Sophie: Hi, I’m Sophie-Marie Odum, Lifestyle Magazine’s editor.
Sam: And I’m Samantha Renke, Broadcaster and Disability Rights Campaigner.
Today we are talking all things electric vehicles and who better to give the presenter’s chair to than our very own in-house car expert, car extraordinaire, Matt Lizzimore.
Sophie: So later on in the show he’ll be asking some questions to the person who can hopefully help us see the wood through the trees when it comes to EVs. Matt and Sam will be joined by Motability’s Head of Innovation, Catherine Marris, who is leading the foundation in finding initiatives for improving electric vehicle ownership for people with disabilities.
Sam: The future certainly is electric, there’s no doubt about that, but Motability are leading the way to ensure it’s a smooth process for all.
Reasons to be cheerful
Sophie: Sam, how are you?
Sam: I’m a bit sticky under my armpits. I’m not going to lie. That’s probably too much information to share with you all.
But apart from that, I’m really, [00:01:00] really well. What is with like, it’s just, do you know what? I just can’t cope anymore. I think. I think it’s my age. I think it’s my age. We’re
Sophie: the same age, Sam!
Sam: No, I, I, I like I’m turning more and more into my mother each day, and I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but let’s, let’s move swiftly on before I get myself into some serious trouble.
Sophie: Oh dear. So the first story this week for reasons to be cheerful is talking about plastic bags. So I don’t know about you, Sam, but I get so annoyed at myself when I leave my bags for life at home, and then I have to pay for a plastic bag at the shops.
Sam: I’m the same, and I’ve got about 50,000 bags for life.
And I even have a designated spot for them. Um, but I do, I’ve become a little bit better. So I get the ones that you can kind of like fold up and then they fold into themselves and they’re like little tiny handbags. So, I put them in my bag. So I am, I am getting better, but it’s really weird because, really weird, but really interesting, shall I say.
I was originally born in Germany, so I’ve got German [00:02:00] heritage and Germany is very much forward thinking when it comes to environmental issues. I remember. You know, even as, as a young child, you used to have something called Pfand geld’, um, so money that you would get back for returning things like bottles, you know, glass bottles.
Um, so I’ve, I’ve kind of grown up with, never using things like plastic bags in Germany. so it’s a, it was a real shock, like seeing how overused, you know, these bags still are. And I a little bit confused because at one point it seemed like they were completely banned, but is it me or are they creeping back into the supermarkets.
I don’t know.
Sophie: They were never banned.
Sam: Oh, okay.
Sophie: They were just charging for them. Okay. But it seems like it’s working. So, a recent report that I’ve read shows that there’s been a 98% drop in single use plastic bags in England. We were charged for plastic bags from 2015.
So over the last what. Quick maths.
Sam: Can’t do quick math. Ugh.
Sophie: Seven years, eight years. Seven, eight years. Um, [00:03:00] yeah, we’ve done a 98% drop. That’s amazing.
Sam: it’s, and I think, you know, I think it’s good. I think that people are, you know, kind of, being a bit more conscious about, what they’re doing. But like you said, I dunno what it is, it’s like you, you know, you’ve got them and then you always forget.
Sophie: And I leave them in the boot of the car. I leave one in my bag, I leave bags for life and tote bags everywhere. But still. Do you
Sam: should bring back? Bum bags? Yes. Or as the Americans say, “fanny packs”.
Sophie: Can’t fit much in there though.
Sam-2-2: No, but what I thought is you can keep the bags in there and then keep them on your person.
Yes. I don’t know. I, I just like a, I like, I like a fanny pack.
Interview with Catherine Marris
Matt: So, our guest today is Catherine Marris, Head of Innovation at Motability. Uh, she’s been at the forefront of the move to accessible charge points for electric vehicles.
Sam: A warm welcome to The Motability Lifestyle Pod. It is an absolute pleasure to have you here.
So you are the Head of Innovation at Motability. That is one big title. I’m a little bit [00:04:00] intimidated. But, can you tell bit more about that job title? What… does that entail?
Catherine: Definitely. So the job of the innovation team at Motability is to explore new ways that we can improve transport for disabled people. What’s really exciting about that job is it means we look across all modes of transport, and we’re looking at, kind of all disabled people.
