Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to encourage garage and repair networks to offer (a) accessible and (b) affordable (i) battery health testing and (ii) other maintenance services for owners of electric vehicles.

The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles has endorsed the Institute of the Motor Industry’s (IMI) TechSafe scheme, which helps to ensure technicians have the skills they need to safely repair an electric vehicle (EV). It also allows consumers to access a register to find their nearest EV competent technician. According to the IMI, 64,700 technicians are already qualified to work on an EV. This represents 26% of all technicians in the UK.

The Department for Transport has also worked with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe to develop a Global Technical Regulation on electric vehicle batteries (GTR No.22). If implemented, the regulation would require that vehicles provide easily accessible, accurate and comparable information about the battery's state of health. The Government aims to consult on options for the implementation of GTR No.22 in the UK later this year.