AFP identifies ‘easy wins’ for new government
Five “easy wins” have been identified by the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) that the industry body is aiming to promote to the new Labour government.
Board member Lorna McAtear said the ideas would be relatively fast and simple to put into practice, cost little or nothing, and provide a wide range of benefits for the fleet sector.
McAtear said that “everyone” has a list of expensive measures for an incoming government, such as removing VAT on public charging, but the AFP thought it would be useful to deliver a collection of policies that could be put in place easily.
The first easy win according to the AFP is “realism on electric vehicle (EV) policy”.
McAtear said that fleets and the manufacturers that supply them “need to take a real world look at the rate of EV adoption in light of the experience of fleets over the last few years”.
She said that the 2030 target for vans was “just not practicable” and there were “too many hurdles” and products available “do not meet the needs for enough businesses”.
In addition it said that there was a need for EV labelling and education, with AFP members stating that too many drivers and fleet managers “don’t understand the charging capabilities of their vehicles”.
McAtear said that a “simple solution” would be a label on the inside of the charge port flap that informs the driver of the maximum capability for AC and DC charging. She said this would “go a long way” to helping drivers pick the right chargers. Although she admitted that manufacturers could “push back” due to subsequent upgrading, the AFP believed “there is a strong argument” for providing the information at the point of sale.
The AFP was also calling for standardised battery state of health checks to be introduced, which was including in the Labour manifesto. McAtear said that consumer confidence on battery state “provides a statement of the kind of performance a used car or van buyer can expect” and this “can’t happen too soon”.
In addition, it is calling for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) battery storage, which the AFP said “has huge potential for the future in terms of grid decarbonisation” and could also “provide a boost to new and used EV sales”.
McAtear said:
“EVs are big batteries on wheels and have a huge potential future part to play in making wider use of renewables more practical. However, while V2G is currently possible, it is something that has yet to enter the mainstream, even though there are now a million EVs on UK roads. We’d like to see clear government policy that is designed to promote V2G, spreading awareness of the concept among both new and used EV buyers, and the general public in a wider sense. Especially, we’d like to see clarification of where and when this type of battery storage can be used and for which applications.”
It also called for relaxing planning laws to make installing charge points “faster and easier”, with McAtear stating that current rules were “slowing down” the rate of installation and it would “like to see much of the bureaucracy removed”.
In addition to these ideas, the AFP has already said that it would like to see the new government introduce benefit-in-kind company car tax tables through to 2029-30.
It is now nearly two years since the current tables were announced and they only run until the 2027/28 tax year, meaning fleets buying vehicles today don’t know the tax rate their drivers will be charged towards the end of the decade.
Image of Lorna McAtear provided by the AFP