And thinking about how we can make a difference, um, how can we enable people to see family, um, see friends and, and really expand and improve upon what we’re already doing at Motability. On a day-to-day basis that can look really different. So I might be going to a conference to learn about the latest mobility trends.
I might be gathering my team of innovators at Motability and talking about a new project idea. I might be visiting a partner charity that we’ve worked with before and seeing what latest innovation they’ve come up with. So it’s hugely exciting.
Matt: That is really cool, and also really interesting that you work across such a wide remit, which I imagine is quite challenging, but also keeps it interesting, right? Um, today we are talking specifically about electric vehicles. [00:05:00] Um, so let’s start from the very beginning because obviously there’ll be some people listening, wondering: why are we suddenly being encouraged to get into electric cars or electric vehicles? So why are we being pushed towards that mode of transport?
Catherine: Of course. So the main reason is that EVs are better for the environment. So they emit fewer greenhouse gases and air pollutants than petrol or diesel cars, um, because they don’t have an internal combustion engine. The UK Government has set the target of, um, us becoming net zero by 2050, which is really exciting, and the move to electric vehicles is seen as key to achieving this.
To support the transition to EVs, um, the Government has also announced a ban on the sale of all new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030.
Matt: Do you think that what, what the chances of are? That feel, that feels very soon considering, uh,
Catherine: uh. It very soon, yeah, seven years away may seem, um, quite far to, to most.What I think is interesting is a lot of vehicle manufacturers are producing their vehicles five to 10 years in advance already.
So a lot of them are preparing for the transition right now. mm-hmm. Um, so [00:06:00] I think most people think we’re, we’re kind of on track, but we’ll have to see how it goes.
Sam: I think collectively, there’s obviously a lot of positive to know, um, moving forward, being more ergonomic and so forth. But, you know, let’s bring it back to the individual.
What would be the benefits for an individual? What would tempt them to, to make that shift rather than the Government bending our arm?
Catherine: Of course.
So I think the benefits to the environment is really the obvious answer. A lot of us care about the environment. We wanna do our bit, we wanna make the world a better place.
And um, you know, getting an EV is definitely, um, a way to do that. But I think what’s interesting is EVs can also be cheaper to run, um, and to maintain, they tend to have hundreds of parts rather than thousands of parts. Um, like internal combustion engine vehicles. Uh, and they also make use of the latest technology.
Um, so across a lot of metrics they can actually outperform petrol and diesel cars.
Matt: Mm. I think one of the things that, um, often gets forgotten about as well as someone who drives a lot of cars, is they’re actually really good to drive, uh, [00:07:00] in the, people talk about it being fast, but even the, the ones that aren’t fast, they’re fast when it matters and it makes driving easier.
So if you need to like nip out a roundabout or that kind of thing, they’re, they’re really sort of quick off the line and they’re just sort of a bit smoother and whatnot. They’re actually quite, you know, there’s benefits to how they drive as well is there’s obviously the, the wider part. Um, but they’re nice to drive too, I think.
I think that, that, that’s a bit, that doesn’t often get talked about enough, I don’t think.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, I remember, so I don’t drive, but I am so looking forward to starting my, um, journey, particularly with Motability. So watch this space. I should do some vlogging and see how many curbs I hit, but let’s not talk about that.
But I think, you know, as you talked about, environmental issues are a real concern and I think the individual, we can feel quite helpless in the great scheme of things. And even, you know, when you have a disability, you know, thinking about how you can be more mindful of helping the environment, you know, for me, even, even things like sorting out my rubbish, that just creates more work for me.
Because physically taking my bin bags down to the bin room because I live in a flat, [00:08:00] so that is, that is a substantial thing I need to think about and you know, for some people that may be real relatively easy, but I guess having a car that is doing the hard work for you, just making that simple life choice, swapping it can be quite a powerful statement, can’t it?
Catherine: I think so, absolutely. Especially if you’re already driving a vehicle and it’s something you already do. Making the transition to EVs at the right time, knowing that you’re doing your bit for the environment. And also you might have a nicer ride as well.
Matt: Have you, have you driven an electric car?
