Britain’s ‘petrol panic’ could force car-reliant doctors to live in hotels

Published

3 years ago

September 30, 2021

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Cardiologists carry out a procedure on a patient at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, England, on March 17, 2021.

Joe Giddens | PA Images | Getty Images

Doctors and healthcare workers in the U.K. could be put up in hotels to ensure they can get to work, as Britain’s gasoline crisis continues.

British motorists have been panic buying fuel over the last week, as a major shortage of truck drivers disrupted deliveries of gasoline and other goods across the country. The situation prompted calls for doctors and other key workers to be given priority access to fuel earlier this week.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers — a membership organization for healthcare services within Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) — told CNBC in an email that workers were struggling to fuel their vehicles and get to work, despite government ministers reassuring the public that supply is beginning to stabilize.

“This is a particular issue for NHS staff who deliver services in the community and to remote wards,” she said Thursday. “Trusts will be working with national NHS teams and with their local partners to ensure any disruption to patients is minimized, including through changes to working patterns for community staff and through accommodation in local hotels if needed.”

NHS hospitals and some other health services in England are governed by more than 200 geographically designated trusts, which are run by boards of directors.

“Trust leaders are telling us that fuel supplies for ambulances are not being disrupted. But reports that non-emergency patient transport services are experiencing issues accessing fuel, and the knock-on effects this could have for vulnerable patients, is concerning,” Cordery added.

Meanwhile, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation — a membership organization for the healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland — called on the government to encourage people not to panic buy fuel, which he said could potentially disrupt patient services.

“The NHS has a range of contingency measures it can enact locally if there are problems with its staff getting into hospital, most typically when there is very bad weather,” Taylor said via email on Thursday.

“However, many health and care workers across the country rely on their cars to get to work, so this situation, if not handled appropriately by the government, still has the potential to affect the delivery of vital services to some of our most vulnerable people in society.”

U.K. government ministers have, in recent days, taken some steps to attempt to mitigate the impact of the gasoline shortages, which have left swathes of gas stations around the country out of fuel. Those moves include temporary visas for truck drivers, suspending competition laws for the fuel industry and even mobilizing the army to carry out fuel deliveries.

The government has also urged people to buy fuel as normal, claiming that the situation is now beginning to stabilize.

The NHS Confederation’s Taylor told CNBC on Thursday that before the fuel crisis, two-thirds of its members had already said understaffing was putting patient care and safety at risk — and this fuel crisis could add to some of the strains brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Any disruption caused by the ‘petrol panic’ could make this worse, as well as affect the delivery of vital supplies,” he said. “As the NHS gears up for what is expected to be a very busy winter, this situation is incredibly worrying.”

Throughout the pandemic, NHS services built up a huge backlog of patients waiting to be seen by specialists or receive treatment, as lockdowns, isolating healthcare workers and doctors transferring to Covid wards interrupted normal operations.

Earlier this month, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that his government would be hiking taxes from April to give the NHS additional funding to help it work through the waiting list build-up.

Environment

Podcast: GMC Sierra EV Denali first drive, Hyundai Ioniq 9 unveiling, Jaguar rebranding, and more

Published

8 mins ago

November 22, 2024

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Podcast: GMC Sierra EV Denali first drive, Hyundai Ioniq 9 unveiling, Jaguar rebranding, and more

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss our GMC Sierra EV Denali first drive, Hyundai Ioniq 9 unveiling, Jaguar’s rebranding, and more.

Sponsored by ALSET Auto: North America’s leader in paint protection and restyling; offering colored wraps, paint protection, window tint, ceramic coatings and more, exclusively on EVs.

The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.

As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET):

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Environment

The electric Chrysler Pacifica is finally coming, but not soon enough

Published

9 mins ago

November 22, 2024

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The electric Chrysler Pacifica is finally coming, but not soon enough

It’s official: Chrysler will finally launch an electric Pacifica minivan. The company is developing clever storage ideas that could make it even more functional than Volkswagen’s recently introduced ID.Buzz. But you’ll have to wait a little longer to get your hands on one.

Chrysler confirms plans to launch an electric Pacifica

Chrysler has yet to release its first fully electric vehicle. Although the nearly 100-year-old automaker has teased several EV concepts, we have yet to see one come to fruition. That will change soon.

Earlier this year, the company revealed its Halcyon Concept, a futuristic sports car-like EV drastically different from Chrysler vehicles currently on the road. The model builds on previous concepts, like the Airflow crossover introduced in 2022.

Chrysler’s CEO, Christine Feuell, said the Halycon would be brought to life with advanced new tech from parent company Stellantis, sleek new styling, and a software-defined connected cockpit.

The radical design will be used in future Chrysler vehicles, including the electric Pacifica. At the LA Auto Show this week, Feuell confirmed to GreenCarReports that the Pacifica is due for an overhaul in 2026. The refresh will lay the groundwork for the first electric Pacifica, which is expected to launch the following year.

Chrysler’s CEO hinted the upcoming Pacifica EV could challenge Volkswagen’s ID.Buzz, the first electric minivan to arrive in the US.

While you’ll need to remove the seats for that open-air space in the ID.Buzz, Chrysler is working on more functional solutions. According to Feuell, the company is developing a system like its patented Stow ‘N Go Seating to open up space in the rear.

electric-Chrysler-Pacifica-interior — 2025 Chrysler Pacifica PHEV interior (Source: Stellantis)

Although nothing is set in stone, one option is adjustable front seats, enabling the second row to be stored underneath.

Electrek’s Take

As Chrysler’s only production model in 2024, it only makes sense to launch an electric Pacifica. The Pacifica hybrid was the fourth best-selling plug-in hybrid in the US in Q3. It also accounted for 14% (3,009) of the 21,504 Pacifica models sold last quarter.

Meanwhile, the company is quickly losing market share in the US. Pacifica sales crashed 44% in Q3 and are down 18% through September.

Several new larger electric SUVs, like the Kia EV9, are already hitting the market, and more are on the way, including the recently unveiled Hyundai IONIQ 9. With the electric Pacifica not due out until 2027 (at the earliest), Chrysler will likely continue losing ground as new, more advanced competitors roll out.

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Environment

Tesla converts Shell gas station into Supercharger and it looks awesome

Published

26 mins ago

November 22, 2024

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Tesla converts Shell gas station into Supercharger and it looks awesome

Tesla has converted an entire Shell gas station into a Supercharger station for electric vehicles in Spain, and it looks fantastic.

One of the favorite arguments of electric vehicle naysayers is that there are not as many charging stations as gas stations – making EVs less convenient.

The argument is flawed since most EVs are charged overnight when parked, and they can be charged literally anywhere there’s an electric outlet, which is not the case with gas-powered vehicles.

Most of the time, charging electric vehicles is more convenient than refueling a gas-powered car, and that’s going to become more widespread as time goes on because there are more charging stations being deployed, and many gas stations are going away.

In some markets where electric vehicles are being adopted at a higher rate, like in Norway, gas stations have been closing left and right.

In some cases, EV charging stations are directly replacing some.

Today, we get to see a beautiful example in Cordoba, Spain, where Tesla took over a Shell gas station and converted it into (hat tip to Aland≡Bru on X):

While it is not completed, it’s particularly interesting to see that Tesla has kept a similar design to the classic gas station setup.

To be fair, this is not exactly a new concept. There’s even a company that specializes in replacing gas stations with EV charging stations.

We have also previously seen gas station operators replacing gas pumps with charging stalls.

Interestingly, even the oil giant Shell, which is seeing its gas station here replaced by a Tesla Supercharger here, is investing in electric vehicle charging through several new efforts.

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