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The electric and autonomous vehicle revolution is well on its way, but Great Britain could miss out as the country may simply not be prepared for the event, because of both of the limitations of the National Grid and a dearth of charging bays throughout the nation. Amanda Blanc, the UK head of insurance company Axa, says that the two issues have now superseded worries about accident liabilities as by far the largest barriers to autonomous vehicles becoming part of the mainstream in the United Kingdom.
The numbers do not add up
At the present time there are around 125,000 plug-in electric vehicles within the United Kingdom, and around 14,000 chargers, just 2620 of which are the rapid chargers capable of providing an 80 percent charge to a car within just half an hour. The first electric vehicle charging points from the Shell company have just recently been opened at ten filling stations, which are principally situated in the south east and London. Blanc says that the waiting time is going to be a problem for those looking to purchase electric vehicles, and believes that the infrastructure within the United Kingdom is going to need to be fixed in order for autonomous vehicles to become a success within the country.
The electricity supply
The electricity supply of the United Kingdom is the other big issue that could prevent autonomous vehicles truly breaking into the mainstream on the nation’s shores. Data from the National Grid suggests that the increase in the number of electric vehicles on the roads of Great Britain could result in peak electricity demand jumping by even more than the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in as little as 12 years.
Autonomous vehicles are coming
The Axa unit alone has as many as 10 million customers, which explains why Blanc is a strong backer of electric and self-driving vehicles within the insurance industry, and believes that children born in the current year may never need to learn to drive. Advocates for the technology claim that the vehicles will be less expensive to run, offer mobility to those who cannot drive, such as elderly people, and will also cut down on pollution.
However, liability during potential accidents with self driving vehicles has been a thorny question in regard to the development of such vehicles, until clarification was brought by a government draft law that would require insurers to pay out automatically if a car in self-driving mode crashes. The carmaker and the insurance company would then have to debate whether the accident was caused by the machine or the driver. Given that 85 to 90 percent of road accidents are the result of human error, there is little doubt that self-driving cars would cut down drastically on accident levels, and thus also small claims from motorists. The cost of insurance premiums would be likely to be drastically reduced in consequence. The biggest tech firms and car manufacturers in the world are all racing to be the first to develop fully automated cars, including Ford, Google, Nissan and Volvo.