Catherine: So, no, I don’t drive. I live in London, so I only take public transport. I’m lucky that public transport in London meets my needs. I know it doesn’t, um, for everybody… but, I’m trying to go as net zero as possible, so I don’t even have a car, but I’ve had the chance to be a passenger in a lot of EVs.
Either they belong to friends or I’ve gone to different conferences and tried them out. And the thing that really struck me was how smooth it is and how quiet it is and how it feels like this latest tech experience. Really, when you’re in it, it’s like a computer on wheels.
Sam: So you did make a point there that the quietness of the cars, [00:09:00] which is in one respect, a wonderful thing. I live in central London and it’s just nonstop.
Like I, I wake up to not bird singing, but car alarms and, you know, so we were all looking forward to, to cutting out noise pollution. I think that’s a big thing for cities to get on board with. But what about the disability community? Obviously we have, you know, deaf, disabled and neurodivergent individuals that kind of makes up the, our, our community or my community, but having cars that are not loud can, that can be problematic for people who are blind or visually impaired.
Catherine: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a big challenge that we need to talk about, kind of the streets scape, particularly in urban areas, the way the flow of traffic moves through, that if you do have quieter vehicles, how do you make sure there’s kind of those safety mechanisms in place, um, so that people aren’t going to get injured or kind of feel like they’re at risk because of those quieter vehicles.
I think there are some interesting innovations going on in this space. I’ve seen more for e-scooters actually. Um, there’s been some e-scooters [00:10:00] development around a warning system, um, so that if they’re within kind of a particular distance of a person, there’ll be a warning. Um, kind of a signal that’s emitted, um, for that.
But I think there’s a lot more development that needs to happen in this space, um, to make it truly inclusive.
Sam: Are there any other issues that have, have arisen from EV cars? Particularly for disabled people.
Catherine: Absolutely. And that’s one of the reasons we’ve been working, working, on it, uh, for the past three years.
Um, so in 2020, um, we sponsored some initial research with disabled people that showed that charging infrastructures, the chargers that are being installed in the street, um, as we speak. We’re not done. So in a way that was accessible or inclusive for many disabled people. We grew really concerned about this at Motability.
We want all disabled people to be able to make the transition to EVs. Um, we dug a little further. We began talking to industry. We said, “why has nobody thought about this? Why aren’t these public charge points, accessible and inclusive?” What’s interesting is industry came back to us and kind of said, well, it’s not that we don’t wanna be [00:11:00] inclusive, but what do you mean by an accessible charge point?
What does that look like?
Sam: I know, I know.
Catherine: The technology is so new. We’ve never even considered that before. And we said, okay, there’s gonna be a real problem here. If we can’t come up with something kind of standardised that demonstrates exactly what an accessible charge point is and how it could be achieved, and we could be, we could have a really big problem in the future, as you’ve probably seen a lot of the charge points that are being put in the ground right now, they’re either too low or they’re too high for a seated user.
They have really heavy cables that are incredibly difficult to maneuver. Um, a lot of times they’ve interfaces that aren’t designed in an inclusive way, um, for people with learning disabilities. Um, for example, there’s high curbs. Um, there’s drop curbs that are ages away. So you have to go all the way down.
Sam: I was just about to say drop curbs. I can of some around the corner from where I live my street was one of the first to have, the ULEZ charge and we had a lot of the charging points put up.
[00:12:00] But I can’t actually, I was just thinking a lot of the pavements, because I drive, I drive on the road on this one street.
Probably shouldn’t say that in my power chair, but come to think of it, yeah, they’re all on a pavement. Well, I wouldn’t be able to mount at all, on either side.
Catherine: You …ages down the road to…
Sam: but I don’t, I wouldn’t even be able that. like, it’s literally like an island, so no drop curb on either side. Yeah.
Catherine: And in addition to no drop curbs, a lot of times we see there isn’t enough space kind of in front of the charge point relative to the parking bay.
So then you can’t actually approach the charge point, or there are two bollards in front and spaced in a really silly way.
Matt: They have those curbs so you can’t, they like rubber curbs to stop you parking too close, but then you can’t get a wheelchair passed them.
Catherine: A lot these features have been put in with things like electrical safety or engineering in mind, but without ever actually thinking about the user experience. So we approached the Government, we said we really think something needs to done about this. Would you like to partner with us and co-sponsor, um, a national accessible charging standard?
