The Sunday Times - UK (2021-12-19)

The Sunday Times December 19, 2021 19

NEWS

the insurance, booking fee, plus and the

hourly fee paid to the owner. The driver

collects the keys, or has them dropped

through their letterbox, and takes pic-

tures of the car before use. The owner is

expected to keep the car clean, and the

driver only refuels it if they drive more

than 10 miles. Demand has been so great

that Kerr is about to launch 10 more

schemes in Oxford.

Graeme Risby, chief executive of Hiya-

car, says people who only drive a few

times a week could make considerable

savings by joining a local group. He says

the average car in Britain costs £400 a

month to run.

CoMoUk, which supports car and bike

share schemes, says there are almost

230,000 car club members in Britain and

that between them almost 100,000 cars

have been taken off the road.

£1,200 for a week’s car hire? I’ll just

borrow one instead, Money, p

Emily Kerr is

hoping to expand

her idea to

dozens more

areas

Her venture, Share Our Cars, has

attracted interest from 40 community

groups in locations ranging from Edin-

burgh to the London suburbs. They think

she may have hit on a formula that will

allow car sharing to go mainstream.

Unlike other neighbourhood groups,

bookings and insurance are handled by

Hiyacar, a commercial platform, sparing

participants administrative headaches

and worries about liability in the event of

accidents. Participants all know each

other and can be confident a car is availa-

ble when they want it.

The couple and their three children,

who are all under seven, waved goodbye

to their 2013 model Honda CRV in Octo-

ber. “I started by wanting to share it and

then realised that we could share every-

body else’s car instead,” she said.

Kerr, 42, who lives in Oxford, decided

the family could do without their car

because there are “three cars within a

30-second walk of my home and another

five within three minutes”, borrowing

them at a not-for-profit rate to cover their

running costs. In the first five weeks, she

rented out the Honda on 12 occasions,

with an average booking of 13 hours and

earning a total of £134.

Before each rental, the driver receives

a quote on the Hiyacar app, which covers

Who needs a car?

We share one with

the neighbours

Just seven weeks after setting up a car-

sharing club with her neighbours, Emily

Kerr and her husband, Professor Alexan-

der Betts, decided to sell their own car.

After that small step, she has now set

herself the target of persuading one mil-

lion other motorists to follow their exam-

ple by 2025.

At the heart of her idea is an under-

standing that many people are deeply

attached to their car, and do not want to

share it with a stranger. Her venture only

allows other members of a trusted group

to drive it — your neighbours.

Nicholas Hellen Transport Editor

A group that allows only people you know to borrow your vehicle

could remove millions from the roads and cut motorists’ bills

SWNS FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES

Drivers of electric cars are

paying up to seven times the

price to power up their

vehicle at a public charge

point than at home,

according to new research.

While motorists can sign

up for tariffs of only 5p per

unit at home, they are paying

an average 35p per unit for

rapid and ultra-rapid public

charging, and 24p per unit

for slower devices.

The findings by Zap-Map, a

digital platform for drivers

searching for charge points,

raise concerns that those

without off-street parking

will be locked into

permanently higher prices as

the country transitions to

electric cars.

About a third of all

charging equipment on the

street.

The research by Zap-Map

analyses motorists’ charging

habits at 60 per cent of all

chargers in the UK from

September to November. This

means the findings are not

distorted by the tariffs of

expensive outliers with few

customers.

Prices were calculated for

pay-as-you-go rates available

to all drivers, although some

networks offer membership

discounts for regular users.

There are about 370,

“pure” electric cars on the

road, according to the RAC,

but the energy regulator

Ofgem predicts this could

reach 14 million by 2030.

The premium for using a

public charger has widened

since November, as networks

have passed on electricity

price rises. BP Pulse raised

the price of each unit, a

kilowatt hour (kWh), from

20p to 33p at its slow and fast

networks, while Source

London increased it to 69p.

By contrast, Ovo, the third-

largest domestic supplier,

offers a tariff at 5p per unit,

and about 60,000 drivers use

the Octopus Go tariff which

electricity at 5p per unit from

12.30am-4.30am. It means

the electricity costs about 1p

per mile.

Motorists without a

charger would usually pay

24p per unit for a device

taking between two and 12

hours, and an average 35p a

unit for rapid charging on a

motorway or other long

journey, taking between 20

minutes and an hour to

recharge to 80 per cent.

Edmund King, president of

the AA, said the country

risked installing public

charging networks that

would force millions of

motorists to pay permanently

higher prices. He said: “This

latest analysis indicates there

is a massive and widening gap

between the ‘haves and have

nots’ or those that have

driveways and those that do

not. As we get closer to the

2030 ban on new petrol and

diesel cars, the plight of the

‘have nots’ becomes more

urgent.”

Entrepreneurs are offering

ingenious solutions to the

problem. Co Charger and

JustPark enable people with

driveways to hire them out,

while Tom Pakenham,

managing director of

ChargeLight, says that

installing charge points in

lampposts can “keep the cost

of charging down”.

@NicholasHellen

Pricey electric chargers

drain drivers’ wallets

Nicholas Hellen

6 to 12 hours

5p

per unit

(kWh)

Rapid: 20 minutes to 1 hour

35p

per unit

2 to 12 hours

24p

per unit

Home and away: how to save

a fortune by charging your

car at home

Home charging

Source: Zap-Map; Ovo, Octopus Energy

Public charging

households in England and

Scotland and a quarter in

Wales do not have off-street

parking and electric vehicle

(EV) charging. In London

more than half (56 per cent)

rely on public chargers.

There are several reasons

why charging at home is

cheaper. Most importantly,

many benefit from low-cost

deals by charging at off-peak

times in the small hours.

Commercial operators also

have to pay VAT at 20 per

cent, rather than the

domestic energy rate of 5 per

cent, as well as having to

cover the costs of installing

Mileage tax to remedy

shortfall in fuel duty

The shift to electric cars will

trigger a £5 billion a year drop

in fuel duty by 2031, paving

the way for new taxes on

motorists as the era of

generous inducements to cut

emissions draws to an end.

A report by the RAC

Foundation forecasts that the

Treasury will lose almost a

third of the £16.5 billion in

annual fuel duty raised from

car drivers. Steve Gooding,

the foundation’s director,

said that motorists who drive

electric cars should brace

themselves for the

introduction of charges

based on the distance they

cover each year.

A “distance charge” would

be less controversial than

road pricing because it can be

levied by checking the annual

mileage figure during an MoT

or from an on-board

computer, without the state

prying into the motorist’s

whereabouts.

So far this year 163,

new battery electric cars have

been sold, a market share of

more than 10 per cent.

@nicholashellen

Nicholas Hellen