By Paul Hollick, chair of the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP)
You’ll probably recall a news story from last month about the driver of a Jaguar I-Pace who claimed their car had accelerated to over 100mph on its own, forcing the police to box the vehicle in and physically force it off the road in order to bring it to a standstill.
Very scary and also probably untrue, with the driver subsequently being arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving, following an examination of the car itself.
What was interesting in the gap between these two events was the news coverage, often implying that the I-Pace’s electric vehicle (EV) technology had been to blame, with some reporters claiming it had “gone rogue”.
This was an assessment that very quickly prompted widespread scepticism on AFP discussion groups.
Many fleet managers were way ahead of the authorities when it came to calling out the driver as the possible cause.
The fact is that fleet professionals have developed something of a thick skin when it comes to news coverage about EVs.
The list of supposed issues is long – that they catch fire spontaneously all the time, that those fires can’t be put out, that they cause potholes, that they are too heavy for multi storey car parks, that they are ultimately more damaging to the environment than petrol cars, and many, many more.
Most of these accusations are somewhere between exaggerated and nonsensical but are brought to the attention of fleet managers on a regular basis by employees who are perhaps cynical about EVs in the first place or simply a little credulous when it comes to believing what they see, hear or read in the media.
Social media is, of course, a particular problem, with a whole host of anti-EV memes circulating that often make very little sense when subjected to even the slightest investigation. It can be deeply frustrating.
The result is that fleet managers have become adept at shrugging off anti-EV propaganda, which is why they were so interested in the runaway iPace story.
They know it’ll be raised by employees and have to be countered, so want to be armed with credible facts that will reassure those with concerns.
These discussions are common on our AFP fleet forums, with fleet managers uniting to establish the facts as quickly as possible in order to face down another EV myth.
Of course, the overwhelming experience of most fleets is that once drivers start using EVs, they love them and few would return to an ICE vehicle.
The objections instead tend to come from those with limited or no exposure. It’s not unknown for fleet managers who are successfully running hundreds of EVs to be solemnly warned by a colleague that electrification will never work.
No doubt, as EVs become just a fact of everyday life over the next few years, these issues will wither and die. Until then, expect fleet managers to be vigilant about runaway EVs.
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