Nothing really to worry about. Policy here is to have less vehicles so car parks can simply take out 30% of parking space to spread the load surely... :-)
With squeeze on budgets who knows what will happen!
Story extract from DM.
Multi-storey and underground car parks could collapse under the weight of electric vehicles, engineers have warned.
Electric cars, which are roughly twice as heavy as standard models, could cause ‘catastrophic’ damage, according to the British Parking Association (BPA), which wants local authorities to conduct urgent structural surveys.
Most of the nation’s 6,000 multi-storey and underground facilities were built according to guidance based on the weight of popular cars of 1976, including the Mk 3 Ford Cortina.
But the electric cars currently on the UK market are far bulkier. For instance, the best-selling Tesla Model 3 weighs 2.2 tons fully loaded, making it more than 50 per cent heavier than a 1.4-tonne Cortina.
Structural engineer Chris Whapples, a member of the BPA which represents car-park owners, said: ‘If a vehicle is heavier than the car park was originally designed for, the effects could be catastrophic. We’ve not had an incident yet, but I suspect it is only a matter of time.
‘We have recommended that a loading check is performed on all older car parks. And the industry is responding.’
Electric vehicles are heavier predominantly because of the batteries used to power them, and the reinforced framework and suspension needed to accommodate them.
‘All the internal components make these batteries very, very heavy,’ said Mr Whapples. ‘Nowadays, the battery forms the underfloor of most EVs. It’s contained over virtually the entire footprint of the vehicle, from axle to axle.’
Electric cars have soared in popularity in recent years. Today there are an estimated 620,000 on the road in the UK, and 440,000 plug-in hybrids which use both petrol and electric.
One in ten new cars sold in 2021 was electric, while a further seven per cent were hybrid.
Sales are expected to outstrip diesel motors by the end of this year, a rise fuelled by environmental concerns but also the rise in diesel costs, city-centre congestion charging and the Ultra Low Emission Zone in London.
Most of the nation’s 6,000 multi-storey and underground facilities were built according to guidance based on the weight of popular cars of 1976
But Mr Whapples said that the accumulating risks to infrastructure like car parks and bridges remain unacknowledged.
‘When you start to see the weights of the vehicles that are coming out of the factories, you start to question whether existing standards are adequate,’ he added.
The Institute of Structural Engineers is set to update its design recommendations for multi-storey and underground car parks in January, to recommend larger parking bays and an ability to withstand increased loads.
This will affect only new buildings, however – and strengthening existing car parks could prove prohibitively expensive.
In the meantime, Mr Whapples suggests that some car parks could end up restricting vehicles from entering, based on their weight.
Ben Nelmes, CEO of green motoring consultancy New AutoMotive, has disputed the claims made by the BPA as 'bizarre and misleading'.
He said: 'The best-selling petrol/diesel cars in the UK range from the Nissan Qashqai to the VW Golf 8 and the Kia Sportage which weigh between 1.4 and 1.7 tonnes. The best-selling electric car, the Tesla Model Y, weighs 1.6 tonnes and the electric Mini weighs the same as a Mini Cooper at 1.3 tonnes.
'Both electric models are within or under the weight range of the most popular petrol/diesel cars and yet the BPA continues to focus on the weight of the batteries inside electric cars as being the cause for concern - while coincidentally forgetting to flag that batteries are getting lighter and lighter.
'Perhaps the BPA should be more worried about a rise in SUVs such as the Land Rover Discovery, introduced into the UK in 1989, and which weighs 2.4 tonnes.
'We can have confidence that the UK's parking garages will withstand electric cars. It is the BPA's arguments that are at risk of collapse.'