FURTHER questions have been raised over the Island’s lack of provision for disposing of electric vehicles and their batteries.
Robin Ward, who has run a vehicle recovery business in Jersey for more than 40 years, said the issue of dealing with electric vehicles that had been damaged or reached the end of their lives was a growing issue that the government had failed to address.
The businessman was speaking in the wake of an Islander’s account about his hybrid car going up in flames and subsequent difficulty in dealing with the damaged vehicle after it had been written off.
“The main problem is the batteries,” Mr Ward said. “The manufacturer may say that they’ll take the vehicle back, but that involves shipping it to the UK, which is very difficult – the ferry operator [DFDS] won’t take it, and the freight company has very tight restrictions.”
Mr Ward, who was a candidate for Deputy in St Helier Central in June but narrowly missed out on a seat in the Assembly, said affected batteries were liable to re-ignite for up to 14 days after being damaged and had to be stored safely during this time.
In response to a JEP query, the government said it was “working with industry partners to establish a fully compliant long-term solution for end-of-life electric and hybrid vehicles”.
Mr Ward said he was awaiting confirmation about the detail of the scheme, warning that if the intention was to pass on costs to those motorists affected, the resulting bills were likely to be significant.
“The government has been pushing for people to go electric and saying they’ll ban the importation of petrol and diesel cars in the future, but if everyone bought an EV, I don’t know how the Island would cope – there are already loads of batteries here that can’t be disposed of,” he said.
“I have brought up the problem with a number of people over the years, but nothing ever gets done about it.”
Mr Ward said his most recent contact had been a letter sent to former Infrastructure Minister Andy Jehan in September last year, but that he was still waiting for a solution to the issue to be put in place.
The Infrastucture and Environment Department described electric vehicle battery disposal as “a complex and highly regulated area that requires specialist handling, transport and processing arrangements”.
Islanders with an end-of-life vehicle in need of disposal are advised to contact climateemergency@gov.je for more information.
