With a UK-wide ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars scheduled for 2030, along with the 2045 target to reach net zero carbon emissions in Scotland, the climate change challenge remains at the top of the agenda.
But for disabled people, and their families, the green transport transition raises particular challenges, from the in-accessibility of charging points to a lack of suitable electric vehicle (EV) options. One organisation working with disabled people, car manufactures and other stakeholders to support this switch is Motability Operations. The company runs the Motability car, powered wheelchair and scooter scheme and has just under 70,000 customers across Scotland.
But for disabled people, and their families, the green transport transition raises particular challenges, from the in-accessibility of charging points to a lack of suitable electric vehicle (EV) options. One organisation working with disabled people, car manufactures and other stakeholders to support this switch is Motability Operations. The company runs the Motability car, powered wheelchair and scooter scheme and has just under 70,000 customers across Scotland.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello, I'm Rosemary Gallagher and welcome to the Sustainable Scotland podcast, brought
00:07 to you by the Scotsman. Scotland's national newspaper since 1817, and bringing you fresh
00:12 and relevant content for the 21st century. Sustainable Scotland looks at how Scotland
00:17 is doing in its efforts to be cleaner and greener for the next generation. And this
00:20 episode is brought to you in partnership with Motability Operations, the company behind
00:25 the Motability car, powered wheelchair and scooter scheme. With just under 70,000 scheme
00:30 customers across Scotland. This episode will focus on the challenges and opportunities
00:34 around the move to electric vehicles, electric wheelchair accessible vehicles, as well as
00:39 wider sustainability topics. I'm joined by Andrew Miller, Chief Executive of Motability
00:43 Operations and Paul Ralph, Access and Inclusion Director at Ewing's Guide, an accessibility
00:50 review website based in Edinburgh. And Paul's also a Motability customer.
00:54 The big thing that convinces me is the whole notion of one stop shop, no worry. And that
01:04 was more important than the size of the vehicle, the colour of the vehicle, the shape of the
01:08 vehicle or the cost of the vehicle. That was Paul very nicely summing up what Motability
01:12 means to him. Now over to Andrew and Paul to introduce themselves. Andrew, can we start
01:17 with you please? Many folk will have heard about Motability and probably have different
01:23 preconceived ideas about what Motability is about. But I run and look after Motability
01:29 Operations and our job is a commercial company who've been given the job of managing the
01:35 contract of the Motability scheme on behalf of Motability, the charity, across the whole
01:41 of the UK and obviously specifically in Scotland. And the organisation has been around for over
01:47 45 years now and in that time it's looked after probably about 5 million people through
01:55 the process. Right now across the UK we've got 700,000 customers, most of whom are in
02:02 a car which we look after for them. And in Scotland we have about 70,000 customers, again
02:09 most of whom are in a car with us as well. And the whole ethos and purpose of this business
02:17 is to ensure that those who have a disability are able to basically be mobile, simple as
02:27 that and make sure they've got independent mobility to access anything from education,
02:34 healthcare but also just fundamental freedom and making sure that they're mobile. And it's
02:41 been really eye opening and really interesting for me, I've been looking after this business
02:44 for the last two years and when I hear the stories from customers it is, first of all
02:51 it stresses how important this organisation is but also stresses how life changing it
02:57 is to many people and how important it is. So very lucky to look after a business like
03:01 this.
03:02 Thank you Andrew. And Paul could you introduce yourself please and tell us about your role?
03:09 Usually when introducing myself I would say something like I'm an adventurer, explorer,
03:15 photographer, something of a storyteller. And then in my spare time you'll find me supporting
03:21 the work of Ewan's Guide as their Access and Inclusion Director. For those who don't know,
03:27 Ewan's Guide is a bit like TripAdvisor for disabled people, it's a review website and
03:33 much more, we do lots of other things but principally sharing information about places
03:40 to go. I think the other thing I want to just attach on the end of this, I'm very conscious
03:45 of inclusion and as this is a conversation without pictures I want to quickly mention
03:50 that I am a power chair user. I could be described as a person of mature years, despite perhaps
03:57 my youthful looks, get that one in, and I'm someone who's supported by a team of PAs who
04:04 work in the background. I would also at this point declare a personal interest because
04:10 I'm also a Motability customer and I am proud to have my shiny black WAV parked outside
04:19 in one of the accessible parking ways here today.
04:24 Thank you Rosh, well that's very interesting to hear that and get your Motability customer.
