) demand for charging?
A: At present, our analysis looks at the relationship between the two as a measure of progress, rather than making a statement about the causal (or otherwise) link.
Q: Can Jade and Matt confirm the speed of chargers used in their work please?
A: The journey charging index looks at higher-powered charging predominantly (50+ kW)
Q: What was the reasoning behind removing those who can charge at home/ near home from the Journey metric? They'll still need to charge on 'Journey' charge points ...
A: We include a proportion of charging energy from those who can charge near home in the journey charging index. Based on the existing public EVI and utilisation data, about 40% of public charging is done on near home devices and 60% on journey. This 60% includes the small amount of demand from those that can charge privately.
Q: Has the modelling approach been validated against the existing ICE parc and Petrol station infrastructure. Might be a good calibration approach?
A: The big differences are that EVs can potentially charge wherever they park near electricity, some of which are much cheaper and more convenient, but others will take longer to charge. At this point, we have not validated the metrics work against existing ICE parc and petrol station infrastructure, as these differences are quite significant.
Q: Is journey charging not a matter for the private sector?
A: The metrics work does not currently comment on who invests – the chargepoints could be delivered by public or private sector. Either way, knowing how well supply and demand is matched will help more effectively measure progress for decision-making.
Destination Charging Ratio method:
Q: I reference to Destination Charging Ratio, why is the workplace value for standard per 100 bays relative low?
A: The ‘workplace’ row in the table is simply an example to show how the 4 variables could be combined to give a guide. In this case, the low uptake and low need means that the demand for charging in this fictitious car park is low.
Q: Does the destination charging tale seasonal variations into account?
A: No – this is one the factors that we highlighted to be taken into account. Our more sophisticated Car Park Calculator includes this as an option to adjust.
Other Considerations:
Q: I know of several users who don’t use the nearest charge point because its far more expensive than one 20 minutes away. Is price sensitivity factored into installation for potential utilisation rates?
A: At present, many places in the country do not have sufficient penetration of chargepoints to allow competitive-mechanisms to come into play, so this is not surprising. We do not currently include price sensitivity into the analysis because the data is not sufficiently dense to analyse this robustly. However, in the future, we may look at including pricing and/or assessment of tariffs into a new metric.
Q: Subjective but feels like a reasonable percentage of chargers are not working at any one time. The new regs should help but does a metric on this need to be added to help plan numbers?
A: This is included within the utilisation figures – only 10-20% of the possible energy that can be delivered will be delivered by near home chargepoints. Data on utilisation and reliability is coming through more robustly this autumn, so this could support another metric on reliability. For your information, Zapmap analysis indicates that c80% of 50+ kW devices are working 99+% of the time.
Q: I know this must be really difficult, but is any consideration given for EV car clubs/car clubs more generally in this? And modal shift away from driving all together? If EV car clubs really proliferated, and modal shift significant, then the need for individual cars and EV chargers - as well as the overall energy demand - would reduce
A: Not explicitly. Our national projections which sit behind this follow the SMMT vehicle ownership projections (/2021/06/smmt-new-car-market-and-parc-outlook-to-2035-by-powertrain/), which project a very slight decrease due to some of these factors. Modal shift is a really interesting thing we might look at in the future, but adds a lot of extra variables to include!
Chargepoint Sharing:
Q: Was any consideration taken of the impact of charge point sharing (e.g. via co-charger)?
Q: Was there any consideration of Shared Home charging as part of the solution. Utilisation of Home chargers is typically low, but pricing can be highly preferential.
A: At present, this is not included, but is one factor we might include in the future.
Q: Do you have a view on uptake of shared home charging? It's been talked about for a while but I've not heard of much progress
Q: When you say a reasonable amount share [chargepoints] where are you getting that from? Our perception was hardly anyone does.
A: Our evidence suggests that there are around 15-20k households which share private chargepoints.