Its standard is a really [00:13:00] technical document that essentially says this is what an accessible charger looks like. How it can be achieved. So we spent quite a lot of time actually over a year working on that. We had a steering group of disabled people, accessibility experts, people from industry, charge point providers, all collaboratively working together and trying to figure out what can an accessible charger look like.
And that standard was published in October, 2022. And I think what’s fascinating is we’ve had so much interest, not only in the UK but worldwide in the standard. We’ve had other countries, like India, Japan, the United States reach out to us and say, oh, we’ve come across this problem as well. We didn’t know how to solve it.
You’ve produced this really detailed standard that says exactly what an accessible charge point looks like. Why don’t we just follow what the UK has done and take that up. So that’s been, uh, an amazing experience for Motability. But most importantly, it was produced with disabled people involved, disabled people, led by disabled people.
I think that was crucial. It’s really interesting being in of those steering group discussions and seeing [00:14:00] people from industry say, “oh, that’s not feasible, that’s not achievable”. And a disabled person pushing back and saying, “well, then I can’t use this”. And then industry saying, “okay, maybe I could change this”.
And a disabled person saying, “okay, maybe then I could use it a little bit more. Maybe we have to compromise on this aspect.” So I think we’ve come to something really sensible that can be achieved, but equally is going to make chargers lot more usable for a lot of people.
Matt: That’s brilliant! One of the, um, one of the issues we found, so, uh, last year we went on, uh, a long drive in an electric car with, one of the scheme users, Damien.
Um, we had a fantastic drive from Middlesborough to Edinburgh and back, uh, in an electric car to kind of test all these, charge points, public charge points. And yet we, we came across these issues you described. So yeah, it was, it was things like the, the screens being too high and the, the, um, charger being too heavy. One of the things that actually seemed really obvious once we realised it was a problem, was that there was also no sort of crosshatching around the spaces. So there was no, the spaces were just too small. There were normal parking spaces and we realised that Damien just couldn’t get his wheelchair out off the car.
We can’t actually get to the charger beause we [00:15:00] can’t fit between the cars with the wheelchair.
Yeah.
And, and often you couldn’t actually get up on a, a curb or something to actually be able to get any closer to it. So is that something that this includes, like the actual thinking about the actual size of the bays around?
Catherine: So, the standard can be applied, um, to a standard sized parking bay, um, but does, require a certain amount of space in front of the charger so that you would be able to access it. Now, the standard can also be applied to accessible parking bays or blue badge bays.
And I think a really important part of this whole initiative is we’re not saying that somehow, every charging bay is going too end up being standard size. We need to maintain and continue, um, to have blue badge size parking bays exactly for the reasons that you’ve mentioned. And we need to be able to apply the standard in that context.
So the standard actually has an annex that says, oh, if you wanna do an accessible parking bay or blue badge bay, you can also do that in line with a standard. This is how you do that. I think that’s so important because we’ve heard a lot of reports of people saying to us, “oh, the Blue Badge Bay at my shopping centre has just been replaced by an EV [00:16:00] bay, but it’s not blue badge size anymore.” And this really shouldn’t be about, you know, us uh, transitioning to green energy at the expense of people. That’s what I really get worried about.
Sam: Through this whole process. And because obviously what I do as a consultant I’m about educating people
I’m about creating awareness. I’m about dispelling ignorance. How much of, of the engagement that you had, you know, w ere you coming across kind of attitudinal barriers? So… well… Disabled people don’t drive anyways
or we don’t go anywhere because we’re miserable sods, who stay at home and, if we do go somewhere, our parents probably drive us.
Or how much of that archaic, stereotypical ideology was still playing out when you were approaching these big players, these game changers, the ones at the top.
Did that come into play?
Catherine: Absolutely. There were so many attidutional barriers. As part of this project, I think we’ve engaged probably over 150 stakeholders and I would say, maybe around like [00:17:00] 75 of those, I engage one-to-one. So I would set up an hour long call and basically make the case to them, why they should be interested in this, why they should be doing this.
This was during the pandemic, so I had a lot of free as you can tell, and it was interesting because at the beginning I had some people who immediately understood. Um, it was interesting. There was one kind of influencer in the EV sector who opened a lot of doors for me and he said, well, my son is disabled and I can immediately see why this is needed.