04:27 So Andrew you've given the introduction to Motability, give us a bit more about just
04:31 the numbers on the ground in Scotland and the types of people you're helping and just
04:34 a bit more detail about how you're funded, who's eligible for your scheme, just tell
04:38 me a bit more detail around what you do, especially in Scotland.
04:43 I guess firstly the start point of this is that our customers have to be in receipt of
04:48 a mobility allowance and the determination of that allowance sits with the various governments
04:53 in the UK to decide who's eligible or not. So fortunately that's not in our remit to
04:58 decide that, that's a policy and government decision. Then if an individual is given that
05:02 allowance basically they can choose and about probably a third of people who get the allowance
05:08 choose then to give us their allowance and in return for giving us that allowance we
05:14 then make sure they're provided with a car and all support around that car during its
05:20 period through a lease. So basically our job is to make sure that when they join the scheme
05:26 first of all they have a real choice of whether they want a car, wheelchair, a car, a wheelchair
05:32 excess of a vehicle, a powered wheelchair or a scooter, we basically offer all those
05:37 different areas. And then if they choose to take a lease on one of those types of vehicles
05:42 with us then after they get an upfront payment, which can be bigger or smaller depending on
05:49 the size of the car, we basically borrow money to buy the car outright then we lease the
05:55 car back using the allowance over the next three to five years. But also critically in
06:00 that time not just a lease we actually manage all the running of the car in terms of insurance,
06:05 MOT, servicing and also make adaptations for the car depending what a customer needs as
06:12 well. So basically for handling over an allowance to us for mobility we're basically taking
06:18 responsibility on sourcing a car at the right price and then managing the whole of that
06:23 car during its life. At the end of its lease the customer can choose hopefully to take
06:28 another lease with us and move on to another new car and then our responsibility is to
06:33 offload and sell the car back into the marketplace. So very simply we borrow money to buy a huge
06:39 amount of vehicles, customers choose to give us the allowance to manage the car for us
06:46 and then when they hand the car back we sell it to make a profit and any money we make
06:49 on that profit is reinvested back into the scheme over the next generation to keep it
06:56 going in perpetuity if we can. And critically the structure of the company is that we have
07:03 an ownership structure that we have to make a profit but all the profit we make, the shareholders
07:09 have waived any right to dividends and any profit we make must go back into the scheme
07:14 in some way, shape or form whether it's directly back to our customers or whether it's to grants
07:19 for future customers or whether it's to allow us to negotiate better deals with the manufacturers.
07:24 And can you please explain where Motability the charity fits into this structure?
07:28 So Motability charity is a distinct separate body from us and it oversees us running the
07:34 scheme and they also have been, technically they've been given the actual right to run
07:41 the scheme on behalf of government and they contract it back out to us to run it on their
07:45 behalf. They oversee us so they're if you like our regulator in the scheme and they
07:50 have a separate role as well is to provide grants in the scheme so any grants which are
07:54 given to some customers are given by Motability the charity and managed by the charity not
08:00 by us and in Scotland there are about 4,000 recipients of grants right now on the scheme
08:06 to help them buy, sorry help them lease the car. The other thing that scheme does is that
08:11 Motability charity does sorry is that it also does research into other areas of accessible
08:18 transport.
08:19 And talking about areas of grants and funding there are changes afoot with the move to add
08:23 a disability payment or ADP from personal independence payments, PIP. Can you explain
08:30 a bit more how this change from PIP to ADP will affect disabled people and their families?
08:36 Paul would you like to go first with that question?
08:41 I think as with any change in policy and benefits disabled people are typically nervous and
08:49 it's really a little bit of fear of the unknown and what this transition might feel like or
08:53 look like because sadly the information isn't easily available in the public domain. Typical
09:01 questions that people might be thinking about is what's going to happen to my vehicle if
09:07 I transition from PIP to adult disability payment do I still get the same amount of
09:13 money do I still have the same services and support that come through having that so yeah
09:21 it's a little bit of a I've described dark side of the moon so there needs to be a little
09:25 bit more information out there and information that's cascading down to the end customers
09:32 of PIP or adult disability payment. So we need to strengthen the messages but we need
09:38 to make those messages clearer. Talking about adult disability payment many of my disabled
09:43 peers and many of the correspondents to you and Skyd and they'll say what's that? Well
09:49 this benefits been around in the making for a long time and if people are still saying
09:54 what's that we have work to do.
