Disabled motorists are often overlooked with regards to EV charging. There is a need to investigate and understand the enablers for both public and domestic charging solutions, not just for drivers with a disability but also for a wider range of potentially vulnerable customers such as elderly people or those with chronic illnesses.
Objectives
1 Identify the enablers and barriers for EV adoption for drivers with disabilities, along with recommending traditional and innovation solutions for making EV and EV infrastructure more accessible.
2 Trial the use of wireless EV charging solutions to consider contactless charging for disabled and otherwise vulnerable customers.
3 Investigate V2G technology for offering at-home resilience for vulnerable customers.
4 Explore how the services that DNOs offer need to adapt to support vulnerable customers adopting EVs.
5 Explore how best to data share between DNOs, OEMS and organisations like mobility to facilitate vulnerable customer’s needs.
6 Develop a cost benefit analysis to understand the viability of wider roll out and adoption of innovative solutions.
Learnings
Outcomes
Two comprehensive reports were produced as part of the project outcomes to document all the findings:
- The first report, produced by Impact Research, focused on identifying the barriers that motorists with mobility impairments face in their EV transition. Some of the key barriers were:
• Lack of information on EVs and accessible charging
• Availability and accessibility of charge points
• Cost
• And psychological barriers like range anxiety:
• The second report, produced by Energy Systems Catapult, focused on identifying potential solutions to address these barriers and propose innovative solutions for further investigation. The project looked at the customer experience of using an EV from the perspective of two vulnerable groups:
• People with mobility impairments
• and People with high levels of anxiety
A table of 65 potential solutions which require further assessment and feasibility studied is detailed in the Energy Systems Catapult report
- Both reports can be found respectively in the links below:
The first report, produced by Impact Research
The second report, produced by Energy Systems Catapult
Lessons Learnt
Below is a summary of the main observations, lessons learnt and opportunities for further exploration; for the full set of learnings, please see the Conclusions section of the final report.
• The market for electric vehicles is taking off in the U.K. Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) made up 11.6% of all new car sales in 2021, with sales of new Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEVs) making up a further 7%.
• Around 5.9% of drivers with full U.K. driving licence holders also hold “blue badge” disabled driver parking permits. The difficulties those with mobility impairments will have in using EVs have begun to be recognised but so far little has been done to address these difficulties.
• Around 6.6% of adults have high levels of anxiety in any given week. The potential difficulties that drivers with high levels of anxiety will face in engaging with electric vehicles have not yet been widely recognised.
• People with mobility impairments identified multiple pain points in acquiring and using EVs, particularly around the prospect of charging an EV, especially at public chargers.
• People with high levels of anxiety identified pain points at all stages in acquiring and using EVs.
• The main role that the DNO can play in facilitating these vulnerable groups is via their Priority Services Registers (PSRs), specifically in ensuring that their personal mobility is not compromised by inability to charge their EV during power cuts. This would require changes to the PSR, probably at an industry level, to allow recording of this data enabling services to be developed which would help disabled EV drivers.
• Although people with mobility impairments are able to join the PSR now, there is not a PSR category for those with high levels of anxiety, nor indeed for people with other mental health issues. Creating new PSR categories for those with mental health difficulties should be a priority for DNOs.
• There is considerable potential to improve charge point design to make charging more accessible to users with mobility impairments, but innovations remain largely at the trial/pilot stage so far
• Inductive (wireless) charging would considerably reduce the difficulties experienced by members of both vulnerable groups when charging, both at home and at public charging locations. Unfortunately, this technology is not yet deployed in the UK outside of small scale trials
• Some forms of Mobility as a Service, especially ride hailing, could considerably reduce the difficulties experienced by members of both vulnerable groups. However, the subjective impressions of research participants were that few of their vehicles are adapted for wheelchair users at present.
• Fully autonomous cars could considerably reduce the difficulties experienced by members of both vulnerable groups in engaging with electric vehicles, but these remain a rather distant prospect
• People with other mental health difficulties, and members of other vulnerable groups such as those with learning difficulties and acquired brain injuries may also experience substantial difficulties. Their needs have not been widely recognised and to date not researched.