I’m gonna get in touch with everyone possible to talk to them about it. Uh, but there are other people I spoke to and they said, “oh, disabled people drive?” And then you’d speak them about the Motability Scheme, say, “yeh, there’s 600,000 people on that, largest vehicle fleet in Europe.” And they’d be like, “this is a much bigger deal than I realised.” But even beyond that, I’d say there’s, there’s other issues, um, maybe with industry not understanding the full diversity of disability and immediately thinking disability just means, wheelchair user. And so they think a lot around physical requirements for a charge point, but not other kinds of accessibility requirements.
So it’s been a huge [00:18:00] education awareness piece. What I am really encouraged by is that in 2020, when we first started this, I went to my first round of kind of EV conferences trying to fly the flag, really talk about this, and people were like, oh, I’ve never heard of accessible charging before. And now you go to these conferences, they have panels on accessible charging.
They have keynotes on accessible charging, and you have major ChargePoint providers there saying, of course, yeah, we, we comply with the standard. Sometimes they do, sometimes they joke, but they all see the need in, in kind of appearing be accessible. So I think we’ve come a long way in the discourse.
Sam: Can I just say a huge congratulations. That’s music to my ears and what you’ve done is, is fabulous. Um, what, what is around the corner then? What is in the pipeline?
What new technologies can we see trickling through in the next, you know, few months, years, um, of our technologies like Bluetooth or wireless technologies, are they coming into play or? Enlighten us
Catherine: yes, of course. One exciting development we’re seeing is around wireless charging. [00:19:00] So if you think about the equivalent with your phone,
sometimes you plug in your phone to charge or you might be able to put it on like a pad and it charges without being plugged in.
The same technology is being developed for EV charging. So the idea is…
Sam: under the ground? I’m getting excited. Sorry.
Catherine: Yes. Yes, exactly. So instead you, ,or I, having to exit your vehicle, drag one of these really heavy cables over and plug it in and charge, although hopefully it wouldn’t be heavy because it’ll comply with standards.
But anyways, you would be able to stay in your vehicle the entire time you’d be parked over this spot that would wirelessly charge for you. And you know, there’s, there’s a lot of talk of like far away future where there’s highways, you drive along and they’re you’re, where you’re driving.
I think we’re really excited about that. We’re keeping tabs on it, but you know, we have to prioritise what’s there now and making it usable. So we are focusing on cable charging, I I think with wireless charging, there are questions about whether it’s ever going to be commercially viable.
Whether you can ever roll it out to the scale you need to, but maybe there are [00:20:00] particular use cases, where we could prove that that works and that it, it kind of could be justified cost
Sam: But I think this is the biggest point that I often make on, I feel like I’m a broken record when, we’re talking about inclusive design and innovation, you know, creating a system that works for disabled people doesn’t just benefit disabled people, it benefits wider society. Now, like the wireless technology for me as a wheelchair user user, phenomenal. That be like absolutely amazing for someone who’s got anxiety disorder, not having to get out of their vehicle maybe at night or in a crowded area.
Phenomenal, but also, for Matt who, you know, likes to have a McDonald’s in the morning and is a little bit sluggish and, you know, don’t want to use the word lazy, but I, you know, know what I mean? I don’t wanna get out. too cold. You know what mean?
Matt: You raise good point. Um one of things that, that, that was also forgotten with the chargers is that, so you go to a petrol station, right? And everything’s undercover. The chargers aren’t, [00:21:00] So if it’s pouring with rain and often …how is not It’s, not, like instant.
Yeah.
You, you are sat in the rain for five minutes trying to get… and obviously you’re like trying to do an app and there’s water on your phone and it’s like, it’s a nightmare. Um, so yeah, you do raise good point. It it, it is helpful. And I have seen actually the, they trialled wireless charging very recently in Nottingham, I believe, in a taxi rank.
So you, you’re right in that, as it, it can benefit wider society because there are applications beyond that, what, what, like how much easier would that make life for the disabled community?
Catherine: I think there’s a general point as well around a lot of times with accessibility, inclusivity, we get into debates around cost. Whereas actually one of the pieces of research, um, we did in the innovation team at Motability was looking at what’s the economic benefit of having accessible transport. The way we looked at this question, is we know that in the UK disabled people take on average 11 journeys a week.