09:57 Thank you Paul. Andrew how will the move to adult disability payment affect what mobility
10:04 operations does and how are you preparing for it and what advice do you have to your
10:08 customers?
10:09 Well I guess the main thing is there'll be no disruption and they'll be disappointed
10:14 if there was so from our customer point of view they should see whilst there might be
10:18 technical changes in the way the payment is authorised and managed by government that's
10:24 behind the scenes from our customers the most important thing is this kind of seamless transition
10:29 of any services or changes and we've been working very well and very closely behind
10:35 the scenes with both the DWP in the rest of the UK and with the Scottish government as
10:41 well to make sure that all the integration has happened and the technologies happen to
10:46 make sure there's no disruption at all to our customers so no change luckily through
10:51 the process.
10:52 Thank you Andrew that's very reassuring for customers to hear and moving on now to a very
10:58 large topic of sustainability and electric vehicles as we know Scotland's got very ambitious
11:04 net zero targets and to meet a ban on new petrol vehicles is approaching so we're all
11:10 aware of the need to do a bit in sustainability and most mobility operations is a very large
11:14 car fleet and we're moving towards hybrids and electric vehicles and there's lots of
11:19 big challenges as well as opportunities and it's also EV world day, electric vehicle day
11:24 on the 9th September so a very timely time to have this discussion so Paul could you
11:29 maybe start and give me a flavour of what you and others are doing about the switch
11:33 to electric vehicles how you feel about the move to electric vehicles and you share your
11:37 thoughts on experience and challenges around electric wheelchair accessible vehicles or
11:41 E-Wabs as they're sometimes called for short.
11:44 A massive question but I'll give it a go.
11:48 Thoughts around the transition I and many other disabled people are going through a
11:57 period of conflict because on one hand if you said to me would I like an electric vehicle
12:05 I'd say yes but if on the other hand you say is your next motorability vehicle going to
12:13 be an electric vehicle I would say no and when you've got this internal strife going
12:19 on it gets very confusing I've just been through this process in my new web is still relatively
12:24 new less than six months I did a lot of research around electric vehicles but the reality was
12:33 whilst the aspiration is fantastic the reality is very very challenging and sometimes the
12:42 challenges that disabled people are talking about aren't necessarily the challenges that
12:46 the manufacturers are thinking about maybe even not some of the challenges motorability
12:51 may be thinking about either we all know one of the principal things that disabled people
12:57 are talking about is range anxiety and I'm not in the least bit surprised because many
13:02 disabled people are using things like power chairs and scooters and are experts on this
13:08 psychological phenomenon that we call range anxiety so it's little wonder that they apply
13:13 this same thinking to the is this vehicle going to be able to take me from Edinburgh
13:18 to Inverness or have I got to charge and then you also do this exercise of comparing it
13:24 to the traditional webs that we have at the moment you're saying hang on a minute so if
13:28 I go to allied mobility and others are available of course and I get a WAV and it can do 500
13:35 miles but if I get a an electric WAV obviously there aren't many I can only think of one
13:41 actually at the moment and it's only going to do 200 miles for me and many others it's
13:47 about having the range and the confidence of range we all know about the electric charging
13:54 points challenge often people are talking about the quantity well actually interestingly
14:00 in Scotland Scotland has the best density of electric charging points or stations whatever
14:06 you call them in the United Kingdom however if you rephrase that question and talk about
14:13 the accessibility of those we know and many others know that they're not great so having
14:22 seen the development of standards and the research that's now going on it's fantastic
14:28 because we need to come to some sort of baseline what does the charging station look like what
14:34 are we doing about the considerations like you put this charging station on a curb and
14:38 I as a wheelchair user can't get up to it or you put it behind bollards and I can't
14:42 get near it or you have long trailing cables that my visually impaired friend falls over
14:47 because he doesn't know they're there because they go across the pavement you kind of get
14:51 my drift so there's a nervousness but the mystery for me and many others stems from
14:58 what does a wheelchair accessible vehicle a WAV when it's electric look like because
15:04 in my simple understanding of the mechanics and I'm not a mechanic in my WAV the floor
15:10 is lowered the manufacturer is put in a different floor so you get the ramp and everything else
15:16 but in my simple mind surely that's where you have to put batteries so there is a whole
15:21 piece of thinking around is anyone actually doing anything to explore the redesigned WAV
15:29 what's it going to look like how's it going to work until we can answer some of these
15:32 practical things I wouldn't go anywhere near it I think another thing is we have the idea
15:40 you're going to have charging stations but for many disabled people it's not simply is
