11:43 am, April 29, 2021
The UK’s ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars may well be nine years away, but dealers need to start embracing electric vehicle infrastructure sooner rather than later.
That’s the view of ZPN Energy, which is encouraging and helping dealers get ready for the inevitable – the mainstream sale of electric cars and the mass adoption of these vehicles by consumers.
ZPN Energy is a fast-growing British energy technology company that’s leading the way in implementing innovative and scalable infrastructure for electric vehicles.
The firm has identified that car dealers need to be on the same journey as consumers are. As of March 2021, pure-electric cars had 7.5 per cent share of the market.
Between January and March 2021, nearly 32,000 pure EVs had been registered – up 74 per cent on the same period in 2020.
Plug-in hybrids, meanwhile, accounted for 6.3 per cent of the market and registrations had rocketed by over 93 per cent between January and March 2021 compared to the same period last year.
Customers are already making – and will continue to make – the switch to electric vehicles, and ZPN Energy has identified dealers need to be there to support customers with convenient and sustainable infrastructure.
‘The biggest encumbrance to this change is not a fiscal, it’s actually the charging infrastructure,’ ZPN Energy CEO, Ian Stillie, told Car Dealer Live.
‘The home charging environment is evolving quite a bit, but we have to create a buffer to manage time. Car dealers have got the same constraints as everybody else.
‘I’ve got friends who are car dealers who say to me they only have a basic electric supply to their premises. They ask “how do we change?”. Well, it’s about creating a buffer to buy time for the Grid to catch up and for the market to adapt.’
ZPN Energy offers a range of easy solutions for car dealers to install electric vehicle infrastructure. The firm is perfectly placed to help companies that need infrastructure that can cope with a high turnover of electric vehicles charging simultaneously, particularly in areas of limited grid capacity.
With many car dealers having the luxury of large forecourts and aprons, how easy is it to actually install a charging point, let alone a bank of them?
‘There are two ways you can do it,’ says Stillie.
‘You can look at your site and say “we need to upgrade the grid” but that’s a very difficult, long drawn out process. The other is our solution – we are the only manufacturer of rapid chargers in the UK. Dealers don’t want evasive engineering works as they have businesses to run.’
Stillie explains ZPN Energy’s installations are like Lego bricks – no evasive engineering works, just simply drop on the forecourt and connect. When the time comes to expand, just add another Lego brick.
ZPN Energy is also an expert in energy management. It can help businesses learn how to benefit beyond the functional charging for day-to-day operations, and use smart energy harvesting tech.
Also in the show, Stillie explains:
- Will the National Grid be able to cope with an influx of electric vehicles?
- How dealerships can use renewable energy
- Range anxiety
- The costs and supplies needed to help dealers invest
You can watch the full interview at the top of this post
For more information, visit zpnenergy.com or call 0800 009 6208
