You’ll probably recall a news story from last month about the driver of a Jaguar I-Pace who claimed their car had accelerated to over 100mph on its own, forcing the police to box the vehicle in and physically force it off the road in order to bring it to a standstill.
Very scary and also probably untrue, with the driver subsequently being arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving, following an examination of the car itself.
What was interesting in the gap between these two events was the news coverage, often implying that the I-Pace’s electric vehicle (EV) technology had been to blame, with some reporters claiming it had “gone rogue”.
This was an assessment that very quickly prompted widespread scepticism on AFP discussion groups.
Many fleet managers were way ahead of the authorities when it came to calling out the driver as the possible cause.
The fact is that fleet professionals have developed something of a thick skin when it comes to news coverage about EVs.
The list of supposed issues is long – that they catch fire spontaneously all the time, that those fires can’t be put out, that they cause potholes, that they are too heavy for multi storey car parks, that they are ultimately more damaging to the environment than petrol cars, and many, many more.
Read more: FleetNews