15:46 there a charging station a lot of people are going to be saying to us and we know this
15:50 from the access survey that we worked on a lot of people will be saying well a charging
15:56 station is great it's going to take x minutes to charge but if there's no accessible toilet
16:00 or no changing places toilet it's not going to work I'm particularly mindful I live in
16:08 a flat in central Edinburgh I have no drive I have no private space to park my WAV so
16:15 I would have to use public charging points I would love to have something at home but
16:20 I have no idea how that works how it could work and there's a little bit of me that thinks
16:26 do you know what I had a really lucky escape because if I'd have got a WAV and looking
16:31 at the economic crisis and particularly fuel crisis going on with the charges on electricity
16:35 and everything else I wouldn't have been able to afford to publicly charge a vehicle I think
16:42 it's important that we look at the opportunities to map the facilities around charging points
16:49 and start to think about joining the dots there's too many things in isolation I'm particularly
16:55 encouraged by the accessible transport work that No 13 others are doing that's exciting
17:00 I was really really pleased to see the standards. Thank you Paul there's a lot of challenges
17:04 there as well as obviously opportunities and Andrew I haven't heard concerns from Paul
17:08 which I'm sure are shared by others can you explain how is mobility rising to these sorts
17:13 of challenges and waiting to move your fleet to electric vehicles and what more needs to
17:19 be done and how are manufacturers responding to this challenge? Yeah I mean what Paul described
17:24 then is something that we're living daily now and I can't disagree with many at all
17:29 with all the challenges that he raises and the weird thing is even though we have 700,000
17:39 vehicles on the road in the UK we've actually got the single biggest electric fleet right
17:42 now we've got in the UK as far as we can see we've got 23,000 cars that are electric on
17:47 the road right now so the problems you just went through are exactly what our customers
17:52 are experiencing now we're trying to solve them so and if you like my challenge is I've
17:57 got to get under government mandates 700,000 cars to be electric within the next seven
18:03 years so next two-year lease cycle I've got to get all our fleet to be electric because
18:08 that's when the new mandate comes into force so I guess where I group it we first of all
18:14 there's a whole question about affordability of electric cars and this is almost irrespective
18:19 of whether you're disabled or not electric cars are currently more expensive than petrol
18:22 cars to buy the car itself and our customers in particular are generally in incomes 40%
18:31 of our customers in Scotland earn incomes in the family household of less than £20,000
18:36 so the first thing is about actually making sure we can get electric cars that are an
18:40 affordable price and we're working hard to get scale manufacturers to do that and the
18:45 second thing is to deal with all the challenges that Paul listed around how do we make sure
18:51 that chargers are available or if there aren't chargers available that money's been going
18:56 into lease to make sure they're available so in our lease if you take a lease with us
19:01 we will fund the charger if you've got access to getting a charger put in and that costs
19:05 about £1,000 a house but just multiply that up against the whole of Scotland transfer
19:10 into electric that's roughly £1,000 for each unit to get them installed but they need to
19:15 be installed we're managing through but those issues will come better as the range gets
19:19 better in cars and charging becomes even better infrastructure than it is and Scotland's definitely
19:24 leading the way in that area. And the third area that Paul highlighted are our WAV cars
19:28 so of our fleet about 50,000 cars across the UK about 7,000 in Scotland are adapted wheelchair
19:37 accessible vehicles and exactly what Paul described those cars are typically in the
19:42 past ones that would have been adapted to allow wheelchairs into them through either
19:47 a ramp or side access drop the floor of the car and that allows you to lower that to get
19:53 the wheelchair in because you can't raise the height of the car and you're absolutely
19:57 right under the current design of electric cars the batteries in the floor of the car
20:03 so you can't drop the floor of the car to get a wheelchair in. And this is something
20:08 that the manufacturers will eventually solve in the future but they're not going to get
20:13 to that for seven, eight, nine years so our big worry is that there's not a future model
20:18 of an electric car that's feasible for wheelchair users so we're trying to accelerate that change
20:25 we're working in partnership with a design company called Callum and they are a car design
20:31 company and what we're doing is working with them to figure out how we can design a car
20:36 type with the battery on the side in modular format to allow wheelchairs to come back in
20:43 and in parallel to that what we're also doing is working hard with the manufacturers of
20:47 cars to prolong the petrol car versions of the wheelchair accessible vehicles to make
20:53 sure that there is always new cars coming into stock before or until the electric equivalent
20:59 comes in because the other part of the electric transition that is not talked about more broadly
21:05 is that manufacturers are ahead of government in many ways they're working to the mandate
21:10 requirements and given their lead times for manufacturing they're closing down production
