Monday 26 October
13.00 – 14.00
Part of the Green Recovery Series view the highlights here.
The transport sector is the UK’s largest carbon emitter. It is also a sector going through disruptive change with Tesla now worth more than Toyota. With the government considering a ban on new fossil fuelled cars as early as 2030, this interview examined how we can put the UK at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution.
Octopus has been at the forefront of enabling customers to choose electric vehicles and their recent announcement of a partnership with Volkswagen is an example of new partnerships between established players and new entrants in the energy and transport sectors. Merlin Hyman and Fiona Howarth explored how we move from early adopters to mass market, what charging infrastructure we need and what measures the government’s “Road to Zero” for the transport sector should focus on.
Fiona Howarth
Fiona runs Octopus Electric Vehicles – a specialist leasing business making it easy for everyone to switch to clean, green driving. With a team of impartial experts, Octopus EV can help you choose your new electric car and everything you need to go with it. In particular, Octopus specialise in companies setting up salary sacrifice schemes, enabling their employees to save 30-40% on their monthly car costs.
The rise of EVs on our roads brings new challenges and opportunities for the energy system. Fiona worked closely with her sister company Octopus Energy to launch the Octopus Go tariff design for EV drivers; and with tech companies like Ohme to enable drivers to charge their car simply and smartly. Looking to the future and unlocking electric car batteries to support the energy system through Vehicle to Grid, Fiona is overseeing one of the world’s largest demonstration projects for domestic Vehicle-to-Grid: Powerloop, supported by £3m funding from Innovate UK.
With an early career in engineering including a stint with BMW developing hydrogen cars, Fiona has since worked in consulting for Bain & Company, and across the energy sector – most notably Head of Product & Commercial for the launch of Hive by British Gas, which is now in well over 1 million homes.
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