We know that non-disabled on average 20 journeys a week. We said if disabled people, that’s 16 million people, were taking [00:22:00] 20 journeys a week instead of 11. What are the knock on effects on the economy?
So people being able to get to, um, medical appointments, people being able to see family and friends, people being able to go out and shop and spend money.
We found a conservative estimate was that would be 72.4 billion pounds in economic benefit, every year.
Sam: exactly. I mean, the, the comment of, you know, oh, I don’t get many disabled people using this service, or…
you know, back in my clubbing days when people used go, that’s not me. I don’t see many people in a rave on a Tuesday afternoon in a wheelchair. I go, well, because I’m special. But no equally, you know, ask yourself why? Why are you only seeing some really, really unhinged blonde, northern people raving on a Tuesday afternoon?
You know what I mean? And it’s the same as that. Why don’t you see more disabled people using facilities because they maybe don’t feel welcomed. They don’t feel comfortable. They don’t feel like they can approach or, [00:23:00] or utilise this. So, so interesting. I find this absolutely fascinating.
Matt: Um, I, I just want, just, uh, thinking about what you were saying as well about, there’s often a focus on physical disability and not thinking about wider disability. One of the things we found on our trip when we were trying all these new charging places was that often we’d get to a new place and we’d have to download a new app. And then we’d do it and we couldn’t get the app to work.
And then we were thinking, oh, well if we can’t charge here, I mean we, we’d planned the journey so it was fine. But you know, Damien pointed out that if someone suffered from like, quite extreme anxiety or something this is quite a stressful situation to, and not just anxiety but other people who have gotta suddenly get an app and put in all their details and it’s not gonna be easy for everyone.
Do you know if there, is there any sort of, Uh, has there been any progress around that, about making sort of actually paying for the charging and using the charges a bit easier outside of actually plugging them in, but the, the paying process?
Catherine: Yeah, absolutely. I think these are areas, um, to keep an eye on where there’s real innovation coming to the market.
And I think not even innovation, maybe just kind of like what it should be [00:24:00] basically. So the Government, um, is looking at contactless payments and there’s gonna be legislation coming in, um, around making sure that everyone can kind of pay contactless, um, at a charge point. Um, so I think that’ll really help without people having to download loads of apps.
Um, the other thing we’re seeing is a lot of new software applications come to the market that are kind of around how do you locate the right charger for you? And in some cases, we’re really hoping they’re going to show where do you locate the best charger for you based on your access needs. So I think a lot of people are exploring at the moment, how do you gather that accessibility information about different charge points?
How do you share with people which charge points comply with the standard, um, or don’t? And I think that will be a huge step towards having informed consumer choice. So you’re able to say, okay, maybe this charge point doesn’t work for me. At least I know that I’m not gonna show up and waste my time. I can go where I wanna charge and know that it’s going to work for me.
Sam: you know, is the future going to be electric? Is this something that we all just need to live with and be like, yeah, we’re on board and we just need to, [00:25:00] um, dig in our heels and go for it. Because I know there’s a lot of people who are still incredibly apprehensive about it and not just disabled people.
I know that my mum is refusing to use anything that not, um, you know, from the 1920s Beetle
Oh, what does she have? Volkswagen? My mum’s German. had a Volkswagen Caddy, and I think she had, so, yeah.
Um, yeah. Is this, is this where we’re heading? Is this, is this it?
Catherine: So, in short answer, yes. I think the Government is committed to this. All the legislation they’re putting in place suggests that this is happening. And more so than that, the manufacturers. Every year the percentage of cars they produce, more and more of them are EVs.
So this is happening a lot of times they decide these schedules seven years in advance at this point they’re not gonna suddenly stop. So this is happening and I think the most important thing is to figure out how we make that transition as inclusive as possible with the time left.
Sam: I have a lot of things in my life where I get concessions. So, when I can’t always use facilities or when I’m at a disadvantage.
So for [00:26:00] example, when I moved to London, I got something called the taxi card scheme. So I got, you know, reduced taxi fares. Um, but then when the, uh, ULEZ came in, it was like, well, how do we monitor that if you have multiple carers coming into work for you when you’re only allowed to have like one blue badge allocated to one, one, um, car and driver.