21:15 of petrol cars now so you might have read about in the last few weeks a Fiesta being
21:19 cancelled aspects of the Volvo range being cancelled Polo being cancelled and the scary
21:27 thing for us is what they're cancelling are the mid-price petrol cars so irrespective
21:33 of whether people want petrol or not at the moment they will not have a choice of petrol
21:38 in about four to five years at a mid-range petrol cars will be at the luxury end higher
21:42 profit end there will not be much choice at the lower end so we have to work with our
21:47 customers to get this transition to electric probably at a faster pace than many would
21:51 want because simply there won't be petrol cars on the other side and there definitely
21:55 won't be petrol cars in the wheelchair accessible vehicle area and that's why we got to accelerate
22:01 the more aggressive discussions with the manufacturers but also at the same time work on the design
22:05 of an electric car as well so a lot going on here trying to group it into kind of four
22:10 different areas one is fundamental affordability of electric cars anyway the second thing is
22:15 all the all the challenges of using and driving and working with electric cars charging range
22:21 etc and the third one is a specific element and very concerning one for me is the wheelchair
22:26 accessible vehicle area as well and the great thing about our scheme and maybe I would say
22:31 this is that because we've got the large scale we can actually have these negotiations with
22:36 manufacturers whereas smaller players would not be able to have those kind of discussions
22:40 and manufacturers and that's before if you've got into some of the other stuff we arranged
22:44 so when you're with the RAC with quick fit we're having to think about what electric
22:48 means for them so RAC if you break down an electric car the car stops it can't be pushed
22:53 aside of the road how do you recover it quickly especially in motorways which don't have rescue
22:58 lanes with quick fit the wear and tear of tires is faster because the cars are heavier
23:03 so what's that mean for the cost of tire running maintenance schedules different so a whole
23:07 lot of additional complexity we're working on as well but we have to work our way through
23:11 it we don't have a choice and this is about trying to do it in the best way without compromising
23:15 our customer service which is why it makes my job so interesting I suppose.
23:20 You're listening to the Sustainable Scotland podcast. This episode is brought to you in
23:23 partnership with Motability Operations. If you'd like to discuss partnering with the
23:26 Scotsman before an episode of Sustainable Scotland please email podcasts@scotsman.com
23:31 and now back to this episode about Motability Operations.
23:34 Well thanks Andrew, lots happening there and obviously electric vehicles is a big part
23:39 of it but tell me a bit more about Motability's wider sustainability ambitions and where electric
23:43 vehicles fit into that. In terms of overall sustainability?
23:47 Overall sustainability yeah absolutely electric vehicles is part of it but in terms of wider
23:50 sustainability targets and what other work are you doing in that area to help tackle
23:55 the climate change issue? So you know our job is not to force our customers
24:01 down to anywhere our job is to make sure they've got choice and also be upfront about them
24:07 where the choice is going to lead to so as I said before we're moving in a certain way
24:11 that has been set by government policy and right now you know we've got the largest we
24:16 got various we have to make sure our ambitions fit within that framework that's really important
24:21 but right now we've got the largest fleet of electric cars so we're able to take advantage
24:26 of that and help the transition to important transition to electric anyway and we also
24:31 know that our customers from research as Paul said care about this as much as anyone else
24:36 and they want to make the switch so and we pull this every month and we know that a higher
24:45 percentage of our customers definitely tell us they want an EV but very lower number say
24:50 they actually want to make it their next car so our job is to try and make sure that we
24:55 set ourselves up to sort out and tackle head-on some of those challenges for our customers
25:00 so we have to make sure that we are doing better job on the suitability of the car so
25:05 if our customers can do electric cars we make sure they know that and make sure they understand
25:11 the range around it and secondly we have to make sure that we set up the choice of that
25:15 car in a better way so that they understand the dimensions for a wheelchair say in a boot
25:19 and other areas that we set that up and make that choice much better and then we also have
25:24 to make sure that we are setting all the ancillary services like I described before up in the
25:30 right way to support the car and the great thing is Scotland led the way in the UK around
25:35 infrastructure and electric and in our scheme Scotland's leading the way too so broadly
25:39 15% of cars in the scheme in Scotland are either hybrid or fully V's which is higher
25:46 than a percentage of the rest of the UK and most of our customers are in the central belt
25:50 of Scotland and the great thing about that area is that the density of charging and the
25:57 number of units available is higher and average mileage of our customers is lower so in theory
26:02 many should be eligible and should be able to use electric cars if we can explain it
26:07 better to them as well.
26:08 And do you think Scotland is doing enough when it comes to infrastructure for electric
26:11 vehicles or do we need to see more investment and innovation?
26:15 So we have a lot of infrastructure most of which is unfortunately inaccessible. I'll
26:21 give you an example here's the sort of typical irritant the disabled consumer is discovering
26:29 in the borders we have the wonderful town of Galashiels it's one of my favourite places
26:35 it has a transport hub the interchange and I've been down there several times to do various
26:43 bits and pieces and I was struck by disabled people don't always behave in the way that
26:50 organisations and the public expect. I met the blue badge driver who was parked in one
26:56 of the blue badge bays next to me and we had a chat and he told me how he thought the interchange
27:00 was fantastic because he could take his motorability vehicle park in there and then use public
27:06 transport for an onward longer journey. I just thought that's really interesting and
27:12 then I discovered the disabled people who drove to the interchange to get the train
27:19 to go to Edinburgh because it had a changing places toilet so they could use the toilet
27:25 and then do the 50 minutes into Edinburgh where Waverley station also has a changing
27:29 places toilet so behaviours are quite interesting but the irritant in all of this is the interchange
27:36 in Galashiels has the most amazing and there's some of these I don't get mechanics but higher
27:41 powered charging quicker box thingamajigs only installed a few years ago on curves behind
27:52 bollards with complicated cables and you just think why? You've got everything else is absolutely
28:02 exemplary and you've gone and allowed this car bunker to be built. So yeah I think talking
28:13 about the sort of future and the sustainability and the aims I think when you reach a point
28:19 that you can turn up somewhere new regardless of impairment regardless of disability or
28:24 condition and just for that brief period in life you forget that and you enjoy the simple
28:32 pleasures like everyone else you know that's inclusive and that's accessible that's not
28:37 the interchange at Galashiels you're an EV driver. Wouldn't it be absolutely amazing
28:42 if Scotland's electric vehicle charging network could offer that inclusive experience simply
28:49 driving up to an accessible charging point having been able to find out before you visit
28:55 whether or not there's an accessible loo or changing places knowing there's somewhere
29:00 to get a coffee or simply rest a while even and this might surprise you even the simple
29:07 experience of joining a queue for the charger equality hooray just like everyone else that's
29:13 my aim. Thanks Paul for explaining that it sounds like more consultation more work is
29:18 definitely needed. Absolutely. And Andrew from a multibility point of view do you think
29:25 Scotland has to look at more innovation and more investment infrastructure? Yeah I mean
29:30 again to echo Paul I couldn't agree more I mean I've been in this organisation for just
29:37 over two years now and I wasn't involved in the disabled community at all before I did
29:42 this job and it has been eye-popping how in so many areas the disabled community is left
29:48 behind in the thinking and the planning for so much of this stuff. It's incredible and
29:54 I've actually taken my hobby now is taking pictures of new installations of charging
29:59 points and sending them on to different places. I dropped my car off at the station this morning
30:04 which is very proudly trumpeting lots of installs of electric charging points and as Paul said
30:10 there's no gap around the cars so we've had instances where customers have phoned us and
30:15 said help I'm stuck in my car I'm in a charging point the car is charging someone's drawn
30:20 up against me and I can't get out of the car and they could be stuck in a car you know
30:25 charging of the car can take four to five hours they can be stuck in that car potentially
30:29 for four to five hours so this lack of foresight and thinking in a rush to get the in a good
30:34 rush for good reasons to get charging out is really really important and even the design
30:39 of car cables that they're heavy they're hard to manhandle and some of the power points
30:46 and cars are put in the wrong places so we are you know fighting for our customers all
30:51 the time to make sure that we are standing up for them and making sure that we're asserting
30:56 ourselves on their behalf to manufacturers and to planners to thinking this stuff. In
31:01 a positive way we're trying to help we're doing our own innovation in different areas
31:07 we're trying to look at whether we have a version of our own app or build into other
31:14 people's apps like that map where our customers pre-qualify charging points and we get them
31:20 earmarked as proper disabled friendly and charge points for example and so we're trying
31:26 to do our own thing but it is hard yards and tell you it has been so incredibly interesting
31:31 for me and scary about how this community is left behind in so many ways and this is
31:37 if what I've seen in cars an example of what it's like in everyday life outside of cars
31:41 then you know we should be much more assertive and thinking about all this stuff. But the
31:47 good in Scotland itself the good news is that Scottish government is definitely ahead of
31:51 the UK and it's thinking about sustainability but it's probably no different in many ways
31:57 from the rest of the UK and thinking about disabled sustainability and personally I'd
32:03 like to see that more up the agenda in all over the UK and Scotland as well. Andrew we've
32:08 heard a lot about the challenges around electric vehicles and the move to electric wheelchair
32:12 accessible vehicles but I'm sure Motability has done a lot of work in this area to address
32:16 these challenges. Could you expand a bit more about what Motability is doing to help disabled
32:22 people and the move to electric vehicles? Yeah Motability is doing a whole raft of initiatives
32:28 to really try and change the direction of travel in this area for disabled customers.