So, you know, it’s a lot of talk about not everything will work for everybody. And what happens in this scenario, because obviously there will be some people that electric cars will just not be feasible.
Is it going to be a safety net? Is it gonna be concessions?
Catherine: Yeah, so I think there’s two things here. One is making sure that people transition at the right time. So in the case of the scheme, for example, we know that on Motability there are people right now, maybe at this moment in time, electric isn’t the right choice for them.
Maybe there aren’t. The right models on the market that have enough space in the vehicle, maybe they don’t have access to, to off street parking. Um, if you do have access to off street parking, Motability will cover the cost [00:27:00] of installing a home charge point, and that makes things a lot easier. If don’t have off- street parking, you can still transition to an EV on the scheme. support you with public charging, but it might be a little bit more inconvenient. We’re also waiting to see will the range of these vehicles increase because if you’re someone who does really long distances, and a lot of public charging isn’t accessible at the moment, might make less sense to transition now than if you take a lot of really short journeys.
So I think there’s something about figuring out. Is, um, an EV the right car for you at this moment in time. There’s actually a suitability tool on the Motability website that can help you answer that question, which is really great. But I think more broadly, what else should we be exploring in case someone can’t transition to an EV doesn’t want to transition to an EV.
We’ve been looking at a few, um, alternative models. So one exciting thing we’re doing is piloting a car club initiative in rural and semi-rural areas, trying to see if shared transport can increase the number of accessible journeys. Um, for disabled people who don’t wanna drive, they’d rather be, um, passengers or would..
Sam: Yes, this is me.
Matt: That’s a bit of you Sam.
Sam: I [00:28:00] just want to be chauffeured around. I, when I was a baby, I was carried on a pillow because I was so fragile that my parents couldn’t carry me properly. And I just think that has set the course of the way I behave. In every aspect of my life, a pampered pooch. I am a pretty much a chihuahua.
Right, that sounds like a plan to me.
Catherine: We’ll let you know if it works out.
Sam: Absolutely. I will. I will be your sponsor. Okay.Yeah. Can you imagine that? I’m like, I’m enthusiastic about cars.
Matt: What?!
Sam: Did you ever think this day would come? That I I’m actually engaged. Shall we drop the question from our previous guests onto the lovely Catherine? Because it is a bit of a tradition that we’ve been asking our previous guests to come up with a question for our current guest. And it can be off the wall, it be something quite serious or, um, something a bit jovial so to speak.
And if it were up to me, it would all be [00:29:00] jovial and I’d want know some really inappropriate things about you. But, but don’t worry Um, Okay, Catherine, last episode, we interviewed the wonderful charity called Speed of Sight, and it was founded by Mike Newman, who was born blind, and he dreamed of wanting to get behind the wheel and he never thought that would be possible.
However, fast forward a couple of decades, and he made that dream a reality, and it was so impactful on him that he thought he wanted to share the wealth. He wanted to, you know, create opportunities for disabled people to experience what it’s like to drive fast cars ultimately.
But, um, Mike actually said, you know, as someone who is blind, would you dare drive with a blindfold on, just to see, just to see whether you, you would be that brave. So yes, that is, that was his question.
Catherine: So, I’m such a bad driver without a a blindfold on. I [00:30:00] think it’d be a risk to everybody if I drove with a blindfold on.
So my answer is going to be no for today.
Sam: A big fat, No. And the other question from his co-creator, lovely John. He was like, who is your inspiration? Have you got an inspiration?
Catherine: Oh, that’s such a good question. I’m going to go with quite a classic answer, which is my mother. She’s someone who’s always there for her family and friends and her community. Um, and she does so much. Good in her everyday life. And she always said to me when she was growing up, if she’d known, working in the not-for-profit sector was an option.
That’s just something she would’ve loved to do. Wow. So I feel really happy to continue and kind of, um, the path that she might’ve wanted to
Sam: your mum’s name? Give her a shout out.
Catherine: Jane, hello Jane.
Sam: Because of course she’s going to be listening . Because if she’s anything like my mom, she watches everything that I do. That’s a complete lie.