32:35 First of all we are reinvesting all the profits we're making back into supporting primarily
32:42 transitions we're investing 300 billion pounds this year, next year rather on subsidising
32:49 electric vehicles we're funding every single lease we'll fund the charge point that goes
32:55 into it so that's really important as the base to make sure they're affordable. Secondly
33:00 we're doing lots of innovation and specific initiatives with different partners around
33:05 this space so we've launched for example a trial of an app called GoCharge app which
33:10 is trying to make payments simpler for our customers around the space and give real-time
33:15 reviews of the infrastructure and we've got discussions going with companies like Shell
33:20 where we're trialling concierge style service in electric charging points at retail pumps
33:28 and because of space constraints to make life easier so we're doing those kind of trials
33:32 and leading initiatives like that and working on discussions with people like Apcoa around
33:36 how we do the actual implementation of charging points into stations. But there's another
33:41 raft of work which is going on around research so we have done research around accessible
33:46 parking spaces which has gone down very well and is changing the standard of design, interesting
33:51 not just in the UK but it's changing the standard design globally it's been picked up in America
33:56 now. Andrew could you tell me a bit about the National Centre of Accessible Transport
34:00 which is run by Motability the charity and what that's doing? It's a really great research
34:07 initiative that's been set up jointly between the charity and Coventry University to do
34:11 research around all aspects of accessible transport and they're going to fund five to
34:16 six specific projects to do research to try and improve accessibility in a broader sense
34:22 and it's only initiatives like that that really make clear to policy makers about the size
34:28 of the challenge in dealing with the transformation not just by changes caused by electric but
34:34 also changes more broadly as society changes to accept new forms of transport and new ways
34:40 of doing things. And Paul how do you feel about such initiatives from Motability that
34:44 Andrew has explained? Are they having a big impact? For me these sorts of initiatives
34:49 feel very inclusive insofar as this is a series of things that are exploring what the future
34:57 is going to look like, what the possibilities are. I'm very aware that some of the contributors
35:03 to many of these initiatives happen to be disabled people which is music to my ears
35:08 because for so long we've sat on the fringe and the periphery and watched others deciding
35:12 what our lives might look like so that's absolutely fantastic news and it is one of these things
35:19 where the more people can actually come together and talk around tables the better the change.
35:25 One of the most exciting things I saw of recent times was the agreement on the standards for
35:32 EV charging points. I've already described how awful they can be and I look forward with
35:38 great optimism. Thank you. So Paul turning back to you from a UNSGUIDE point of view,
35:44 what advice would you give to someone who's making a decision on switching to an electric
35:47 vehicle? What sort of key points would you say and what should they be asking before
35:51 they make that move? It's hard for me to advise what people should be asking but I can suggest
36:01 a strategy insofar as one of the things Motor Duty has is the most amazing network of dealers.
36:11 Particularly I was impressed with the dealer network that are supplying wheelchair accessible
36:18 vehicles because often you're not quite sure if things are going to work, you're not sure
36:24 how you might fit. I cannot say this strongly enough. If you can get the opportunity to
36:31 go to see, to touch, to explore that actually gets rid of a lot of anxieties, you start
36:39 to understand different strategies for using vehicles and you're much more comfortable
36:43 in deciding what is going to work for you. This is why things like the the big day event
36:51 that's coming to Edinburgh in September is so important. Hands-on real vehicles, not
36:57 a brochure where you're trying to work out can I fit, will I fit, how do I do this? Speak
37:03 to real people. Thanks Paul. I've been reading about the big day event in Edinburgh on the
37:10 15th and 16th September. Andrew, could you tell me a bit more about Motability's big
37:14 day? Where is it? What will people find there? What can they try out? Just tell us what people
37:19 should expect and who the big day is aimed at. Yes, as Paul said, it's our chance to
37:26 be able to let customers and potential customers come in and see the cars and vehicles and
37:32 kick the tyres so to speak and it's really important because we take a lot of pride in
37:37 this organisation focusing on the customer service at the top. Customer service is about
37:42 doing lots of phone calls, interaction and service. It's not about digital experience,
37:47 it's about physical experience. So on Friday the 15th, Saturday 16th September at the Inglesdon
37:55 Highland Showground if that's right, the Highland Centre, we are doing the one big day event
38:01 in Edinburgh and it's a chance for any customers or potential customers to come along and see
38:08 all the cars we do, the manufacturers we do, our own innovation team talking about some
38:13 of the challenges and how we're addressing them that Paul went through, see and explain
38:19 how we adapt cars for people and what we can do to make sure we get the car that's right
38:25 for individuals and of course really try out some of the electric cars as well and see
38:30 them first hand. I think when you see them, you realise that there is a glimmer of light
38:36 at the end of the tunnel about how we get people into electric cars. So information
38:41 has gone out now but hopefully people can find out more by looking at our own website
38:46 and encourage as many people who are potential customers to come along too.
38:50 Thanks Andrew. Do people have to sign up in advance for the big day or just go on your
38:54 website and find out more there?
38:57 Just go to the website and find out more and you can turn up on the day, no problem.
39:02 Thank you, sounds great. So Paul and Andrew, it's been really interesting to discuss electric
39:07 vehicles today and electric wheelchair accessible vehicles and sustainability in general. So
39:12 is there anything either of you would like to add before we finish off for today? So
39:15 Paul, is there anything you'd like to add?
39:18 I think I'll just finish by talking briefly about the relationship that disabled people
39:23 have with motability. It's not like your typical car garage flogs you a car. I think for many
39:33 disabled people they'll talk about their relationship with motability as a bit more of a life journey.
39:37 Because needs change, priorities change, vehicles change, services change, we get EVs coming
39:43 along and there's lots of unknown bits. For me personally, I started with a power chair.
39:49 Actually, I had two power chairs under the scheme, had a car under the scheme, I've had
39:53 two webs under the scheme. And the big thing that convinces me is the whole notion of one
40:01 stop shop, no worry. And that was more important than the size of the vehicle, the colour of
40:08 the vehicle, the shape of the vehicle or the cost of the vehicle. One stop shop, no worry.
40:14 Thank you Paul, that's a very important point, one stop shop, no worry. Thank you. And Andrew,
40:21 would you like to say anything in conclusion?
40:23 Yeah, I mean, I just think that's really good to hear from because that's what we aspire
40:27 to do. Our job is really to help and support our customers, not just in that one lease,
40:34 but all the way through their life as they migrate. And we will flex and change cars
40:38 accordingly, according to needs at any time. And that's really important, personally, to
40:45 me. And it's also important, I guess, to say that our job is, yes, it is to be sustainable
40:50 and profitable. But the good news is all that profit gets reinvested back into the scheme.
40:54 So we are investing right now, £300 million back into electric. So we're going to keep
40:59 doing that in the next few years. And that's our job, is to solve problems for our customers
41:04 and try and make life as easy as possible.
41:06 Thanks so much to Andrew Miller of Motability Operations and Paul Ralph of Ewan's Guide
41:12 for his interesting discussion around the move to electric vehicles and the impact on
41:16 disabled people and their families. And thanks to you for listening to this episode of the
41:20 Sustainable Scotland series produced by the Scotsman. This episode was delivered in partnership
41:25 with Motability Operations. Please listen out for and enjoy more episodes of Sustainable
41:29 Scotland on our main podcast platforms. This edition was presented by me, Rosemary Gallagher,
41:35 and produced by Andrew Mulligan.
41:37 (upbeat music)