Um, she doesn’t, she doesn’t, she doesn’t care about me. My mum normally goes, oh, oh, someone told me you were on TV. I was out shopping.[00:31:00]
Um okay, Catherine, now we have grilled you with those two questions.
We need you to return the favour for our next guest. Can’t tell you who the guest is.
It can be anything you want. So I’ll give you a moment to have a little think.
Catherine: So I’m biased because my job title is, you pointed out at the beginning, very intimidating, is Head of Innovation.
So, I would like to ask the next guest, whoever they are, whatever they’re working on, why do they think it’s innovative?
Sam: Oh, trying to think what my answer would be to that though.
Matt: Have we all realised we’re not very
Sam: We’re not very innovative, we we’re contributing nothing to the world. we’re, we’re we’re useless.Anyway,let’s move on.
Gadget of the week
Sam: Lastly, you are absolutely in for a
treat because if it, if today wasn’t already a treat enough, getting to sit it with me and Matt, in this very stuffy room. Each episode, we end with Matt’s gadgets of the week, Okay. what item should I buy [00:32:00] and put in my fancy EV to jazz it up a little bit more?
Matt: Okay. I’ve got one for the coffee lovers this week. Mm-hmm. So,
Sam: Oh, I’m a tea person girl.
Catherine: I’m a coffee person .
Sam: You’ve lost me already. I’ve got,
Matt: I’ve got Catherine on board. I’m sure. I’m sure there’s a tea
Sam: equivalent. Okay,
Matt: Okay. I’m not sure. I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna, say, oh, I just wanted to keep you on board, Sam. Uh, so, uh, you can actually buy, uh, I dunno if we are naming brands, but there’s a brand called Hand Presso, and they do a coffee machine that’s portable and fits in your car and it’s designed to fit in the cup holder and basically you plug it into the 12 volt socket.
There are versions that you can charge from home before you leave, but, uh, I’m not that organised. I don’t know about anyone else. Um, but you plug it in. You have it in your, your sort of cup holder and basically bang a bit of water in, press a button. Four minutes later you’ve got an espresso shot.
Sam: Bob’s your uncle, and Fanny ‘s your aunt. And they actually do one that is a a kettle. Teabag kettle.
Matt: Keep your tea bags in the glove box. Yeah. Mobile kettle. It does sound quite mad, doesn’t it? I’m not sure how safe a mobile kettle is now I think about it, but don’t just, just don’t do it while
Sam: Driving. [00:33:00] It’s It’s literally like a, a cup and then you just heat it and it just heat boils the water. There you go.
Matt: We’ve got tea drinkers and coffee drinkers covered.
Sam: Yeah, I’m on board.
Matt: Hot beverages before your long car journey. Happy days. Everyone’s happy.
Sam: Catherine, are you impressed?
Catherine: really by Matt’s knowledge? Absolutely. Maybe I should get a car just so I can, just for that.
Sam: Catherine, thank you very much for joining us. I am not normally so, um, enthusiastic. I shouldn’t probably say that, but I’m not about car things, but that was, that was incredible. I really enjoyed just being enlightened and I think, you know, knowledge is power and I think that, you know, having advocates like you kind of really fighting the flag and really challenging people and holding people accountable.
I think it’s wonderful. Keep on with the good work.
Catherine-1: Thank so for having me. It was great to meet you both.
Matt: it was a pleasure. Thank you very much for coming in. That’s it this episode of the Motability Lifestyle Pod. A huge thank you to our guest, Catherine [00:34:00] Marris. Uh, thank you also to our producer, Joleen Goffin at Rethink Audio and also to our editorial assistant Lucie Rhodes at Wonderly.
Sam: If you like this episode, then give us a follow. Tell all of your friends. And please leave a review. If you want to tell us what you thought or if there’s, you know, something that you’d like to hear, come and say a good old hello on Instagram for some behind the scenes content. Follow us on TikTok and watch the full video on YouTube.
You can find us on Motability_Lifestyle_Mag. Finally, if you want more information about Motability schemes, go to motability.co.Uk. Or if you want to learn more about Motability Foundation, visit Motability.org.uk And that’s it from me, I have been Samantha Renke.
Matt: I’m Matt Lizzimore.
Sam: See you in two weeks.
